Guide for Authors

Scientific Integrity

Animal Behaviour publishes papers by scientists conducting research at locations around the globe. Publication is, therefore, based upon mutual trust between publisher and authors. Professional integrity in the conduct and reporting of research is an absolute requirement of publication in the journal, as is a willingness to share information with other members of the scientific community. Consequently, as a condition of publication in Animal Behaviour, authors must agree both to honour any reasonable request for materials or methods needed to verify or replicate experiments reported in the journal and to make available, upon request, any data sets upon which published studies are based. Anyone who encounters a persistent refusal to comply with these guidelines, or has reason to suspect some other departure from acceptable standards of scientific conduct, should contact the appropriate Executive Editor (European or American) of the journal. The Executive Editor will act in accordance with the guidelines of the U.K. Committee on Publication Ethics ( www.publicationethics.org.uk) (European Editor) or the Animal Behavior Society Code of Ethics (North American Editor) and may inform an author's institution of a purported infraction. Statements on scientific integrity by the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour and Animal Behavior Society can be found at, respectively, www.asab.org and www.animalbehavior.org.

Instructions for Authors

Prospective authors should consult these instructions carefully before preparing manuscripts for submission. The Editorial Offices may decline to review manuscripts that do not comply with the requirements for content and format. Papers that are accepted but incorrectly prepared or whose English is poor, may also be subject to delays in the press. Non-native English speakers can help to avoid delays by getting their paper checked by a native English speaker before submission, if possible, or by using a language and copy-editing service (see Language services below). After acceptance, the Editorial Offices will edit papers in accordance with the house style and will help authors to communicate effectively. Authors may find recent articles in Animal Behaviour to be useful models for the instructions outlined below.

General Information

Article types


• Research papers. Animal Behaviour publishes original papers relating to all aspects of the behaviour of animals, including humans. Papers may be field, laboratory or theoretical studies. Preference is given to studies that are likely to be of interest to the broad readership of the Journal and that test explicit hypotheses rather than being purely descriptive.
• Reviews. These should address fundamental issues relating to behaviour and provide new insights into the subject(s) they cover. Original interdisciplinary syntheses are especially welcome. Reviews should be no longer than 6000 words (excluding references) and should include an abstract of up to 250 words. In the first instance, a preliminary outline of up to 600 words should be sent to the US or UK Editorial Office, by email, according to the geographical location or society membership of the author (see Submission below). The decision as to whether to proceed to a full review then rests with the Executive Editors or invited advisers. Contributions submitted on this basis will be subjected to the same refereeing process as normal manuscripts.
• Essays. These should address fundamental issues relating to behaviour and provide new insights into the subject(s) they cover. In contrast to Reviews, Essays provide an opportunity for authors to express opinions, consider the subject area in a historical context and speculate on its future development. Essays should be no longer than 6000 words (excluding references) and should include an abstract of up to 250 words. In the first instance, a preliminary outline of up to 600 words should be sent to the US or UK Editorial Office, by email, according to the geographical location or society membership of the author (see Submission below). The decision as to whether to proceed to a full essay then rests with the Executive Editors or invited advisers. Contributions submitted on this basis will be subjected to the same refereeing process as normal manuscripts.
• Commentaries. The Commentaries section of the Journal provides an opportunity to raise issues of general importance to the study of behaviour, including statistical analysis, theory, methodology and ethics. Unless there are clearly broader implications for the study of behaviour as a whole, critiques of particular papers or issues of more local interest should be reserved for the Forum section (see below). Decisions as to whether borderline submissions are more appropriate to the Commentaries or Forum section rest with the Executive Editors. Contributions should be brief, normally not more than six printed pages, and should not contain an abstract. Methodological contributions may be longer, subject to the discretion of the Executive Editors. The initial decision as to prima facie merit rests with the Executive Editors or invited advisers. Contributions with prima facie merit are subjected to the same refereeing process as normal manuscripts, but responses or complementary articles may be solicited by the Executive Editors at their discretion. Other contributions are returned unrefereed to the author(s).
•Forum. The Forum section is published on ScienceDirect with contributions listed in the contents of the relevant hardcopy issue and cited as indicated in References below. The section accepts critiques of published papers relevant to the areas of interest of the Journal, and provides an opportunity for constructive exchanges on issues surrounding particular fields of study. Critiques of papers published in Animal Behaviour should be submitted to the Office (US or UK) that published the original article (the manuscript numbers of papers processed by the US Office have the prefix A). Submission, review and acceptance procedures are as for Commentaries (see above), but there is no word limit.
• More general correspondence on matters relating to behavioural research is published, unrefereed, in the newsletters of ASAB and ABS. Such correspondence should be sent to the newsletter editors: Anahita J.N. Kazem, Institute of Biology, Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU), N-7491 Trondheim, Norway (fax: +47 7359 1309; email: anahita.kazem@bio.ntnu.no) for ASAB; Regina H. F. Macedo, Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Brasilia, Brasilia DF 70910-900, Brazil (fax: +55 61 3274 1141; email: rhfmacedo@unb.br) for ABS.

Language Services

Prior to submission, authors for whom English is not their first language may find it helpful to use a language and copyediting service such as that available through http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authors.authors/languagepolishing or may contact authorsupport@elsevier.com for more information. Please note that Elsevier neither endorses nor takes responsibility for any products, goods or services offered by outside vendors through our services or in any advertising. For more information please refer to our Terms & Conditions http://www.elsevier.com//termsconditions

Submission

•Authors should submit manuscripts online to ( http://ees.elsevier.com/anbeh). When submitting online, authors are requested to select the article type (Research paper, Review, Essay, Commentary, Forum). Each category of article is further divided into US and UK articles (e.g. US Research paper, UK Research paper, etc.) depending on whether the US or UK Editorial Office is responsible for processing the manuscript. Authors whose current address is in the Americas, or neighbouring islands, or who are members of the Animal Behavior Society should select the US article types and authors in other geographical areas or who are members of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour should select the UK article types. Hard copies are not required in addition to copies submitted online. Authors who are submitting a manuscript online for the first time should read the Author Tutorial on the submission site. For enquiries relating to submissions via EES, please contact the Journal Manager at Elsevier via email (yanbe@elsevier.com).
•To submit outlines for Reviews and Essays and for other general correspondence, the address of the US office is: Lori Pierce, Office Manager, Animal Behavior Society Central Office, Indiana University, 402 N. Park Avenue, Bloomington, IN 47408-3828, U.S.A. (fax: 812 856 5542; email: lopierce@indiana.edu). Correspondence about book reviews handled through the North American office should be sent to Dr P. Loesche, Department of Psychology, Box 351525, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, U.S.A. (fax: 206 616 4794; email: loes@u.washington.edu). The address of the UK office is: Dr A.K. Turner, Managing Editor, Animal Behaviour Editorial Office, School of Biology, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, U.K. (fax: (0) 115 9 513 249, email: angela.turner@nottingham.ac.uk).
•Together with the manuscript, authors should submit a cover letter (see below for points to include in the letter), any abstracts and other published, in press or submitted material that overlaps or duplicates the submitted manuscript, and any letters of permission to reproduce published material. Published, in press or submitted material should be uploaded as 'Related material' on EES. Revised or resubmitted manuscripts should also include a Lay Summary (see below) and a detailed explanation of how the author has dealt with each of the reviewers' and Editor's comments. These comments should be uploaded as 'Revision Comments' on EES. Submissions of revised manuscripts should include a Lay Summary. The Lay Summary should be a short (maximum 150 words) statement that describes the background to and significance of the main findings of the article. It should be nontechnical and intelligible to the nonspecialist. Lay summaries will be published on the ASAB and ABS Web sites and may be used as the basis for press releases to the media. The Journal's aim in publishing lay summaries is to increase the accessibility of its research findings and to increase public awareness of animal behaviour research.
•Doctoral theses are usually not written in a style suitable for publication in Animal Behaviour. Chapters from theses will therefore normally need to be condensed, reformatted and revised substantially before being submitted as manuscripts. References in journal manuscripts should usually not be cited as exhaustively as they are in doctoral dissertations. Prior to submission, inexperienced authors are especially advised to give a manuscript to friends and colleagues for comment.
•Use active voice whenever feasible, and write in the first person.
•Use British spelling and grammar conventions throughout, except in non-British quotations and references.

File formats

The following file formats are acceptable for the initial submission: Word or WordPerfect, RTF, LaTeX2e, TIFF, GIF, JPEG, PostScript, PICT, bmp, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF or EPS. For the final accepted and revised version of the manuscript, graphics must be in TIFF, EPS, PDF or MS Office.


Please note that the Publisher cannot accept electronic copies of manuscripts in LaTex2e. Although this format is acceptable during peer review, final versions of manuscripts should be converted to another format. If this is not possible, hard copies of the manuscript, with double line spacing, may be requested.

Copyright


• Papers are accepted on the understanding that they are subject to editorial revision and that they are contributed only to this Journal. Copyright in the article, including the right to reproduce the article in all forms and media, shall be assigned exclusively to the Journal. The transfer of copyright to the Journal takes effect when the manuscript is accepted for publication.
• The Publisher will send the author a copyright transfer form agreement and offprint order form by email at receipt of the accepted and copyedited manuscript at Elsevier. The author must complete these forms (either on-line or by fax or mail; instructions are provided with the forms) and return them to the Publisher. The author has a choice of receiving one electronic offprint or 50 printed offprints free of charge and may purchase additional offprints. Authors may post the final PDF version of their article on personal and/or institutional Web pages after it has appeared in the Journal.

Proofs

The author will receive a PDF proof by email and should return corrections to the appropriate Editorial Office within 24 hours.

Digital Object Identifiers

Elsevier assigns a unique digital object identifier (DOI) to every article it publishes. The DOI appears on the title page of the article. It is assigned after the article has been accepted for publication and persists throughout the lifetime of the article. Because of its persistence, it can be used to query Elsevier for information on the article during the production process, to find the article on the Internet through various Web sites, including ScienceDirect, and to cite the article in academic references. Further information may be found by clicking on the 'Cite or Link using DOI' query at the top of every abstract page of each article on ScienceDirect.

Author enquiries

• For enquires relating to submissions prior to acceptance, please contact the Journal Manager via email (yanbe@elsevier.com).
•For enquiries relating to articles that have been accepted by the Journal and forwarded to the Publisher for typesetting, please visit the Author Gateway from Elsevier at http://authors.elsevier.com. The Author Gateway also provides the facility to track articles at the Publisher and set up email alerts to inform authors when an article's status has changed, as well as detailed artwork guidelines, copyright information, frequently asked questions and more. Authors will be informed when an article is sent to the Publisher for typesetting, and will be provided with further contact details for questions arising about an article, especially those relating to proofs, after its receipt at Elsevier.

As a service to our authors, Elsevier will deposit to PubMed Central (PMC) author manuscripts on behalf of Elsevier authors reporting NIH funded research. This service is a continuation of Elsevier's 2005 agreement with the NIH when the NIH introduced their voluntary 'Public Access Policy.'

The service will help authors comply with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) revised ''Public Access Policy,'' effective April 7, 2008. The NIH's revised policy requires that NIH-funded authors submit to PubMed Central (PMC), or have submitted on their behalf, their peer-reviewed author manuscripts, to appear on PMC no later than 12 months after final publication.

Elsevier will send to PMC the final peer-reviewed manuscript, which was accepted for publication and sent to Elsevier's production department, and that reflects any author-agreed changes made in response to peer-review comments. Elsevier will authorize the author manuscript's public access posting 12 months after final publication. Following the deposit by Elsevier, authors will receive further communications from Elsevier and NIH with respect to the submission.

Authors are also welcome to post their accepted author manuscript on their personal or institutional web site. Please note that consistent with Elsevier's author agreement, authors should not post manuscripts directly to PMC or other third party sites. Individual modifications to this general policy may apply to some Elsevier journals and society publishing partners.

As a leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical (STM) journals, Elsevier has led the industry in developing tools, programs and partnerships that provide greater access to, and understanding of, the vast global body of STM information. This service is an example of Elsevier willingness to work cooperatively to meet the needs of all participants in the STM publishing community.

Disclaimer

No responsibility is assumed by the Publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the Journal. Because of rapid advances in the medical sciences, in particular, independent verification of diagnoses and drug dosages should be made. Although all advertising material is expected to conform to ethical (medical) standards, inclusion in the Journal does not constitute a guarantee or endorsement of the quality or value of such a product or of the claims made of it by its manufacturer.

Cover Letter

A cover letter by the corresponding author must accompany the manuscript and should provide the following information.


• Explanation of any overlap with other articles published or in press in journals, books or conference proceedings, or in preparation. Animal Behaviour will not consider submissions that have been published elsewhere, nor will it republish data found in other publications, unless the data are re-evaluated to provide new information not found in the original. Abstracts that both appear in published conference proceedings with ISBNs or ISSNs, such as special editions of journals, and provide explicit quantitative summaries of the key results, are considered as prior publication. Overlap between submitted manuscripts and published abstracts containing qualitative descriptions of the manuscript will be allowed, provided that such abstracts are not verbatim reproductions of the abstract contained within the submitted manuscript. Include all abstracts and other published materials with the submitted manuscript as 'Related Material' on EES.

ASAB/ABS Confirmation Form

Authors will be asked during online submission to confirm the following points:

•This material has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere.
•All coauthors know that this manuscript has been submitted for publication.
•An explanation of overlap with other articles (published or in press in journals, books or conference proceedings, or in preparation) has been included in the cover letter accompanying this manuscript.
•In the case of Forum critiques of published papers, the author(s) of the target article has been contacted and trivial points of difference or misunderstanding resolved.
•This research adhered to the ASAB/ABS Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Research (updated in each January issue of the Journal and on the Journal Web site: http://www.elsevier.com/framework_products/promis_misc/ASAB2006.pdf), the legal requirements of the country in which the work was carried out, and all institutional guidelines. The Guide to Ethical Information Required for Animal Behaviour Papers ( http://www.elsevier.com/framework_products/promis_misc/ethyanbe.doc) has been consulted and requirements met.•This research was/was not reviewed and approved by an appropriate institutional and/or governmental authority regulating research with animals.
•Names (and email addresses, if available) of four referees have been included. Note that the Editors reserve the right to choose referees other than, or in addition to, those suggested.

Animal Welfare

If ethical considerations arose in the course of the study, the author should describe in the manuscript (see Methods) how those considerations were addressed. For example, information may need to be provided on the following areas: housing and general maintenance, disposal of animals including release of wild-caught animals, culling of litters, techniques causing desertion, aggression, predation, use of live animals as food, parasitism, techniques or manipulations (e.g. physiological, pharmacological, genetic, blood and tissue sampling, use of anaesthetics and restraints, plumage alterations), trapping, marking, radiotagging, food or water deprivation, manipulation of diets and access to food, social deprivation, brood manipulations, environmental manipulations, conservation implications, details of licences/permissions obtained for the study. If authors fail to include relevant information, we shall request a revision and resubmission of the paper. In exceptional cases, where unresolved ethical questions remain, the manuscript may be sent to the ABS Animal Care Committee or the ASAB Ethical Committee for additional refereeing. In such cases, the decision as to whether the manuscript is accepted for publication remains with the Editor or, in the final instance, the Executive Editor.

Formatting of Text
•Type all manuscripts with double line spacing and aligned left, including the abstract, references, figure legends and tables.
•Use a font size of 11 or larger.
•Print pages on one side only for editing purposes.
•Manuscripts should have continuous line numbers, page numbers and wide margins throughout (including the abstract, references, figure legends and tables).
•Indent each new paragraph
•Use consistent punctuation; insert only a single space between words and after punctuation.
•Type text without end-of-line hyphenation, except for compound words.
•Use initial capitals only for proper names (e.g. names of people, places or proprietary products), not for animals or for words such as 'experiment' or 'group'. Initial capitals may be used to label categories of behaviour or specifically defined measures. Do not use italics for these, for emphasis or for foreign words.
•Use two returns to end headings and paragraphs.
•Do not use lower-case 'l' (el) for '1' (one) or 'O'(oh) for '0' (zero); they have different typesetting values.

Headings

Headings in the body of the manuscript should be brief. The usual main headings for Research papers are: Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments and References (Introduction is not used). Papers should not be forced to fit into this pattern of headings, however, if they do not naturally do so. Type main headings in capitals on a separate line on the left of the page. Type subheadings in italics at the left of the page on a separate line, and begin the main words with a capital letter. Type sub-subheadings in italics on a new line, aligned full left. Start the text on a new line after subheadings and sub-subheadings. When presenting multiple experiments, authors may use main headings for the titles of each experiment, with the Methods and Results of each experiment listed as subheadings. Try to keep subheadings short enough to fit within a single column.

Parts of the Manuscript

Arrange manuscripts in the following order: title page, abstract, keywords, text, acknowledgments, references, appendices, tables, figure legends, figures. (See Appendix for an example outline and a summary of the main style points.)

Title page

The title page must include the following information.
•Title. This should be brief and informative, and should not exceed 120 characters. Avoid abbreviations, as well as part numbers unless the papers are to be published consecutively in the same issue of the Journal.
•Authors' names and academic affiliations below the title. Affiliations should not include street, box number, postal (zip) code, country (when that is obvious) or city, state, province, etc., when that is redundant with the University name.
•Correspondence. At the bottom of the page, give the full postal address and email address (if desired) of the corresponding author and the present postal addresses of all authors.
•A word count for the text.

Abstract

The Abstract should describe the purpose of the study, outline the major findings and state the main conclusions. It should be concise, informative, explicit and intelligible without reference to the text. Abstracts should usually be limited to 250 words. Use both common and scientific names of animals at first mention in the Abstract unless they are given in the title. Avoid using references; if used, give the journal name, volume and page numbers.

Keywords

An alphabetical list of up to 10 keywords, including the common and scientific names of the species studied, should be provided before the Introduction. Use the classifications from EES whenever possible. Note that the index for each volume will be made from the article keywords.

Introduction

The Introduction should be brief, not normally exceeding two manuscript pages. It should explicitly state the aims of the study and place it within the context of existing work. Keep references to a minimum by citing reviews rather than primary research papers where appropriate.

Methods

The Methods should be sufficiently detailed to allow someone else to replicate the study. Repetition of methodological details can sometimes be avoided by referring to previous studies, however. Give the names and addresses of companies providing trademarked products. Always state sample sizes (the number of animals used in the study) and the age, sex, breed/strain and source of animals. Full details of testing or observational regimes should be given. If captive animals were used, include details of housing conditions relevant to the study (e.g. cage size and type, bedding, group size and composition, lighting, temperature, ambient noise conditions, maintenance diets) both during the study and during any period before the study that might bear on the results. The Methods section may also contain a description of the kinds of statistics used and the activities that were recorded.

•Ethical note. Where ethical considerations arise from the study, these should be addressed in the Methods, either in the main Methods section itself (where the additional discussion is relatively minor), or in a separate subsection of the Methods headed Ethical note. Any ethical implications of the experimental design and procedures should be identified, and any licences acquired to carry out the work specified. Procedures that were taken to minimize the welfare impact on subjects, including choice of sample sizes, use of pilot tests and predetermined rules for intervention, should be described. Any steps taken to enhance the welfare of subjects (e.g. through 'environmental enrichment') should also be indicated. If the study involved keeping wild animals in captivity, state for how long the animals were captive and whether, where and how they were returned to the wild at the end of the study.

Results

This section should include only results that are relevant to the hypotheses outlined in the Introduction and considered in the Discussion. The text should complement material given in Tables or Figures but should not directly repeat it. Give full details of statistical analysis either in the text or in Tables or Figure legends. Include the type of test, the precise data to which it was applied, the value of the relevant statistic, the sample size and/or degrees of freedom, and the probability level. Number Tables and Figures in the order to which they are referred in the text.

Discussion It is often helpful to begin the Discussion with a summary of the main results. The main purpose of the Discussion, however, is to comment on the significance of the results and set them in the context of previous work. The Discussion should be concise and not excessively speculative, and references should be kept to a minimum by citing review articles as much as possible.

References

For references in the text, give full surnames for papers by one or two authors, but only the surname of the first author, followed by 'et al.' for three or more (note that 'et al.' is not underlined). Check that all references in the text are in the reference list and vice versa, that their dates and spellings match, and that complete bibliographical details are given, including page numbers, names of editors, name of publisher and full place of publication if the article is published in a book. Check foreign language references particularly carefully for accuracy of diacritical marks such as accents and umlauts.

Cite references in the text as, for example, Fagen & Young (1978) or, if in parentheses, as (Murton 1963). Do not use commas to separate the author's name from the date. Use lower-case letters to distinguish between two papers by the same authors in the same year (e.g. Packer 1979a). List multiple citations in chronological order (e.g. Zahavi 1972; Halliday 1978; Arnold 1981a, b), using a semicolon to separate each reference. Cite references in the reference list in alphabetical, and then chronological, order according to the authors' surname and date. To help readers locate 'et al.' citations with the same first authors in the reference list, list references with three (or more) names after those with two, by date, as in the following sequence:

Marin & Silva 1992

Marin, Silva & Lopez 1986

Marin, Lopez & Silva 1989

Type references in the following form:

Bailey, N. J. 1981. Statistical Methods in Biology. 2nd edn. London: Unibooks.

Emlen, S. T. 1978. The evolution of cooperative behaviour in birds. In: Behavioural Ecology (Ed. by J. R. Krebs & N. B. Davies), pp. 245-281. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific.

Robinson, M. H. & Robinson, B. 1970. The stabilimentum of the orb web spider, Argiope argentata: an improbable defense against predators. Canadian Entomologist, 102, 641-645.

Smith, J. K. 1985. Investigations on a freshwater crab. Ph.D. thesis, University of Durham.

Forum articles should include volume and part number and Web site address and be cited as:

Johnson, A. R. 1999. Scent marking in hyaenas: reply to Jones. Animal Behaviour, 57, F41-F43

Because of the ephemeral nature of many Web sites, other Web citations will be reviewed by the Editors to ensure they are appropriate to an archival journal. For papers in the course of publication, use 'in press' to replace the date and give the journal name in the references. Cite unpublished manuscripts (including those in preparation or submitted), talks and abstracts of talks in the text as 'unpublished data' following a list of all authors' initials and surnames. Do not include these in the reference list.

Note that journal titles in the reference list should be written in full.

Digital Object Identifiers

To facilitate cross-referencing of articles on the Web, the digital object identifier (DOI) for papers in Elsevier journals should be included in their reference citation as follows:

Bradbury, J. W. & Vehrencamp, S. L. In press. Economic models of animal communication. Animal Behaviour, doi: 10.1006/anbe.1999.1330.

Jirotkul, M. 1999. Population density influences male-male competition in guppies. Animal Behaviour, 58, 1169-1175. doi: 10.1006/anbe.1999.1248.

The DOI of a cited paper can be found at the top of its title page. If authors are aware of a paper's DOI, it would be helpful if they could include it in their citation list.

Tables

Keep Tables as simple as possible and make them understandable without reference to the text. Type each table on a separate page. In addition:
•Use Arabic numerals to number Tables.
•Give brief titles above the Table with no punctuation at the end.
•Give extra information (e.g. the results of statistical tests) as a footnote below the table.
•Do not divide tables into two or more parts.
•Tables should not contain vertical rules, and the main body of the table should not contain horizontal rules.
•Large tables should be narrow (across the page) and long (down the page) rather than wide and short, so that they can be fitted into the column width of the Journal.

Figures

•A figure and its legend should be sufficiently informative that the results can be understood without reference to the text. Figure legends should not appear on the same page as figures.
•The publisher will allow one page of free colour per article for colour figures, where its use is integral to useful illustration of the data. More than one figure may be included on this page.
•Figures should be large enough to allow for reproduction but not larger than A4 size, and should be designed with the widths of the columns in the Journal in mind.
•The preferred point symbols are open circle, open square, open triangle, filled circle, filled square, filled triangle. The preferred shadings are white, black and bold hatching. Avoid stippling, which does not reproduce well.
•Ticks should be drawn inside the figure axes; they should not be extended to form lines across the whole figure.
•Give keys and other explanations either in the legend or on the figure itself.
•Number figures consecutively in Arabic numerals.
•Abbreviate 'Figure' to 'Fig.' and 'Figures' to 'Figs' except when starting a sentence.
•The Publisher will redraw and label figures as necessary to conform to the Journal's house style. Artwork will be destroyed shortly after the paper is published unless the author requests otherwise.

Electronic supplementary material

Material that aids in the understanding or clarification of the printed article, such as video clips (AVI or MPEG, 10 MB limit), colour photographs (GIF or JPEG), sound recordings (MP3, MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 format, 10 MB limit), or large data tables, may be posted on ScienceDirect with electronic access details provided in the text. Supplementary material should be uploaded as such on to EES or sent separately to the appropriate Editorial Office, on DVDs (four copies). The material will be considered to be part of a manuscript and will be reviewed as such. Instructions regarding formats for supplementary material can be found under Artwork Instructions on Elsevier's Author Gateway page ( http://authors.elsevier.com).

Footnotes

Use footnotes only to add information below the body of a Table.

Numerals

Write numbers of 10 or more as numerals except at the beginning of a sentence. Write the numbers one to nine in words, unless they precede units of measure or are used as designators. Quote times of day using the 24-hour clock without a break or point in the middle and followed by 'hours'; e.g. '1515 hours'. Give years in full; e.g. '1986-1987' and dates as 1 January 2000.

Abbreviations

Units and abbreviations should conform to the Systeme International d'Unites. Avoid acronyms.

Statistical conventions

Means and standard errors/standard deviations (and medians and interquartile ranges/confidence limits), with their associated sample sizes, are given in the format X+SE = 10.20+1.01 g, N = 15, not X = 10.20, SE = 1.01, N = 15.

For significance tests, give the name of the test followed by a colon, the test statistic and its value, the degrees of freedom or sample size (whichever is the convention for the test) and the P value (note that F values have two degrees of freedom). The different parts of the statistical quotation are separated by a comma. Note use of italics for F, P, N and other variables.

If the test statistic is conventionally quoted with degrees of freedom, these are presented as a subscript to the test statistic. For example:

ANOVA: F _1,11 = 7.89, P = 0.017

Kruskal-Wallis test: H ₁₁ = 287.8, P = 0.001

Chi-square test: X ²2 = 0.19, P = 0.91

Paired t test: t ₁₂ = 1.99, P = 0.07

If the test is conventionally quoted with the sample size, this should follow the test statistic value. For example:

Spearman rank correlation: r _S = 0.80, N = 11, P < 0.01

Wilcoxon signed-ranks test: T = 6, N = 14, P < 0.01

Mann-Whitney U test: U = 74, N ₁ = N ₂ = 17, P < 0.02

P values for significant outcomes can be quoted as below a threshold significance value (e.g. P < 0.05, 0.01, 0.001), but wherever possible should be quoted as an exact probability value. Departure from a significance threshold of 0.05 should be stated and justified in the Methods. Marginally nonsignificant outcomes can be indicated as exact probability values or as P < 0.1. Nonsignificant outcomes should be indicated with an exact probability value whenever possible, or as NS or P > 0.05, as appropriate for the test. State whether a test is one tailed or two tailed (or specific or nonspecific in the case of Meddis' nonparametric ANOVAs). One-tailed (or specific) tests should be used with caution. Their use is justified only when there are strong a priori reasons for predicting the direction of a difference or trend and results in the opposite direction can reasonably be regarded as equivalent to no difference or trend at all. Authors are referred to Kimmel (1957, Psychological Bulletin, 54, 315-353).

Do not quote decimals with naked points, for example quote 0.01, not .01, or normally to more than three decimal places (the exception being P values for significance tests, which may be quoted to four decimal places where appropriate, e.g. 0.0001).

Regressions and analyses of variance. The significance of regressions should be tested with F or t but not the correlation coefficient r. R ² should be quoted with both regressions and parametric analyses of variance.

Multiple range tests. Unplanned multiple range tests following ANOVA should be avoided unless their appropriateness for the comparisons in question is verified explicitly. Authors are referred to the review by Day & Quinn (1989, Ecological Monographs, 59, 433-463).

Power tests. Where a significance test based on a small sample size yields a nonsignificant result, explicit consideration should be given to the power of the data for accepting the null hypothesis. Authors are referred to Thomas & Juanes (1996, Animal Behaviour, 52, 856-859) and Colegrave & Ruxton (2003, Behavioral Ecology, 14, 446-447) for guidance on the appropriate use of power tests. Providing a value for power based on a priori tests is preferred. Values of observed power are not appropriate. Authors should consider effect sizes and their confidence intervals in drawing conclusions regarding the null hypothesis.

Transformations. Where data have been transformed for parametric significance tests, the nature of the transformation and the reason for its selection (e.g. log x, x ², arcsine) should be stated.

Appendix: Example Outline of Paper

Title (up to 120 spaces)

First A. Author^{a, 1}, Second B. Author^{b, 2}, Corresponding Author^a,*

^aDepartment A, University A (not full postal address)
^bDepartment B, University B

*Correspondence: Corresponding author's initials, surname and full postal address.
E-mail address: corresponding author's email address.
¹Full postal address of the first author in the string that is not the corresponding author.
²Full postal address of the second author in the string that is not the corresponding author.

Word Count:

Put in a page break before the abstract.

Abstract: this does not have a heading and should not exceed 250 words.

Keywords: up to 10 keywords, each on a separate line, in alphabetical order, including the common and scientific names of the study species.

Put in a page break after the keywords.

Introduction: this does not have a heading. Each paragraph ends with two carriage returns (CR), so that there is one line space between paragraphs. The text should be aligned left and the entire manuscript should have consecutive line numbers and page numbers. Use double line spacing.

METHODS (HEADING 1, CAPITALS, BOLD)

Experiment 1 (Heading 2, Initial Capitals, Left Aligned, Italics)

Measurements (Heading 3, only first word with initial capital, left aligned, italics)

Weights (Heading 4, only first word with initial capital, italics, run on with text.)

Males (Heading 5, only first word with initial capital, italics, indented, run on with text.)

Keep headings and subheadings short to fit the column width of the journal.

RESULTS

DISCUSSION

Acknowledgments

References

Altmann, J. 1974. Observational study of behavior: sample methods. Behaviour, 49, 227-267.

Cords, M. & Aureli, F. 1993. Patterns of reconciliation among juvenile long-tailed macaques. In: Juvenile Primates: Life History, Development and Behavior (Ed.by M. E. Pereira & L. A. Fairbanks), pp. 271-284. New York: Oxford University Press.

Note that journal titles should be written in full (Animal Behaviour, not Anim. Behav.).

Tables

Put each table on a separate page. Tables do not take vertical lines, and the body of the table does not take horizontal lines. They have a short title with further information below the table. Do not divide tables into parts a, b, etc.; use row headings instead.

Example table

Table 1
Subject ID, birth year, matriline ID and individual rank of the focal females

Subject ID	Birth year	Matriline ID	Individual rank
L165	1986	L165	19
O203	1988	E68	4
T268	1991	E66	5
T277	1991	H96	8
A331	1997	L165	11
B352	1998	E68	3
C360	1999	E66	14
D370	2000	H96	10

The focal females are a subset of 25 females in the study groups.

Figure Legends

Put figure legends on a separate page. Do not include results already given in the text.

Example legend

Figure 1. Mean conciliation tendencies + SD concerning kinship, relationship quality and relationship benefit.

Figures

Each figure or part of a figure should be boxed; ticks and designators ((a), (b), etc.) should be inside the box.

Main Animal Behaviour Style Points

(1) British spelling and usage are used throughout.

Spelling
ageing
aluminium
anaesthetize
analysed
anticlockwise (not counterclockwise)
artefact
behaviour
colour (but coloration)
defence
favour
focused
moult
none the less
oestrus (noun)
oestrous (adj)
per cent (after a number that is spelled out in full; otherwise, use 'percentage of')
signaller

Note that the '-ize' ending is used instead of '-ise': 'hypothesize', 'minimize', etc.

Usage

Use 'autumn' (instead of 'fall'), 'utter' or 'produce' (not 'emit' for calls), 'towards' (not 'toward'), 'used' (not 'utilized' or 'employed'), 'tendency' (not 'trend' for nonsignificant outcomes), 'referee' (not 'reviewer'), 'differ between' (not 'differ among', see Fowler's Modern English Usage).

(2) Use the active voice throughout.

(3) Use the present tense in references to other studies and the past tense in references to your own (i.e. current) study.

(4) The common and the scientific names of all species referred to in the text should be included at first mention, but the common name is usually sufficient at subsequent mention. Avoid switching between use of scientific and common names. The common name of a species is given first, followed by the scientific name, which is set off by commas. Parentheses may be used to highlight an example from a group. For example: voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus); but meadow voles, Microtus pennsylvanicus.

(5) Use of italics.

(a) Latin phrases in common use are set in roman (normal type) not italics (ad libitum, sensu, etc.).

(b) The abbreviations 'i.e.' and 'e.g.' are also set in roman (normal type) and are not followed by commas. Only use these abbreviations parenthetically; otherwise, they should be spelled out in full in the text and are then followed by a comma.

(c) Do not use italics and bold type face for emphasis in the main body of the text, unless the emphasis is placed within a direct quote. Use quote marks instead or rewrite the sentence.

(6) Hyphens.

(a) In general, prefixes are not hyphenated unless the root word begins with the same letter as the last letter of the prefix or with a capital letter ('anti-infanticide', 'non-natal' and pre-Darwin, but 'antipredator', 'nonsignificant', etc.), or the meaning would be ambiguous otherwise (re-cover = to cover again).

(b) Most compound nouns, with one or more nouns used attributively, are not hyphenated ('nest site choice', 'sex ratio selection') unless the meaning would be ambiguous without a hyphen.

(c) Similarly, '-ly' modifiers are not hyphenated ('evolutionarily stable strategy'; 'multiply mated females').

(d) Use hyphens for compound attributive modifiers when the second element is a past or present participle ('high-ranking males'; 'egg-laying period').

(e) No dashes are used (commas or parentheses are used as appropriate).

(7) Use "that" and "which" for defining and nondefining clauses, respectively: the general rule being that a "which clause" can be deleted without loss of meaning (see Fowler's Modern English Usage).

(8) In serial lists, there is no comma preceding the last 'and' in the series.

(9) Spell out threshold symbols (≤, ≥, <, >) in full in a wordy context (i.e. when not enclosed in parentheses).

(10) Use numerals for all values greater than or equal to 10 and for all units of time and measure (9 cm, 2 days, 5 min, 20 s; but two males, 10 groups, etc.). Always provide SI units or metric equivalents (10-gallon aquarium = 37.85-litre aquarium). Also, there should be a space between the measured value and the units. Note 'day' not 'dy', 's' not 'sec', 'h not 'hr', ml, not 'mL', but 'litre' not 'L'. Use slashes rather than superscripts for e.g. m/s, g/kg, etc.

(11) All variables are set in italics (P, N, F, etc.) and all designators are set in roman type.

(12) Use single quote marks, not double.

(13) The word after a colon should have a lowercase initial letter unless it is a name.

(14) In citations in the text, there should be no comma between the name and the date (e.g. Turner 2006, not Turner, 2006).

(15) Give the names and addresses of companies providing software and other trademarked products (e.g. Syntrillium Software, Scottsdale, AZ, U.S.A.).

® 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the proprietors of the Journal. Requests in the first place