Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution is dedicated to bringing Darwin's dream within grasp - to "have fairly true genealogical trees of each great kingdom of Nature." The journal provides a forum for molecular studies that advance our understanding of phylogeny and evolution, further the development of phylogenetically more accurate taxonomic classifications, and ultimately bring a unified classification for all the ramifying lines of life. Phylogeographic studies will be considered for publication if they offer EXCEPTIONAL theoretical or empirical advances.


The journal encourages articles that are multidisciplinary, especially in areas, such as bioinformatics, computational biology, molecular biology, and organismic biology, that are of interest to the community of systematic and evolutionary biologists. In addition, presentations of new findings on or insights into evolutionary processes and mechanisms as expressed at the molecular level are welcome, as are those that deal with the methodology of reconstructing evolutionary history from molecular data (such as descriptions of new or more powerful computer algorithms for constructing phylogenetic trees from orthologous nucleotide or aminoacid sequences). A deeper understanding of the mechanisms and processes of molecular evolution should lead to more accurate models of molecular evolution, which in turn should facilitate the development of better algorithms for reconstructing evolutionary history from sequence data.


Papers based on few taxa, single molecular markers, or that use codon-based methods to test for positive Darwinian selection, but in the absence of experimental evidence that allegedly selected amino acid changes cause an adaptive phenotypic effect, will not be accepted.


Submission of manuscripts
Submission to this journal proceeds totally online. Via the homepage of this journal ( http://ees.elsevier.com/mpe) you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail and via the author's homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail.

Please submit, with the manuscript, the names and addresses of four potential reviewers.

Original papers only will be considered. Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright holder. In addition, any person cited as a source of personal communications has approved such citation. Written authorization may be required at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. Articles and any other material published in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution represent the opinions of the authors and should not be construed to reflect the opinions of the Editors or the Publisher.

Language services
Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission should visit http://www.elsevier.com/languagepolishing or contact authorsupport@elsevier.com for more information. Please note 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 and Conditions at http://www.elsevier.com/termsandconditions.

Policies
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to sign a Journal Publishing Agreement (for more information on this and copyright, see http://www.elsevier.com/copyright). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail (or letter) will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a Journal Publishing Agreement form or a link to the online version of this agreement.

Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations (please consult http://www.elsevier.com/permissions). If material from other copyrighted works is included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: please consult http://www.elsevier.com/permissions.

Authors' rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details you are referred to: http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.

Funding body agreements and policies Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose articles appear in journals published by Elsevier to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies.

Types of articles
Review papers are accepted. These papers do not contain much new data; rather, they are a status report of a specific field within molecular phylogenetics. Authors should relate molecular phylogeny to a broader audience by linking taxonomic group/names to common names so papers will have more general appeal.

Short communications of approximately 3000 words are also accepted. These papers should contain no more than two figures, two tables, and thirty references. A short abstract of fewer than 200 words is acceptable.

Letters to the editor should consist of about 1000 words and contain no tables, no figures, and no new data. Manuscripts should be prepared according to the following style rules. Deviation from these rules causes publication delays.

Form of manuscripts
Number all pages consecutively, including references, footnotes, tables, and figure legends.

Title page. Provide the following data on the title page (in the order given).

Author names and affiliations. Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Include the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lowercase superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name, and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.

Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who is willing to handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also after publication. Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address.

An abstract (about 150 words) that is a brief but informative summary of the contents and the conclusions of the paper should appear on page 2 of the manuscript. The abstract should be intelligible to a nonspecialist in the field and should avoid specialized terms and abbreviations or symbols that require definition. Keywords should be listed immediately after the abstract.

Subdivision of the article. Divide the article into clearly defined sections. Each subsection should be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line. Subsections should be used as much as possible when cross-referencing text: refer to the subsection by heading as opposed to simply "the text." A suggested organization of an article is abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, acknowledgments, and references.

In the methods section, experimental procedures should be described in sufficient detail to enable the work to be repeated. References to other papers describing the techniques may be given. Correct chemical names should be given and scientific names of organisms should be specified. The names and addresses of suppliers of uncommon reagents or instruments should be mentioned. Authors should draw attention to any particular chemical or biological hazards that may be involved in carrying out the experiments described. Any relevant safety precautions should be described; if an accepted code of practice has been followed, a reference to the relevant standards should be given.

Nomenclature and units. Use SI units and follow the guidelines for abbreviations and symbols of the IUPAC-IUBMB Joint Commission on Biochemical Nomenclature.

Footnotes. Number footnotes in a single sequence cited by superscript Arabic numerals and typed on a separate sheet.

DNA sequences and GenBank Accession numbers. Note that in the final version of the electronic copy, any accession numbers in text will be linked to the appropriate source in the NCBI databases, enabling readers to go directly to that source from the article. Authors are encouraged to check accession numbers used very carefully. An error in a letter or number can result in a dead link.

References
Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Citation of a reference as "in press" implies that the item has been accepted for publication. Include only published or in-press articles; cite personal communications or unpublished articles as such within the text. Arrange the list in alphabetical order according to the first author's surname and type double-spaced on a separate page at the end of the manuscript.

References should be referred to in the text by the authors' surnames and the date of publication, e.g., Doe and Jones (2002), Jones et al. (1999), or (Doe, 2000; Jones, 2001). Abbreviate the names of journals according to the Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index. Note the reference styles in the following examples:

Nuttall, G.H.F., 1904. Blood Immunity and Blood Relationship. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge.

Polziehn, R.O., Strobeck, C., 2002. A phylogenetic comparison of red deer and wapiti using mitochondrial DNA. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 22, 342-356.

Williams, P.L., Fitch, W.M., 1989. Finding the minimal change in a given tree. In: Feraholm, B., Bremmer, K., Jornvall, H. (Eds.), The Hierarchy of Life. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 453-470.

Tables
Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.

Figures
Number all figures with Arabic numerals in order of appearance in the text. Type all legends double-spaced consecutively on a separate sheet. Please visit our Web site at http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions for detailed instructions on preparing electronic artwork.

Color illustrations. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures, then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in color on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version. For color reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.

Please note: Because of technical complications that can arise in converting color figures to "gray scale" (for the printed version should you not opt for color in print), please submit in addition usable black-and-white files corresponding to all the color illustrations.

Preparation of supplementary material
Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips, and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of the article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com. To ensure that submitted material is directly usable, please provide data in one of our recommended file formats. Submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file. For more detailed instructions, please visit our artwork instruction pages at http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.

Proofs
One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author. Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness, and correctness of the text, tables, and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to publish your article quickly and accurately. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article if no response is received.

Offprints
The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use.