Submissions

Author Guidelines

INITIAL REMARK

Sociobiology is a peer-reviewed journal, implying that a submission is accepted only if it meets the criteria of good scientific quality. The editorial workflow from submission to publication is estimated to be a maximum of six months. After submission, we conduct a desk review process over one week and assign a section/area editor, who will then have another week to assign peer reviewers for the first round of review. The assigned reviewers will have four weeks to conclude the manuscript evaluation. Then, the section/area editor will make the initial decision, giving 30 days for the authors to proceed with revisions and return the final version of the text. At this stage, the submission has been ongoing for over three months. The fourth month is expected to be spent with typesetting, proofreading, and publication. If reviewers fail to follow deadlines, authors may delay returning revised versions, or a second round of review may be required. Two additional months may be necessary to complete the workflow before publication. If your submission is a requirement for obtaining an academic degree (Master's or Ph.D.), please keep this timeline in mind. 

Types of Published Articles

1 - Research Articles

These submissions are expected to present the outcomes of fully developed research, encompassing a research question, a scientific hypothesis, a rigorous sampling or experimental design, a coherent statistical analysis, results of the research, and a discussion on them in light of the state of the art in the research field, and a conclusion. 

2 - Scientific Notes 

These submissions are expected to present preliminary or less developed results on a subject that has not yet been thoroughly explored, but to make valuable contributions and offer insightful perspectives on the biology, ecology, genetics, behavior, reproductive biology, caste studies, and management of social insects. Yet, they must incorporate minimal standards for sampling, experimental design, and statistical analysis.   Manuscripts of anecdotal nature and/or that merely report new geographic occurrences, trophic interactions, records of species, or host associations to new localities in geographical regions where they are already known will not be accepted.  

Scientific notes should be prepared as a single text followed by acknowledgments and references. Do not include subtitles (Introduction, Materials and Methods, and Results and Discussion). The abstract should be no longer than 150 words, and the text should be no longer than 1,500 words. If necessary, figures or tables can be included, totaling up to 3 objects (figures and tables) at most.

3 - Reviews

These submissions are expected to present extensive interpretative or evaluative articles on current topics related to the biology of social arthropods. It is of utmost importance that this type of manuscript contextualizes the state of the art in the topic, highlighting past advances, data-based consolidated findings, current gaps, new research avenues or challenges, and the implications of the current knowledge for environmental sustainability, socioeconomics, or policy-making. They can be published through the journal's regular workflow or upon invitation by the Associate Editors. 

Sociobiology does not accept submissions of manuscripts that focus merely on bibliometric reviews.

SECTION 1 – Initial submissions - Submit your way

Sociobiology offers a free publication for authors and open access to readers.

1.1 – Instructions for Manuscript Preparation

To facilitate manuscript submission, we accept initial submissions in the format of your choice. This should allow authors, editors, and referees to focus on the quality of the reported science, saving valuable time for everyone involved. Only after your manuscript is accepted and enters the editing stage will you be required to present a version in Sociobiology's format (shown in SECTION 2). The editors will access the initial version and decide whether its standards justify further analysis by the referees. Please be aware that whatever format you choose:

a)   Present your text in DOUBLE SPACE with CONTINUOUS NUMBERED LINES (that is, line numbering does not restart at the beginning of every page).

b)   use .PDF, .DOC, or .RTF format

c)   Regardless of file format, all manuscripts must present the essential elements needed to evaluate the scientific message (Title, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions (or merge within Discussion), Acknowledgements, References, Figures, and Tables with Captions. Remember that at this stage, to ensure a double-blind review, authors' names and affiliations, and the section Authors' contributions must not be included in the text.

d)  make sure the text presents good readability and legibility. This includes (i) how the words and blocks of type are arranged on a page and (ii) the right choice of typeface. As a rule, the reader (not the writer) decides whether a text is readable and legible. Hence, you should ensure that everyone -- and not only you-- will enjoy reading your text to access your ideas!

e)   Be aware that it is generally accepted that there is a close relationship between a sloppily prepared manuscript and poor science. Do not underestimate the value of a physically attractive manuscript format.

f)   During step 3 of the online submission, the corresponding author must fill in the metadata for all co-authors (use the “Add author” button to add all co-authors' metadata), including the ORCID ID (from at least one author).

g)   The sequence to correctly upload files in steps 2 (original article) and 4 (supplementary files) of the electronic submission is to choose the file (OJS will access your File Manager program), click the Upload button, and then click the button "Save and continue." Upload as many supplementary files as needed, repeating this sequence. After completing the uploads, click "Save and continue." You will reach step 5, "Confirmation." Click the button "Finish Submission." Important reminder: The OJS system limits file size upload to 8 MB per file.

1.2-  Ensuring Blind Review

To ensure the integrity of anonymous peer review for submissions to this journal, every effort should be made to prevent the identities of authors and reviewers from being disclosed to each other. This involves the authors, editors, and reviewers (who upload documents as part of their review) checking to see if the following steps have been taken about the text and the file properties:

1. The document's authors have deleted their names from the text.

2. Author identification should also be removed from the file's properties with Microsoft Office documents.

   For Microsoft 2003 and previous versions and Macintosh versions of Word:

   • Under the File menu, select: Save As > Tools (or Options with a Mac) > Security > Remove personal information from file properties on save > Save.

   For Macintosh Word 2008 (and future versions)

   1. Under the File menu, select "Properties."
   2. Under the Summary tab, remove all the identifying information from all fields.
   3. Save the File.

   For Microsoft 2007 (Windows):

   1. Click on the office button in the upper-left-hand corner of the office application
   2. Select "Prepare" from the menu options.
   3. Select "Properties" for the "Prepare" menu options.
   4. Delete all the information in the document property fields that appear under the main menu options.
   5. Save the document and close the document property field section.

   For Microsoft 2010 (Windows):

   1. Under the File menu, select "Prepare for sharing."
   2. Click on the "Check for issues" icon.
   3. Click on the "inspect document" icon.
   4. Uncheck all checkboxes except "Document Properties and Personal information."
   5. Run the document inspector, which will search the document properties and indicate if any document property fields contain any information.
   6. If the document inspector finds that some document properties contain information, it will notify you and give you the option to "Remove all." you will click to remove the document properties and personal data from the document.

3. For PDF files:

   • With PDFs, the author's names should be removed from Document Properties found under File on Adobe Acrobat's main menu.

PLAGIARISM ISSUES

Sociobiology follows the principles of ethics in all stages of the editorial process. Every submitted manuscript will be screened for plagiarism using anti-plagiarism software. Any submission showing more than 10% plagiarism in the check report will be rejected.

USE OF AI (ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE) GUIDELINES

Sociobiology recognizes the trend of utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) as an auxiliary tool in the intellectual process. However, it is crucial to draw a line between the limits of an auxiliary use and a generative use resembling the authorship of a manuscript text, even in a minimal part. From an ethical perspective, AI tools are not accountable for scientific accuracy or mistakes in their generated texts as humans are. Therefore, Sociobiology's editorial standards set strict limits on its use in submitted manuscripts. Every submitted manuscript will be screened for excessive or abusive use of generative AI. Any manuscript with a suspected rate of more than 10% AI-generated content may be subject to inquiries before peer review or rejection.

Please see these video tutorials for extra guidance on the submission process:

Registering as a user and submitting a manuscript

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJwDWdAu8BQ&list=PLg358gdRUrDUKJbWtr4bgy133_jwoiqoF&index=3https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZUlgCS0vEc

This is all you need for your initial submission.

SECTION 2- Accepted Manuscripts

Congratulations!!! Your manuscript has been accepted for publication online. Please work with us to edit your paper as carefully as possible.

2.1- File formatting

Please remember that we rely on the voluntary work of editors and a small paid staff, which can save time fixing formatting and typesetting inconsistencies generated by non-compliance with the Authors' Guidelines.

Submitting a manuscript that follows the journal's guidelines is a fundamental demonstration of appreciation for the journal and its collaborative, open-access publication philosophy.

All manuscripts submitted to Sociobiology must be written in English, with clarity and readability in mind. Manuscripts are subject to editing to ensure conformity with editorial standards and the journal's style.

• Submit the manuscript as an MS Word or RTF file with a page size of Letter, 8.5 x 11".
• Use continuous line numbering on all pages of your manuscript.
• Type all as double-spaced, with 1-inch margins, and do not right-justify text.
• Use the Times (New) Roman font size 12 points.
• Left-justify the title, author line, affiliation lines, subheadings, text, and References Cited.
• Insert tabs, not spaces, for paragraph indents.
• Use italicization only to indicate scientific names (including viruses), symbols or variables, and defined words.
• Use quotation marks for quoted material only.
• Use American English spelling.
• Number pages consecutively, beginning with the title page.
• Lines in the manuscript must be numbered.
• Begin each of the following on a separate page and arrange in the following order: title page, abstract and keywords (three to six words), manuscript text, acknowledgments, references cited, footnotes, tables, figure legends, and figures.
• Type all captions on a separate page and put each figure and table on a separate page.
• Make sure the file size (in Word, Libre Office, or TRF format) does not exceed 8MB. This is the maximum file size that can be uploaded in the OJS setup. If the manuscript exceeds the specified limit due to the inclusion of high-resolution figures, please include only the figure legends in the file. Prepare figures in JPG or GIF format with file sizes of up to 4 MB and upload them individually as supplementary files. During the upload of supplementary files, in step 4, name the files with titles corresponding to the number of figures in the manuscript text. Check the option "Present supplementary files to reviewers."
• The sequence to correctly upload files in steps 2 (original article) and 4 (supplementary files) of the electronic submission is to choose the file (OJS will access your File Manager program), click the Upload button, and then click the "Save and continue." Upload as many supplementary files as needed, repeating this sequence. After completing the uploads, click "Save and continue." You will reach step 5, "Confirmation." Click the button "Finish Submission." Please see these video tutorials for extra guidance on the submission process:

2.2- Manuscript Preparation Instructions

2.2.1- Frontpage

Please strictly obey the sequence below.

a) Running title, maximum of 60 characters (including letters, punctuation, and spaces between words)

b) Manuscript type ("article", "review", "short note")

c) Title: concisely identifying the connection between the main idea and the variables or scientific problem discussed in the paper. Capitalize the first letters of each word, except for prepositions (at, by, with, from, and to).

d) Author(s) name(s) should be center justified below the title using small capital letters. Only the given and last names shall be provided in full; middle names must be abbreviated. Names of different authors are separated by commas, without the use of "and" or "&" (Examples: Roger C. Ferguson, Laura G. Simons, Frederic L. J. Nielsen, Carol Stone)

e) Affiliation, containing institution, town, State/Province abbreviation, and country. Could you provide a partial postal address?

f) Keywords: provide a maximum of 6 keywords. Please refrain from repeating words from the title here.

g) Corresponding author: provide full postal address plus email.

2.2.2 - Page 2 – Abstract

The abstract must be concise and easy to understand, without requiring reference to the article text body. Please ensure the abstract presents the paper's main contribution. The text must not contain any abbreviations or statistical details. Type ABSTRACT followed by a hyphen and the text. The abstract must be a single paragraph and should be no longer than 250 words.

2.2.3 - Main Text

Introduction - Sociobiology strongly recommends making the hypothesis being tested explicit here.

Materials and Methods - This section must provide enough information to replicate the research. Please include the statistical design and methods, if applicable, as well as the name and version of the software used for analysis.

Results - the standard error and the number of observations must follow the mean values. Units of measurement must be separated from the value by a blank space (e.g., 10 cm, 25 kg/m). Present p-values in lowercase (e.g., p < 0.05). For extra guidance on statistics and measures notation, see:

http://users.sussex.ac.uk/~grahamh/RM1web/APA%20format%20for%20statistical%20notation%20and%20other%20things.pdf

Discussion - Here, it is strongly recommended that you focus on how the results contribute to advancing scientific knowledge in the specific subject area, and preferably, beyond it. Please ensure that you clearly state whether the working hypothesis was accepted and what analysis supports its acceptance or refutation.

Conclusion - The conclusions can be presented in a separate section or within the Discussion section.

Acknowledgments - The text must be concise and contain the recognition of people first (including "anonymous referees"), followed by institutions and sponsors.

Authors' contribution -Provide a statement on the scientific/intellectual contribution of each co-author, following the CRediT taxonomy, as follows:

CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) was created to recognize individual author contributions, reduce authorship conflicts, and facilitate collaboration. Its proposition was presented in a workshop held by Harvard University and the Wellcome Trust in 2012, with the participation of researchers, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and publishers.

CRediT allows readers to have an accurate and detailed description of the diverse contributions of each author to the published work.

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that the role descriptions are accurate and that all authors agree on the order in which their names will be listed in the manuscript. The role(s) of all authors should be listed using the relevant categories as follows.

Terms and Definitions*

Conceptualization - Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims

Methodology - Development or design of methodology; creation of models

Software - Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components

Validation - Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/ reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs

Formal analysis - Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data

Investigation - Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments or data/evidence collection

Resources - Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools

Data Curation - Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data, and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later reuse

Writing - Original Draft - Preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation)

Writing - Review & Editing - Preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary, or revision – including pre-or post-publication stages

Visualization - Preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/ data presentation

Supervision - Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team

Project administration - Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution

Funding acquisition - Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication

* Reproduced from Brand et al. (2015), Learned Publishing 28(2), with due credit to the authors.

Contributions such as technical help, data collection, writing assistance, funding, grants, or a lab chairperson who provided space or other support must meet the criteria for authorship. With permission from the contributor, they must be presented in an Acknowledgments section.

Data availability statement - To assure research and peer verification replicability, authors will be strongly encouraged to make data sets, software codes, genetic sequences, and other original data available to the scientific community. You can provide these data as supplementary material or as material available on a personal/institutional homepage or in an open digital preservation repository (e.g.,https://zenodo.org). In your manuscript, could you include a statement on where such data will be available?

References - The journal follows the APA reference style. Please review the specific guidance below.

Under the section title, type the references alphabetically, one per paragraph, with no space between them.

The authors’ family names are typed in full, followed by capital initials, and then a period. Do not leave space for more than one initial (ex., Wilson, E.O.)

Use a comma to separate the names of authors.

Add the reference year after the authors' list, enclosed in parentheses. Journal names must be provided in full, with capitalized initials.

Please don't cite monographs, partial research reports, abstracts of papers presented at scientific meetings, dissertations, theses, or extension materials.

Examples of reference style:

Book

Hölldobler, B. & Wilson, E.O. (1990). The Ants. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 732 p

Chapter or article in an edited book

Cushman, J.H. & Addicott, J.F. (1991). Conditional interactions in ant-plant-herbivore mutualisms. In C.R. Huxley & D.F. Cutler (Eds.), Ant-plant interactions (pp. 92-103). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

References retrieved from the web address

Bolton, B. (2011). Catalog of species-group taxa. http://gap.entclub.org/contact.html. (accessed date: 1 August 2016).

Journal article

Hassler, E.E., Cazier, J.A., Hopkins, B., Wilkes, J.T., Smith, K., & Rünzel, M. (2021). A century of discovery: Mining 100 years of honey bee research. Journal of Apicultural Research, 60: 3-12. 

The issue number should be indicated only if each journal issue begins on page 1.

Capitalize only the first letter of the first word of an article title and subtitle, and any proper nouns.

Capitalize the first letter of every main word in the journal title (reminder: journal title in full).

Do not include a digital object identifier (DOI). Sociobiology's staff will do this.

Journal articles, if published only online

Liu, N., Cheng, D.M., Xu, H.H. & Zhang, Z.X. (2011). Behavioral and lethal effects of α-terthienyl on the Red Imported Fire Ant (RIFA). Chinese Agricultural Science, 44: 4815-4822. Retrieved from: http://211.155.251.135:81/Jwk_zgnykx/EN/Y2011/V44/I23/4815

Group or organization as author

Organization Name. (Year). Details of the work, as appropriate to a printed or electronic form.

Preparation of Tables

After the References section, tables must be placed separately, one per page. Please number tables consecutively with Arabic numbers in the same order they are referred to in the text. Footnotes must have call numbers. Use the word "Table" in full in the text (example: Table 1).

Be careful to correctly align variables and their respective values in columns and lines.

Example of a table title:

Table 1. Frequency of the four types of ovaries within the colonies of Angiopolibia pallens.

Preparation of Figures

To speed up editing and ensure a clean article layout, please prepare the figure files according to the journal guidelines: insert the list of figures right after the tables. Use the abbreviation "Fig." in the titles and the text (such as Fig. 3).

Prepare figures in TIFF format, with a resolution of at least 300 dpi. It is the better format for the quality of your published work. However, exceptions to this format can be discussed with editors if necessary.

In the editing process, small figures will be set as a one-column object (Sociobiology articles are edited in a two-column layout). Please produce small figures with a width of 86.5 mm, while the height can be up to 210 mm.

Large figures will be set as objects placed over two columns in the editing process. Please produce large figures with a maximum width of 179 mm, while the height can vary up to 85 mm for one-third of a page, 120 mm for half of a page, or 185 mm for two-thirds of the page.

Please use the appropriate font size for axis or box legends and values to ensure good resolution for text in the figures. If axis or box legends are too extensive and require a small font size for complete typing, create abbreviations for the variables and refer to the variables' full text as figure footnotes. A font size between 9 and 12 pt for Times New Roman or Calibri can yield a good resolution for figure text (followed by the widths and heights suggested above).

2.3- In-text Citations

Scientific names

For insect nomenclature, write the scientific names in full, followed by the author's family name, when they are first mentioned in the Abstract and the body of the text, e.g., Polistes canadensis (L.). Use the abbreviated generic name (e.g., P. canadensis) in the rest of the manuscript, except in tables and figures, where the species name shall be typed in full.

Please ensure that you consult the most up-to-date rules for plant nomenclature, but prioritize providing the author's names and the botanical family.

One author

When you refer to a single author, include the author's family name and year of publication using one of the forms shown here.

Ginsberg (2005) argues that the local diversity of bees is driven by species selection from a regional diversity pool. or

The local diversity of bees is driven by species selection from a regional diversity pool (Ginsberg, 2005).

Multiple authors

For two authors, include the family names of both authors and the year.

According to Smith and Velasquez (2009), chaparrals are a source of endemism for ants in the Venezuelan Andes. or

Chaparrals are a source of endemism for ants in the Venezuelan Andes (Smith & Velazquez, 2009).

Use 'and' when family names are outside parentheses; use '&' when family names are inside parentheses.

For three or more authors, cite the first author’s family name, plus 'et al.' and the year.

Multiple references

If more than one reference has to be cited, follow the chronological order of publication, separated with semicolons (for example, Xia & Liu, 1998; Savannah, 2003; Balestreri, 2006; Ustachenko et al., 2010). Use 'and' when family names are outside parentheses; use '&' when family names are inside parentheses.

Secondary source

Sociobiology strongly recommends not using the secondary source (i.e., citations referring to one author (secondary) who cites another (primary)).

Article or chapter in an edited book

If a chapter or article written by a contributing author to an edited book has to be cited, please let the author of the chapter or article know. This author is cited in the text (that is, in the body of the paper) in the same way as for one or more authors.

Group or organization as author

Whenever the author is a government agency, association, corporate body, or the like, which has a familiar or easily understandable acronym, it is cited as follows:

The reduction of airborne polluting particles in Cleveland resulted in increased bee species richness in park areas in the 1990s (Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], 2006).

Note: The entry in the reference list is under the Environmental Protection Agency.

Personal communication

Personal communications are understood to include letters, emails, personal interviews, telephone conversations, and similar forms of communication. They must be in text only and are not included in a reference list.

J. Ahmed (personal communication, May 11, 2010) indicated …

… (L. Stainer, Senior Researcher, Social Insects Study Centre, personal communication, June 4, 2009)

SECTION 3 - Important reminders on the submission process

3.1 - Fill in Metadata Forms

It is essential to complete all mandatory fields (indicated by an asterisk) in the metadata forms during the five steps of the submission process. Additionally, please include metadata on all authors who appear in the manuscript. The first field that appears can be filled in with submitter metadata, and by clicking the "Add author" button, new forms will appear for as many authors as needed. Author metadata is essential for abstracting and indexing purposes. Remember that in modern days, indexing agencies have online data harvesters. Any omission or lack of accuracy in author, discipline, and keyword metadata can affect the visibility of an author's work.

3.2 - List of Potential Reviewers

Put together a list of four potential referees you will inform in the "Comments to the Editor" text box during the electronic submission process. In the list, you need the complete name, Institutional Affiliation, Country, e-mail address, and three keywords that best describe the area of expertise of each potential referee.

At least two referees must be from countries different from the author's country of origin.

3.3 - Journal Access

Accepted manuscripts will be published free of charge; reprints will not be provided. The authors and the public will have full online access to PDF files of all published articles. Sociobiology publishes under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

Further Information:

Evandro do Nascimento Silva
Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana
Av. Transnordestina s/n Novo Horizonte
Feira de Santana – BA Brazil
44036-900
E-mail: sociobiology.ens@uefs.br