Journal of Vertebrate
 Biology

All manuscripts should be submitted online here. Full upload instructions and support are available online from the submission site. Please submit a covering letter or comments to the Editor-in-Chief when prompted. Authors are requested to suggest a minimum of three reviewers. This information will facilitate peer-review process.

Manuscripts can be published as original research papers, short notes, reviews or monographs. Papers or reviews must not exceed 30 manuscript pages, including references, figures, and tables. There is no page limit for monographs.

Review papers and monographs are welcome, but please consult the Editor-in-Chief before submission. Research papers should be organised into: Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, Literature, Figure legends.
Headings should be on separate lines. Levels of sub-headings should not exceed three. Single-digit numbers should be spelt out except as part of a date, a fraction or decimal, a percent or a unit of measurement. Arabic numerals should be used for numbers larger than nine, except as the first word in a sentence.

Text should be written in the passive voice and spelling should conform to British English. Full references for citations in the text must appear in the “Literature” section (see below for format).
Standard nomenclature should be used for organisms for which normal rules have been established and published. Do not use scientific names for domesticated animals. Vernacular names of organisms, if not derived from geographic or personal names, should be lower case. At first mention in the text, provide the vernacular name, the full scientific name (genus and species) and the authority of organisms; thereafter use either the scientific or the vernacular name consistently. The metric system must be used, and SI units where appropriate. Temperatures should be expressed in degrees Celsius (centigrade). Fully describe and report statistics and be explicit in stating sample sizes. Unfamiliar or new terms, as well as abbreviations, acronyms, and symbols, should be defined at first mention.

We place few requirements on formatting for initial submission and it is not necessary to replicate thelayout of the journal. If a paper is accepted for publication we will specify the required formatting and style.

For initial submission we only ask that you make your manuscript as clear as possible for reviewers and ensure that all relevant sections are included. We set out below how you can be confident your manuscript includes all the information needed for trouble-free reviewing. We require that the standard of English in manuscripts is adequate for reviewing.

Title: Provide a concise but informative synthesis of the study. Where appropriate, include the family or higher taxon under investigation (e.g. Rhinolophidae, Chiroptera). Authors of scientific taxa shouldbe omitted. If both the vernacular and scientific names are used in the title, the latter should be separated by comma but not placed in parentheses.

Author(s): e full first name(s), middle initials and surname(s) in capital letters. The names of two authors are connected by “and”; the names of three or more authors are separated by commas, with the last two separated by “and”. When a paper has multiple authorship, one of the authors should be appointed to accept responsibility for all correspondence. Transliteration of the names of authors from non-Roman alphabets should follow the British National System of Transliteration.

Address(es): The complete name and address of the institution where the study was carried out should be given in English for each of authors, including e-mail addresses. Superscript Arabic numerals are used to identify author affiliations. Each affiliation should be on separate line.

Abstract: Abstracts should comprise a single paragraph of up to 200 words. The main results and conclusions should be described briefly, with no description of methods, discussion or abbreviations. References should not be included unless essential.

Key words: Provide 3-6 words, or compound words, suitable for an information-retrieval system. Avoid words in the title.

Introduction: Provide a concise description of the background, rationale, aims and specific objectives and predictions of the research presented in the paper.

(Study Area): A description of the study area can be included as a separate section if the description requires more than one full paragraph of text.

Material and Methods: Provide a brief but thorough explanation of the field and laboratory methods used. For laboratory-based studies, information on organisms studied should be given first, followed by the methods and techniques used. Sufficient detail of the procedures and experimental protocol used should be provided to enable other researchers to repeat the work. However, do not give excessive detail of the procedures and leave out the type and make of instruments or chemicals used unless they are not widely available. A full description must be given of the statistical analysis of the data, detailing the tests used and sample sizes.

Results: The Results section should be concise and contain only enough explanation and interpretation to allow a reader to understand what information the observations and experiments provided. Results of statistical tests should be presented in parentheses in the text or summarised as tables. Be as explicit as possible in describing statistical results, including sample sizes. When reporting statistics, provide the standard error associated with mean values. Avoid discussing the findings in the Results section. Tables and figures must be referred to in the text (e.g. Table 1, Fig. 2).

Discussion: Provide an interpretation of the results, and place these in the context of previous research relevant to the study. No new results should be presented in the Discussion.

Acknowledgements: Give a concise acknowledgement of institutions or individuals who provided financial, collaborative or other support to the study, linguistic or statistical assistance. Include reference to grant project numbers when appropriate. Briefly summarise author contributions. Disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest that might be perceived as influencing an author’s objectivity.

Literature: Citations in the text should provide the author’s name and the year of publication, but without punctuation, e.g. Black (1990) or (Black 1990), Black & White (1990) or (Black & White 1990), except in the case of multiple citations, when a comma should be used between the citations, e.g. (Black 1990, Black & White 1990). In citations of three or more authors, the first author’s name plus “et al.” is given, e.g. Black et al. (1990) or (Black et al. 1990). For multiple references cite in chronological order, e.g. (Black et. al. 1988, 1991, White et al. 1990, White & Black 1991, Black & White 1992). Where two or more papers abbreviate to the same citation (i.e. two or more papers produced by the same authors in the same year), use “a”, “b”, “c”, etc. in the order of their first appearance, e.g. (Black 1990a, b). Personal communications and unpublished results should be referred to in the body of the text only, e.g. (A. Black, pers. comm.). 

References included in the list of literature cited should be given in alphabetical order of the senior author’s name, then by the alphabetical order of the junior author’s name, and then chronologically by date. In citations of five or more authors, give the names of the three first authors plus “et al.”. Type out the repeated name of an author; do not use long dashes. Journal names should be abbreviated. For non-Roman alphabets, the names of authors, journals, and publishers should be given in transliteration (British National System for Transliteration). For titles of such works the English translation of the original title should be cited. Provide your own translation into English if not supplied by the author’s reference. The original language of the work should be mentioned in brackets at the end of the citation, e.g. (in Czech with English summary; in Bulgarian with English and German summaries). Do not list publications that are in preparation or unpublished (submitted) in the list of references. Manuscripts in press are acceptable if a DOI number is provided.

Articles in periodical journals:
Surname A.B. Year: Title. Abbreviated Journal Name and Volume (issue): pagination. Specify the issue number of the journal only if pagination is not consecutive throughout volume.

Zejda J. & Koubek P. 1988: On the geographical variability of roebucks (Capreolus capreolus). Folia Zool. 37: 219–229.

Books:
Surname A.B. & Surname C.D. Year: Title. Publisher, Place.

Teerink B.J. 1991: Hair of West-European mammals. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Stearns S.C. 1992: The evolution of life histories. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Articles in books or proceedings:
Surname A.B., Surname C.D. & Surname E.F. Year: Article Title. In: Editors, Book or Proceeding Title, Publisher, Place: Pagination.

Bauerová Z., Gaisler J., Kovařík M. & Zima J. 1989: Variations in numbers of hibernating bats in the Moravian Karst: results of visual censuses in 1983-1987. In: Horáček I. & Vohralík V. (eds.), European bat research 1987. Charles University Press, Praha: 499–505.

For works published by an organisation with no individual author, cite by the publisher or title, whichever is more convenient:

International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature 1985: International code of zoological nomenclature. London 3rd ed.

Tables: Tabular information must not be repeated in figures or in the text, and vice-versa. Tables should be double-spaced, without vertical lines, each on a separate page, with a caption at the top. Tables must be self-explanatory and as easy to interpret as possible. Use decimal points rather than decimal commas. If tables require abbreviations, these should be defined in the caption.

Illustrations: Figures must be submitted in digital format: half-tones and photographs as TIFF or JPG formats at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. Captions to figures should be included as a separate section at the end of the manuscript. Each caption to a figure should start with the number of the figure, e.g.
Fig. 2.

Evaluation: Manuscripts will be rejected without review if they address subjects that fall outside the remit of the journal or they lack scientific rigour. Manuscripts that are not clearly laid out or are poorly written may be rejected on the understanding that they can be resubmitted as a new submission if the authors are able to bring the manuscript up to the required standard for review.

All other manuscripts will receive two reviews which will inform rejection or acceptance. If author(s) are invited to revise their paper they must deal with all recommendations or corrections and set out, point-by-point, how they have addressed them.

Proofs: Proofs will be sent to the corresponding author. Extensive alterations of proofs are not permitted. Corrected proofs must be returned within two days of receipt. If the proofs have not been received in time by the Managing Editor, publication may be postponed or the article may be published without revision.

Papers based on research that does not appear to have paid proper regard to conservation and animal welfare may be refused. Adverse impacts of research on natural systems must be weighed against the possible gains in knowledge and its practical applications. In cases of doubt, authors may be required to sign a declaration that their work conforms to the legal requirements of the country in which it was carried out. In all cases, the final decision will rest with the editors.

We support full transparency in publication and encourage authors to deposit data and data analysis code in a trusted repository, to pre-register studies and data analysis plans, and we actively encourage submission of replication studies.

The Journal of Vertebrate Biology applies the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license to articles and other works we publish. If you submit your paper for publication by the Journal of Vertebrate Biology, you agree to have the CC BY license applied to your work. Under this Open Access license you, as the author, agree that anyone can reuse your article in whole or part for any purpose, for free, even for commercial purposes. Anyone may copy, distribute, or reuse the content as long as the author and original source are properly cited. This Open Access license facilitates freedom for re-use of material and ensures that the Journal of Vertebrate Biology content can be mined without barriers, for the needs of research.

Correspondence concerning editorial matters should be addressed to the Editorial Office, Institute of Vertebrate Biology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Květná 8, 603 65 Brno, Czech Republic (e-mail: glosova@ivb.cz).