Author Guidelines
1. AIMS AND SCOPE
Forest Systems (FS) is a four-monthly international peer-reviewed journal. Forest Systems main aim is to integrate multidisciplinary research with forest management in complex systems with different social and ecological backgrounds. To fulfil this integrative approach, FS gives preference to papers that bring together two or more disciplines, organisms, or forest products and services. Studies of all kinds of forest systems are welcomed, particularly those that describe a wide variety of wood and non-wood products and ecosystem services, such as forests in regions with a Mediterranean climate. Forest Systems covers research findings on all aspects of forestry, such as genetics (including breeding), ecology, silviculture, forest management and policy and forest products and technology.
2. MANUSCRIPT CATEGORIES
Forest Systems accepts the following manuscript categories:
Research articles make an original and significant contribution to the field of study within the scope of the journal. These articles should be of interest to a broad audience, scientifically sound, well written and concise.
Short communications should cover a concise study of wide interest, novelty and/or high quality. Papers must report relevant information, not preliminary findings. Articles with local-regional interest may only be accepted here or in the Resource Communications section.
Resource communications include all types of papers on resources or tools of interest for the study and management of forest systems (e.g., methodologies, software and growth models). They must report a completed work, not preliminary findings.
Reviews or minireviews aim to provide an overview for an issue of great interest or topicality. Reviews will be invited by the Editorial Board. However, potential authors can suggest topics to the Editor-in-Chief. Authors must be experts and have several publications on the subject.
3. PEER REVIEW AND EDITING
Upon submission, the Editor-in-Chief assesses the manuscript for suitability. Manuscripts may be rejected without peer review if they do not relate to the scope of the journal or if they do not conform to the submission rules. All other articles are allocated to Associate Editors, depending on the topic. Associate Editors maintain a global vision of their topic areas. They select relevant referees (including members of the International Scientific Committee) for single-blind peer review (the referees know the identity of the authors, but the authors do not know the identity of the referees).
Two referees are usually invited to comment on each submission. When the opinions of the referees differ significantly, the manuscript is usually sent to a third referee. When a decision has been reached, the decision is communicated to the author.
The editors' decision is final unless there is a proven error in the process of manuscript evaluation or peer review. If you believe that there has been a process error in the handling of your manuscript, please address your concerns to the Editor-in-Chief and include the manuscript submission number.
COPYEDITING. After the author has submitted the final version and this has been accepted for publication, the manuscript undergoes a copyediting process. The copyeditor performs the clean-up edit. This edit occasionally generates new queries, which are sent to the author. FS reserves the right to correct grammar, improve clarity, and impose the FS style. Authors are responsible for content, including the spelling of personal and place names. FS reserves the right to refuse publication of articles that, upon repeated resubmission, do not meet stylistic standards. When copyediting is complete, the issue is produced.
4. OPEN ACCESS
Forest Systems is an Open Access Journal. All articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
There are no handling or page charges.
5. ETHIC RESPONSIBILITIES
Previously published material is not accepted. Authors are held responsible for obtaining permission for partial reproduction of materials (text, tables, figures) included in other publications, and for accurately quoting their origin. Authorization must be requested from the owner of this material.
Conflicts of interest: A conflict of interest exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain). Financial relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony) are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest. However, conflicts can occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion. Forest Systems expects authors to declare any commercial involvements that may represent a conflict of interest in connection with their articles.
Authorship. Following the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommendations (http://www.icmje.org), authorship must be based on the following four criteria:
i) Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
ii) Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
iii) Final approval of the version to be published; AND
iv) Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work by ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he or she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. Besides, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their coauthors.
All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged.
It is the authors´ collective responsibility, not the journal to which the work is submitted, to determine that all people named as authors meet all four criteria.
The corresponding author is the one individual who takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process. The corresponding author should be available throughout the submission and peer review process to respond to editorial queries in a timely way, and should be available after publication to respond to critiques of the work and cooperate with any requests from the journal for data or additional information should questions about the paper arise after publication.
6. SUBMISSION
Authors must submit manuscripts via the website of Forest Systems (http://www.inia.es/forestsystems). Authors may register on the site at any time, but they should register only once. During registration, authors choose a username and password. The security of manuscripts is protected by the username/password system. You may find instructions to upload a manuscript under the site SUBMITTING A MANUSCRIPT (JOURNAL HELP for authors). Please upload the entire manuscript, with tables and figures (on separate sheets but in the same document) and supplementary files, in Word format as a unique file. Separate figure files will be required later if the manuscript is accepted. A completed manuscript submission will be confirmed by e-mail.
Submission of a manuscript implies the following:
the work described has not been published previously in any language (except in a book of abstracts, in the proceedings of a scientific meeting or as part of a thesis);
the work is not under consideration for publication elsewhere;
publication of the work has been approved by all co-authors;
the authors agree to the automatic transfer of the copyright to the publisher if and when the manuscript is accepted for publication;
the manuscript will not be published elsewhere in any language without the consent of the copyright holders; and
written permission of the copyright holder was obtained by the authors for materials from other copyrighted sources.
Two supplementary files should also be uploaded:
COVER LETTER (mandatory): indicate the main aims of the manuscript, the type of paper (research paper, review paper, short communication), the novelty of the content, and convincing arguments of why FS should publish this paper.
Provide a list of four potential expert reviewers with full contact information and e-mail addresses. These reviewers must not have a conflict of interest with the authors (e.g. personal relationship or work in the same institution) or the paper content, and the Editorial Board may decline to contact any of the reviewers suggested by the authors.
Before submitting, please check that:
The manuscript was proofread by all the co-authors;
The language must be revised by a professional science editor or a native English speaking colleague if there is any doubt about the clarity of the language;
The structure of the manuscript follows the FS guidelines (line numbering, sections, reference presentation, etc.)
Your cover letter provides a short view of the main results and potential application of your findings; it should be easy to understand by non-specialists;
In case of resubmission, the reference of the initial submission is provided.
6.1. Revised manuscripts
Authors are required to submit their revised manuscripts accompanied by a letter containing a detailed (point-by-point) reply to the reviewers and editor’s comments. A revised manuscript will retain its original date of receipt only if it is received within two months of the date of return to the author. Revised papers returned after this interval will be treated as new submissions. Papers will not be accepted until all required minor changes have been incorporated into the document.
6.2. Manuscript preparation
Manuscripts should be written in Times New Roman 12-point font, with 1.5 line spacing. The four margins will be 2.5 cm. Section headings should be written 14-point font in bold print. All pages should be numbered consecutively, and line numbers should be printed on each page (starting with 1 on each page) to facilitate ease of reference for the reviewers. Each paragraph should begin with an indentation of 1-cm. Tables, figures and annexes must be included on separate sheets (but in the same Word document), one per page, following the References section. Separate figure files will be required later if the manuscript is accepted.
Language: Manuscripts should be written in concise, legible English, which must be carefully reviewed by the authors for correctness of language and content. English spelling can be British or American, but it must be consistent throughout. Authors whose first language is not English are strongly advised to have their manuscripts checked by a proficient third party prior to submission.
Papers reporting sequence data. Manuscripts containing primary nucleotide sequence data must be accompanied by (an) accession number(s) from an internationally available nucleotide database.
Papers reporting software. Software should be available for a period of two years after publication of the manuscript.
Papers reporting field research. Field research should indicate replications in sites and years in connexion to the addressed aims of the experiment(s). In many cases, several years (a minimum of three in general) may be required to account for all variations in factors that affect plant growth and development, in particular for those researches dealing with production and yield. Since the lack of this requirement can be cause of manuscript rejection during the preliminary inspection, if this recommendation is not fulfilled, arguments supporting the validity of the results must be stated and included in the letter addressed to the Editorial Office.
Research articles should not be longer than 28 pages (or 8,500 words), including front page, references, tables and figures, and excluding the supplementary material. Research articles should include a front page, an abstract, up to seven keywords and the abbreviations used. The main text should include the following sections (see suggested layout below): introduction; material and methods; results; discussion; acknowledgments; references; tables and figures; and annexes (supplementary material), if any.
Short communications and Resource communications should be no longer than 10 pages (or 3,500 words), including front page, references, tables and figures, and excluding supplementary material. Short and Resource Communications should contain a front page, an abstract, up to seven keywords and the abbreviations used. The main text should include the following sections: introduction; material and methods; results and discussion combined sections; acknowledgments; a shortened list of references; up to three tables and figures; and supplementary material, if any. The manuscript title must start as "Short communication" or “Resource communication”, respectively.
Review articles do not have page limitation or maximum number of references. They should include a front page (the manuscript title must contain the word "Review"); an abstract (not following the abstract structure used in research manuscripts, see 6.3.2 heading); up to seven keywords; abbreviations used; a variable main text (the introduction should be based on general coverage of the issue, followed by a critical assessment of the most important references); acknowledgments; references; tables/figures (encouraged); and supplementary material, if any. Reviews will also be submitted to the peer-review process.
6.3. Layout
The following layout is strongly recommended:
6.3.1. Front page.
The first page must include the following:
Title of the work. The title must be clear, short and concise. Avoid terms such as “Study of...”, “Observations...”, or “Contribution to...”. The title should preferably not exceed 20 words.
Authors´ names: We recommend hyphening in the case of more than one surname (e.g., Luisa M. Torres-Cerezo). When authors are associated with different institutions, each author should be marked with a superscript number indicating the corresponding author's mailing address.
Affiliations. Name and full postal address of the institution(s).
Name and full postal address of the institution(s).
Corresponding author´s e-mail address and telephone number.
Author contributions. Brief but clear account of the contributions of the different authors is mandatory. Contributions can be: conception or design; acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; drafting of the manuscript; critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content; statistical analysis; obtaining funding; administrative, technical, or material support; supervising the work; coordinating the research project, etc. (e.g., “Conceived and designed the experiments: DAB, MTN, AR and JHC. Performed the experiments: DAB, MTN, AR and JHC. Analyzed the data: DAB, MTN, AR and JHC. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: DAB and JHC. Wrote the paper: DAB and JHC”).
Number of tables and figures.
If any,
Funding. The sources of financing the study, if there were any, must also be shown. In studies which are sponsored, authors should indicate if they have had total access to the data and are responsible for the integrity and accuracy of their analysis.
Competing interests, if any (see point 5).
If any, number of supplementary tables and/or figures, with the following sentence: “Supplementary material (e.g. Table S1 and Fig. S1) accompanies the paper on FS’s website”. In the text, they will be cited as: “Table S1/Fig. S1 [supplementary]”.
Running title of the work, used in the heading of the pages of the printed article, should not exceed 90 characters (including spaces).
Funding. Indicate the sources of financing the study, or write “The author(s) received no specific funding for this work”.
Competing interests, if any (see point 4), or write “The authors have declared that no competing interests exist”
6.3.2. Abstract, keywords and abbreviations
Special attention should be paid to the title and abstract, as these will influence readers’ decisions to proceed with the text.
Abstract. The abstract length is 250 words maximum. The style must be concise and must not contain references. The structure must include the following parts:
(i) aim of study, set the goal or directly the specific objectives and, describe the relevance of the study;
(ii) area of study, specify the geographic area in which the study has been made;
(iii) material and methods, describe briefly materials and methods, crops or organisms involved must be identified, as well as soil type, chemicals, or other details which can be important for the interpretation of the results;
(iv) main results, list and discuss relevant results (including numeric values of experimental results);
(v) research highlights, one or two closing sentences with most relevant findings and implications.
* For review articles, authors do not need following this structure but in any case length is limited to 250 words.
Additional key words. A maximum of seven key words should be included. These should not repeat words that appear in the title.
Abbreviations used. Include a list of all non-standard abbreviations used in the paper and their meaning.
6.3.3. Text of the article
We strongly recommend that the text of the article should contain the following sections:
Introduction. The introduction should contain sufficient background information about the work to allow it to be placed in the context of other research and to allow the reader to understand the relevance, proposed objectives and evaluation of the results. The introduction should conclude with one or two sentences that define the objectives and the essence of the article.
Material and methods. Sufficient information should be provided to enable experiments to be repeated. For routine methods, a brief description and literature reference will be enough. New methods must be described in detail and, in the case of rarely used chemical products or equipment, the manufacturer’s name and address should be given.
Results. In general, this section should not include literature references; it should only include the results of the experiments. Interpretations of the experimental data should be reserved for the Discussion section. The explanations provided in the figure and table captions should not be repeated in the text.
Discussion. The discussion should not be limited to describe experimental results and drawing conclusions; it should also be analytical and interpretative and should establish an association between the results obtained and other published works. The discussion may describe conflicting opinions and the results of other authors and indicate the value of these results for future works. This section should conclude with a few sentences that summarise the most relevant conclusions and implications. Conclusions do not contain references or enumerated/bulleted paragraphs, but provide a brief and precise summary of the most important findings of the work, their limitations, importance and future research needs.
Avoid combining the Results and Discussion sections into a single section (except in the case of Short and Resource Communications). Forest Systems´ policy is to keep manuscripts merging the sections Results and Discussion only to those cases in which this practice is strictly necessary, or adds some value to the work. In these cases, we require a formal statement by the authors explaining their reasons to do it so.
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