Malacologica Bohemoslovaca

eISSN 1336-6939

Instructions to authors

Scope

Malacologica Bohemoslovaca accepts manuscripts on all aspects of the continental (terrestrial & freshwater) molluscs from the Western Palaearctic, with particular focus on Central Europe. These mainly include faunistics, systematics, molecular genetics, ecology, and palaeoecology.

More about the Malacologica Bohemoslovaca journal.

Manuscript preparation

Manuscripts can be written in English, Czech, and Slovak. If written in Czech or Slovak, English translations of title, abstract, keywords, and table and figure captions are required.

All manuscripts should be submitted typed in MS Word, Open Document Format or Rich Text Format. Text should be typed in Times New Roman, font-size 12, title in font-size 14, authors' addresses, captions to the tables and figures, and list of references in font-size 10. Maximum length of the paper is 25 pages (spacing 2). Longer studies can be published as a supplementum after agreement with the editor-in-chief.

Two categories of papers are published:

Research Papers: traditional research papers describing advances in knowledge and understanding based on original data and their analysis.

The first page of the manuscript should consist of: title (written in brief, bold type); Full authors' Names (in small caps) and their full postal address(es) and e-mails of all authors as follows: Institute of Botany, Plant Science and Biodiversity Center, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9, SK-84506 Bratislava, Slovakia, e-mail: tomas.cejka@savba.sk (e-mail is optional), https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6485-5660 (ORCID is optional and recommended).

This should be followed by: Abstract (max. 300 words) and keywords (max. 6 words) both required in English for all language mutations; main text; Acknowledgements; References; figure captions and tables (on separate pages). The main text should normally consist of: Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, and Discussion. English summary at the end of the text is encouraged, but not mandatory for papers in Czech and Slovak.

Faunistic Notes: these are brief reports on faunistic surveys or records that are of wide interest or importance.

The first page looks as in Research papers. The abstract should consist of just three or four sentences, detailing the area or species considered, the reason why this particular area or species was chosen, and the main finding of the study and its importance. Keywords should be provided. The main text does not contain headings; acknowledgements should be brief. The main text should contain information about the extent and date of the survey, sampling method(s), and details of identification of the collected material. A map of the sampling sites is encouraged. Prior surveys of the area or knowledge on species distribution should be cited and discussed where existent and relevant. References should be cited as in Research papers.

The results should be presented in table(s). Sampling sites must be listed in rows in a table with the following columns: description of site location, GPS coordinates of the site in decimal format with precision appropriate for the given sampling design, sampling date, and voucher information. Other columns may be added, it is recommended to provide description of the sampled habitat and information on who collected the samples. In the case of Faunistic notes presenting data on more than one species, the results should be presented in a second table, with species in rows and sampling sites in columns.

In cases of important records (typically a new record for the country or a very isolated record far from the known distribution), high quality photographs of voucher specimen(s) are highly recommended and may be required before the study is being accepted for publication.

References

Citation of references in the text. Authors in small caps as: Beran 2003, Dvořák & Horsák 2001, Juřičková et al. 2001.

References. See examples bellow. Journals should be typed in full names. Storage place type for unpublished reports and diploma thesis. For papers in conferential languages, all non-conferential citations in references must be translated in brackets into English. DOI and ISBN is required, when available.

CSL reference template for the Malacologica Bohemoslovaca style. (versions)

Examples of references

    Journal article:

Beran L., 2003: Točenka veleústá (Valvata macrostoma) [Large-mouthed valve snail (Valvata macrostoma)]. – Ochrana přírody, 58: 80–81. (in Czech)

Dvořák L. & Horsák M., 2001: Vitrea transsylvanica – the new species of a Carpathian snail in the Bohemian Forest. – Silva Gabreta, 6: 165–170.

Juřičková L., Horsák M. & Beran L., 2001: Checklist of the molluscs (Mollusca) of the Czech Republic. – Acta Societatis Zoologicae Bohemiae, 65: 25–40.

Beran L., Horsák M. & Hofman S., 2019: First records of Viviparus  acerosus Bourguignat, 1862 (Gastropoda: Viviparidae) from the Czech Republic outside its native range. – Folia Malacologica, 27(3): 223–229. https://doi.org/10.12657/folmal.027.021

Podroužková Š., Drvotová M., Říhová D. B. & Juřičková L., 2021: Měkkýši Přírodní rezervace Prokopské údolí v Praze [Molluscs of the Prokopské údolí Nature Reserve in Prague]. – Malacologica Bohemoslovaca, 20: 37–55. https://doi.org/10.5817/MaB2021-20-37 (in Czech)

    Book:

Pfleger V., 1999: České názvy živočichů III. Měkkýši (Mollusca) [Czech terms of animals III. Molluscs (Mollusca)]. – Národní muzeum, Praha, 108 pp. ISBN 80-7036-099-2 (in Czech)

    Contribution published in a book:

Petersen A., Peel J. & Sidon B., 1982: Snails of the genus Anisus. – In: Molluscan fauna of the Czech Republic, Buček J. & Winston L. (eds) Academia, Praha, pp. 145–158.

    Article published in a collection:

Dvořák L., 2004: Vodní měkkýši Lipna [Freshwater molluscs of the Lipno Reservoir]. – In: Aktuality šumavského výzkumu II, Dvořák L. & Šustr P. (eds) sborník z konference, Srní 4.–7. října 2004: 176–179. (in Czech)

Images and tables

Figures may be inserted into the text file or submitted separately. When submitted in the text file, managing editor will request images and tables in separate files. The figures should be prepared so that the minimum resolution in the final size is at least 600 dpi. Any lettering should be in sans-serif font and the final size after insertion into the text should range between 10–14.

Image and table captions should be included at the end of the manuscript. All tables and figures must be mentioned in the text (in Czech and Slovak: Obr. 1, Tab. 2–3 etc., in English: Fig. 1, Tab. 2–3) and numbered in the order of mention.

Table captions will be printed above tables, figure captions below figures.

Examples of captions:

Fig. 1. View on a locality under study.

Table 1. List of recorded species.

Nomenclature

Authors must strictly adhere to The Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Malacologica Bohemoslovaca can publish nomenclatorial acts, including descriptions of new taxa, new substitute names, and new synonyms, in the sense of ICZN (1999: Art. 8,9). However, because the journal is published online only, the manuscript that includes nomenclatorial acts has to be registered in Zoobank. This will be done by the managing editor before the final version of the manuscript is released on the journal website. Authors of papers containing nomenclatural acts should indicate this when submitting the manuscript.

Romanization of alphabets other than Latin

Names of people and places, as well as references (paper, journal and book titles, publisher names) originally in other alphabets than Latin should be romanized. Use BGN/PCGN system for romanization of Russian, Belarusian, and Macedonian. Use Ukrainian National transliteration for Ukrainian and Bulgarian official system for romanization of Bulgarian. Use Gaj's Latin alphabet for romanization of Serbian. Use ELOT 743 system for transliteration of Greek. For other alphabets, choose an internationally recognized standard for romanization of names, but always include the name in the original alphabet in brackets upon first mention. For citations, use romanized author names, but include the original paper and journal titles in the references list followed by translation in square brackets.

Submission

Manuscripts in electronic version (preferably by e-mail or a file-sharing service for larger files) should be sent to the editor-in-chief:

Lucie JUŘIČKOVÁ
Dept. of Invertebrate Zoology, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Viničná 7, CZ-12844, Prague 2, Czechia
e-mail: lucie.jurickova@seznam.cz

Papers are considered on the understanding that their substance is not already published or being offered for publication elsewhere.
There are no publication fees. Neither authors nor readers have to pay fees.

Peer review and proofing

All papers are peer-reviewed typically by two reviewers (list of reviewers). Peer review is defined as obtaining advice on individual manuscripts from reviewers expert in the field. Peer review process is closed and single-blind, the authors do not know who the reviewers are. Malacologica Bohemoslovaca does not guarantee manuscript acceptance or very short peer review times.

Authors have got a possibility to make a proof. Proofs will be sent (by e-mail) to the corresponding author only; it is assumed that only printer's errors and factual mistakes will be corrected.

Copyright

Malacologica Bohemoslovaca is open access and open content journal. Authors are required to ensure that they do not infringe any existing copyright or any other third party rights. Authors who publish in Malacologica Bohemoslovaca retain copyright to their work. The authors must to agree to the following license agreement: Anyone is free to copy, distribute, transmit and to adapt the work under the following conditions: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). This is identical to the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC-BY).

Authors are allowed to deposit all versions (submitted version, accepted version, published version) in an institutional or other repository of the author’s choice without embargo.

Licensing terms is indicated on all published articles, both HTML (for all articles) and PDFs (in the text since 2022, in XMP metadata standard for all articles).

Correction and retraction policy

In case of errors uncovered after publication, corrections by the authors may be issued. These will be attached to the end of the .pdf of the paper and the correction will be referred to on the front page of the paper.

Papers may be retracted at the discretion of editor-in-chief upon request from the authors (all authors must agree with the retraction), due to science misconduct (eg. plagiarism, manipulated data) or when it is demonstrated beyond doubt that their main conclusions are incorrect. The paper will be then watermarked as retracted, but will remain accessible at the journal’s website. Retraction notice detailing the cause of the retraction will be attached to the end of the .pdf of the paper.

Comments on papers from readers are welcome when issues with published papers are uncovered (suspected errors in data, missing piece of information, errors in analysis or interpretation) but deemed insufficient for a retraction. These will be peer-reviewed and, if accepted for publication, a link to the comment will be added on the front page of the original paper .pdf.