Skip to main content
Log in

Submission guidelines

Contents

Instructions for authors

General information

The Journal of Ethology is an official publication of the Japan Ethological Society. Publication in the journal is open to any person, regardless of membership status. However, members of the society enjoy various advantages.

Four types of papers are accepted by the editors: reviews, video articles, articles, and short communications. Short communications should appear more quickly than other papers in printed journals. A video article should be an original paper that contains a video image of animal behavior. ESM video clips (see below) are accessible by journal subscribers, whereas video clips of a video article ensure open access at the independent website MOMO (Make Our Movies Open: http://www.momo-p.com/index-e.html). MOMO is an electronic library of videos of animal behavior, managed by the Japan Ethological Society and other collaborators from various scientific societies. At the initial submission of a video article, videos should be submitted as supplementary materials via Editorial Manager. Upon acceptance, the Journal of Ethology video editor will provide guidance on submitting videos to MOMO and adapting the manuscript to the video article style.

The Journal of Ethology requires that all datasets on which the conclusions of the paper rely be made available to readers. The data, where possible and applicable, should be uploaded as 'Supplementary Material (electronic supplemental material)' when submitting the manuscript. Alternatively, authors may either deposit data in publicly accessible repositories or make them available to readers upon request. Information on where the data can be found should be included as a Data Availability Statement at the end of the text (for further information, please refer to the "Research data policy" section below).

Page length

The maximum recommended length of a review, an article (including a video article), and a short communication is 16, 8, and 4 printed pages, respectively. These limits approximately correspond to 10,000, 5,000, and 2,500 words (excluding tables and figures), respectively. At manuscript submission in Editorial Manager, authors are required to state the number of words contained in their manuscript.

Manuscript submission

Authors should submit their manuscripts online. Electronic submission substantially reduces the editorial processing and reviewing times and shortens overall publication times. Please connect directly to the site and upload all of your manuscript files following the instructions given on the screen.

Authors who are submitting a manuscript online for the first time should read the Author Tutorial on the Editorial Manager site.

Together with the manuscript, authors should submit a cover letter. A cover letter should provide the following information.

  • (1) Explanation of any overlap with other articles published or in press in journals, books or conference proceedings, or in preparation. The Journal of Ethology will not consider submissions that have been published elsewhere.
  • (2) A statement that all coauthors know that this manuscript has been submitted for publication.

Authors may suggest preferred or nonpreferred reviewers. Note, however, that the final designation of reviewers is at the discretion of the Editors.

Manuscripts that are returned to the authors for revision should be submitted within three months of receipt; otherwise the revised manuscript may be regarded as a new submission.

Submit online

Editorial Office

  • Chief Editor Dr. Takeshi Takegaki
  • Graduate School of Fisheries and Environmental Sciences, Nagasaki University, Japan
  • E-mail: takegaki(at)nagasaki-u.ac.jp (replace "(at)" with "@" to use this e-mail address)

Manuscript preparation

New Submissions

There are no strict formatting requirements at submission, but the manuscript must be written in English, and all manuscripts must contain the essential elements needed to convey your manuscript, for example, Title page, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, References, Tables, Figure Legends, and Figures, in this order. If your article includes any Videos and/or other Supplementary material, this should be included in your initial submission for peer review purposes. Divide the article into clearly defined sections. References can be in any style or format as long as the style is consistent, but the style used by the journal will be applied to the revised submission (see, References).

Revised submissions

Should your manuscript reach revision stage, the paper needs to be formatted in the correct Journal of Ethology format. For revised manuscripts, two versions of the main text should be submitted: (1) a first file including highlighted/tracked changes and (2) a second file including a clean version. Authors should also upload a list of responses to the reviewer comments.

In MS-Word files the text should be double-spaced with 3-cm margins and set in A4 size, and lines should be numbered consecutively through the entire text. Pages should also be numbered consecutively and arranged in the following order:

  • Title page (including title of paper; the names and affiliations of all authors; total text pages; numbers of tables and figures; the e-mail address, telephone number(s) of the corresponding author; and the 16-digit ORCID of the author(s), if available)
  • Abstract (no more than 100 words for short communications and 200 words for other papers)
  • Five to eight Key words
  • Text, divided into the following sections, Introduction, Study area (if necessary), Materials and methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, Data availability statement, References, tables, and figure legends. Figures should be prepared in separate files, not pasted into text pages.
  • Your sampling and experimental method should be described in sufficient detail. Any methodological biases that might affect the generalizability of the results should be clarified in the Methods section and addressed in the Discussion section. We recommend referring to the STRANGE framework (Webster & Rutz 2020) for more information on these issues. Webster, M. M. & Rutz, C. (2020) How STRANGE are your study animals? Nature 582, 337-340. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01751-5

Authors should consult recent issues for details of style and presentation. Genus and species names should be in italics.

References

References should be cited in the text by the author and year. The reference list at the end of the paper should include only works cited in the text and should be arranged alphabetically by the name of the first author. Citations of "unpublished results" or papers "in preparation" should be included in the text but not in the reference list.

References should be cited as follows: journal papers — names and initials of all authors, year in parentheses, full title, journal as abbreviated in accordance with international practice, volume number, first and last page numbers; books — names and initials of all authors, year, chapter title, names and initials of all editors, full title, edition, publisher, place of publication.

  • Example of a journal paper in the reference list:

    Tanaka T, Hashimoto H, Tanida H, Yoshimoto T (1995) Studies on the visual acuity of sheep using shape discrimination learning. J Ethol 13:69-75

    When citing articles that have been published only online, the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) of the cited literature should be added at the end of the reference in question.

    Randler C (2007) Risk assessment by crow phenotypes in a hybrid zone. J Ethol. doi: 10.1007/s10164-007-0062-z

  • Example of a book:

    Hölldobler B, Wilson EO (1990) The ants. Springer, Berlin

  • Example of a chapter in a book:

    Noirot C (1992) Sexual castes and reproductive strategies in termites. In: Engels W (ed) Social insects. Springer, Berlin, pp 5-35

Responsibility for the accuracy of bibliographic data rests entirely with the author.

Tables and figures

Tables must be numbered consecutively with arabic numerals and should have a title explaining any abbreviation used in that table. Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters.

Illustrations must be restricted to the minimum needed to clarify the text. All figures (photographs, graphs or diagrams) should be cited in the text, and numbered consecutively throughout. Figure parts should be identified by lower-case roman letters (a, b, etc.). If illustrations are supplied with uppercase labeling, lower-case letters will still be used in the figure legends and citations.

Figure legends must be brief, self-sufficient explanations of the illustrations. The legends should be placed at the end of the text.

Size of figures

The figures, including legends, should either match the column width (84 mm) or the print area of 174 × 234 mm. The publisher reserves the right to reduce or enlarge illustrations.

Line drawings

Inscriptions should be legible, with initial capital letters and appropriately scaled to the size of the drawing. Vector graphics stored in EPS, with a preview in TIFF, is the preferred format. Fonts used in the vector graphics must be included. Please do not draw with hairlines. The minimum line width is 0.2 mm (i.e., 0.567 pt) relative to the final size. Scanned line drawings should be digitized with a resolution of 800 dpi relative to the final figure size.

Halftone illustrations (black and white and color)

Magnification should be indicated by scale bars. For scanned halftone illustrations, a resolution of 300 dpi is usually sufficient. TIFF is the preferred file format.

Color illustrations

Save color illustrations as RGB (8 bits per channel) in TIFF format.

Artwork Guidelines

Electronic Supplementary Material

Electronic Supplementary Material (ESM) for a paper will be published in the electronic edition of this journal provided the material is:

  • submitted in electronic form together with the manuscript
  • accepted after peer review

ESM may consist of:

  • information that cannot be printed: animations, video clips, sound recordings (use QuickTime, .avi, .mpeg, animated GIFs, or any other common file format)

  • information that is more convenient in electronic form: sequences, spectral data, etc.

  • large quantities of original data that relate to the paper, e.g. additional tables, large numbers of illustrations (color and black & white), etc.

Legends must be brief, self-sufficient explanations of the ESM. ESM is to be numbered and referred to as S1, S2, etc.

After acceptance for publication, ESM will be published as received from the author in the online version only. Reference will be given in the printed version.

Research Data Policy and Data Availability Statements

This journal operates a type 2 research data policy (life sciences).

The journal strongly encourages that all datasets on which the conclusions of the paper rely should be available to readers. We encourage authors to ensure that their datasets are either deposited in publicly available repositories (where available and appropriate) or presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files whenever possible. Please see Springer Nature’s information on recommended repositories.

List of Repositories

Research Data Policy

General repositories - for all types of research data - such as figshare and Dryad may be used where appropriate.

Datasets that are assigned digital object identifiers (DOIs) by a data repository may be cited in the reference list. Data citations should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite: authors, title, publisher (repository name), identifier.

DataCite

Where a widely established research community expectation for data archiving in public repositories exists, submission to a community-endorsed, public repository is mandatory. Persistent identifiers (such as DOIs and accession numbers) for relevant datasets must be provided in the paper.

If the journal that you’re submitting to uses double-blind peer review and you are providing reviewers with access to your data (for example via a repository link, supplementary information or data on request), it is strongly suggested that the authorship in the data is also blinded. There are data repositories that can assist with this and/or will create a link to mask the authorship of your data.

For the following types of data set, submission to a community-endorsed, public repository is mandatory:

Mandatory depositionSuitable repositories
Protein sequencesUniprot
DNA and RNA sequencesGenbank

DNA DataBank of Japan (DDBJ)

EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (ENA)

DNA and RNA sequencing dataNCBI Trace Archive

NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA)

Genetic polymorphismsdbSNP

dbVar

European Variation Archive (EVA)

Linked genotype and phenotype datadbGAP

The European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA)

Macromolecular structureWorldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB)

Biological Magnetic Resonance Data Bank (BMRB)

Electron Microscopy Data Bank (EMDB)

Microarray data (must be MIAME compliant)Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO)

ArrayExpress

Crystallographic data for small moleculesCambridge Structural Database

For more information:

Research Data Policy Frequently Asked Questions

Data availability

The journal encourages authors to provide a statement of Data availability in their article. Data availability statements should include information on where data supporting the results reported in the article can be found, including, where applicable, hyperlinks to publicly archived datasets analysed or generated during the study. Data availability statements can also indicate whether data are available on request from the authors and where no data are available, if appropriate.

Data Availability statements can take one of the following forms (or a combination of more than one if required for multiple datasets):

  • 1. The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT WEB LINK TO DATASETS]

  • 2. The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due [REASON WHY DATA ARE NOT PUBLIC] but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

  • 3. The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

  • 4. Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
  • 5. All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].

More examples of template data availability statements, which include examples of openly available and restricted access datasets, are available:

Data availability statements

Authors who need help understanding our data sharing policies, help finding a suitable data repository, or help organising and sharing research data can access our Author Support portal for additional guidance.

After Acceptance

Upon acceptance of your article you will receive a link to the special Author Query Application at Springer’s web page where you can sign the Copyright Transfer Statement online and indicate whether you wish to order OpenChoice and offprints. Once the Author Query Application has been completed, your article will be processed and you will receive the proofs.

Proofreading

Proofreading is the responsibility of the author. The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting and conversion errors and the completeness and accuracy of the text, tables and figures.Substantial changes in content, e.g., new results, corrected values, title and authorship are not allowed without the approval of the responsible editor. In such a case please contact the Editorial Office before returning the proofs to the publisher. After online publication, corrections can be made only in exceptional cases and in the form of an Erratum, which will be hyperlinked to the article.

Online First

Papers will be published online about one week after receipt of the corrected proofs. Papers published online can already be cited by their DOI. After release of the printed version, the paper can also be cited by issue and page numbers.

Open Choice

Open Choice allows you to publish open access in more than 1850 Springer Nature journals, making your research more visible and accessible immediately on publication.

Article processing charges (APCs) vary by journal – view the full list

Benefits:

  • Increased researcher engagement: Open Choice enables access by anyone with an internet connection, immediately on publication.
  • Higher visibility and impact: In Springer hybrid journals, OA articles are accessed 4 times more often on average, and cited 1.7 more times on average*.

  • Easy compliance with funder and institutional mandates: Many funders require open access publishing, and some take compliance into account when assessing future grant applications.

It is easy to find funding to support open access – please see our funding and support pages for more information.

*) Within the first three years of publication. Springer Nature hybrid journal OA impact analysis, 2018.

Open Choice

Funding and Support pages

Copyright and license term – CC BY

Open Choice articles do not require transfer of copyright as the copyright remains with the author. In opting for open access, the author(s) agree to publish the article under the Creative Commons Attribution License.

Find more about the license agreement

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

This journal is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) the journal will follow the COPE guidelines on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct.

Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal, the professionalism of scientific authorship, and ultimately the entire scientific endeavour. Maintaining integrity of the research and its presentation is helped by following the rules of good scientific practice, which include*:

  • The manuscript should not be submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.
  • The submitted work should be original and should not have been published elsewhere in any form or language (partially or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work. (Please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the concerns about text-recycling (‘self-plagiarism’).
  • A single study should not be split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time (i.e. ‘salami-slicing/publishing’).
  • Concurrent or secondary publication is sometimes justifiable, provided certain conditions are met. Examples include: translations or a manuscript that is intended for a different group of readers.
  • Results should be presented clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation (including image based manipulation). Authors should adhere to discipline-specific rules for acquiring, selecting and processing data.
  • No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own (‘plagiarism’). Proper acknowledgements to other works must be given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized and/or paraphrased), quotation marks (to indicate words taken from another source) are used for verbatim copying of material, and permissions secured for material that is copyrighted.

Important note: the journal may use software to screen for plagiarism.

  • Authors should make sure they have permissions for the use of software, questionnaires/(web) surveys and scales in their studies (if appropriate).
  • Research articles and non-research articles (e.g. Opinion, Review, and Commentary articles) must cite appropriate and relevant literature in support of the claims made. Excessive and inappropriate self-citation or coordinated efforts among several authors to collectively self-cite is strongly discouraged.
  • Authors should avoid untrue statements about an entity (who can be an individual person or a company) or descriptions of their behavior or actions that could potentially be seen as personal attacks or allegations about that person.
  • Research that may be misapplied to pose a threat to public health or national security should be clearly identified in the manuscript (e.g. dual use of research). Examples include creation of harmful consequences of biological agents or toxins, disruption of immunity of vaccines, unusual hazards in the use of chemicals, weaponization of research/technology (amongst others).
  • Authors are strongly advised to ensure the author group, the Corresponding Author, and the order of authors are all correct at submission. Adding and/or deleting authors during the revision stages is generally not permitted, but in some cases may be warranted. Reasons for changes in authorship should be explained in detail. Please note that changes to authorship cannot be made after acceptance of a manuscript.

*All of the above are guidelines and authors need to make sure to respect third parties rights such as copyright and/or moral rights.

Upon request authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results presented. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc. Sensitive information in the form of confidential or proprietary data is excluded.

If there is suspicion of misbehavior or alleged fraud the Journal and/or Publisher will carry out an investigation following COPE guidelines. If, after investigation, there are valid concerns, the author(s) concerned will be contacted under their given e-mail address and given an opportunity to address the issue. Depending on the situation, this may result in the Journal’s and/or Publisher’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:

  • If the manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.
  • If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction:

    - an erratum/correction may be placed with the article

    - an expression of concern may be placed with the article

    - or in severe cases retraction of the article may occur.

The reason will be given in the published erratum/correction, expression of concern or retraction note. Please note that retraction means that the article is maintained on the platform, watermarked “retracted” and the explanation for the retraction is provided in a note linked to the watermarked article.

  • The author’s institution may be informed
  • A notice of suspected transgression of ethical standards in the peer review system may be included as part of the author’s and article’s bibliographic record.

Fundamental errors

Authors have an obligation to correct mistakes once they discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their published article. The author(s) is/are requested to contact the journal and explain in what sense the error is impacting the article. A decision on how to correct the literature will depend on the nature of the error. This may be a correction or retraction. The retraction note should provide transparency which parts of the article are impacted by the error.

Suggesting / excluding reviewers

Authors are welcome to suggest suitable reviewers and/or request the exclusion of certain individuals when they submit their manuscripts. When suggesting reviewers, authors should make sure they are totally independent and not connected to the work in any way. It is strongly recommended to suggest a mix of reviewers from different countries and different institutions. When suggesting reviewers, the Corresponding Author must provide an institutional email address for each suggested reviewer, or, if this is not possible to include other means of verifying the identity such as a link to a personal homepage, a link to the publication record or a researcher or author ID in the submission letter. Please note that the Journal may not use the suggestions, but suggestions are appreciated and may help facilitate the peer review process.

Authorship principles

These guidelines describe authorship principles and good authorship practices to which prospective authors should adhere to.

Authorship clarified

The Journal and Publisher assume all authors agreed with the content and that all gave explicit consent to submit and that they obtained consent from the responsible authorities at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out, before the work is submitted.

The Publisher does not prescribe the kinds of contributions that warrant authorship. It is recommended that authors adhere to the guidelines for authorship that are applicable in their specific research field. In absence of specific guidelines it is recommended to adhere to the following guidelines*:

All authors whose names appear on the submission

1) made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work;

2) drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content;

3) approved the version to be published; and

4) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

* Based on/adapted from:

ICMJE, Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors,

Transparency in authors’ contributions and responsibilities to promote integrity in scientific publication, McNutt at all, PNAS February 27, 2018

Disclosures and declarations

All authors are requested to include information regarding sources of funding, financial or non-financial interests, study-specific approval by the appropriate ethics committee for research involving humans and/or animals, informed consent if the research involved human participants, and a statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals (as appropriate).

The decision whether such information should be included is not only dependent on the scope of the journal, but also the scope of the article. Work submitted for publication may have implications for public health or general welfare and in those cases it is the responsibility of all authors to include the appropriate disclosures and declarations.

Data transparency

All authors are requested to make sure that all data and materials as well as software application or custom code support their published claims and comply with field standards. Please note that journals may have individual policies on (sharing) research data in concordance with disciplinary norms and expectations.

Role of the Corresponding Author

One author is assigned as Corresponding Author and acts on behalf of all co-authors and ensures that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately addressed.

The Corresponding Author is responsible for the following requirements:

  • ensuring that all listed authors have approved the manuscript before submission, including the names and order of authors;
  • managing all communication between the Journal and all co-authors, before and after publication;*
  • providing transparency on re-use of material and mention any unpublished material (for example manuscripts in press) included in the manuscript in a cover letter to the Editor;
  • making sure disclosures, declarations and transparency on data statements from all authors are included in the manuscript as appropriate (see above).

* The requirement of managing all communication between the journal and all co-authors during submission and proofing may be delegated to a Contact or Submitting Author. In this case please make sure the Corresponding Author is clearly indicated in the manuscript.

Author contributions

In absence of specific instructions and in research fields where it is possible to describe discrete efforts, the Publisher recommends authors to include contribution statements in the work that specifies the contribution of every author in order to promote transparency. These contributions should be listed at the separate title page.

Examples of such statement(s) are shown below:

• Free text:

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by [full name], [full name] and [full name]. The first draft of the manuscript was written by [full name] and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Example: CRediT taxonomy:

• Conceptualization: [full name], …; Methodology: [full name], …; Formal analysis and investigation: [full name], …; Writing - original draft preparation: [full name, …]; Writing - review and editing: [full name], …; Funding acquisition: [full name], …; Resources: [full name], …; Supervision: [full name],….

For review articles where discrete statements are less applicable a statement should be included who had the idea for the article, who performed the literature search and data analysis, and who drafted and/or critically revised the work.

For articles that are based primarily on the student’s dissertation or thesis, it is recommended that the student is usually listed as principal author:

A Graduate Student’s Guide to Determining Authorship Credit and Authorship Order, APA Science Student Council 2006

Affiliation

The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address may additionally be stated. Addresses will not be updated or changed after publication of the article.

Changes to authorship

Authors are strongly advised to ensure the correct author group, the Corresponding Author, and the order of authors at submission. Changes of authorship by adding or deleting authors, and/or changes in Corresponding Author, and/or changes in the sequence of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript.

  • Please note that author names will be published exactly as they appear on the accepted submission!

Please make sure that the names of all authors are present and correctly spelled, and that addresses and affiliations are current.

Adding and/or deleting authors at revision stage are generally not permitted, but in some cases it may be warranted. Reasons for these changes in authorship should be explained. Approval of the change during revision is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. Please note that journals may have individual policies on adding and/or deleting authors during revision stage.

Author identification

Authors are recommended to use their ORCID ID when submitting an article for consideration or acquire an ORCID ID via the submission process.

Deceased or incapacitated authors

For cases in which a co-author dies or is incapacitated during the writing, submission, or peer-review process, and the co-authors feel it is appropriate to include the author, co-authors should obtain approval from a (legal) representative which could be a direct relative.

Authorship issues or disputes

In the case of an authorship dispute during peer review or after acceptance and publication, the Journal will not be in a position to investigate or adjudicate. Authors will be asked to resolve the dispute themselves. If they are unable the Journal reserves the right to withdraw a manuscript from the editorial process or in case of a published paper raise the issue with the authors’ institution(s) and abide by its guidelines.

Confidentiality

Authors should treat all communication with the Journal as confidential which includes correspondence with direct representatives from the Journal such as Editors-in-Chief and/or Handling Editors and reviewers’ reports unless explicit consent has been received to share information.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

To ensure objectivity and transparency in research and to ensure that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct have been followed, authors should include information regarding sources of funding, potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial), informed consent if the research involved human participants, and a statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals.

Authors should include the following statements (if applicable) in a separate section entitled “Compliance with Ethical Standards” when submitting a paper:

  • Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest
  • Research involving Human Participants and/or Animals
  • Informed consent

Please note that standards could vary slightly per journal dependent on their peer review policies (i.e. single or double blind peer review) as well as per journal subject discipline. Before submitting your article check the instructions following this section carefully.

The corresponding author should be prepared to collect documentation of compliance with ethical standards and send if requested during peer review or after publication.

The Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned guidelines. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned guidelines.

Competing Interests

Authors are requested to disclose interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Interests within the last 3 years of beginning the work (conducting the research and preparing the work for submission) should be reported. Interests outside the 3-year time frame must be disclosed if they could reasonably be perceived as influencing the submitted work. Disclosure of interests provides a complete and transparent process and helps readers form their own judgments of potential bias. This is not meant to imply that a financial relationship with an organization that sponsored the research or compensation received for consultancy work is inappropriate.

Editorial Board Members and Editors are required to declare any competing interests and may be excluded from the peer review process if a competing interest exists. In addition, they should exclude themselves from handling manuscripts in cases where there is a competing interest. This may include – but is not limited to – having previously published with one or more of the authors, and sharing the same institution as one or more of the authors. Where an Editor or Editorial Board Member is on the author list they must declare this in the competing interests section on the submitted manuscript. If they are an author or have any other competing interest regarding a specific manuscript, another Editor or member of the Editorial Board will be assigned to assume responsibility for overseeing peer review. These submissions are subject to the exact same review process as any other manuscript. Editorial Board Members are welcome to submit papers to the journal. These submissions are not given any priority over other manuscripts, and Editorial Board Member status has no bearing on editorial consideration.

Interests that should be considered and disclosed but are not limited to the following:

Funding: Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number) and/or research support (including salaries, equipment, supplies, reimbursement for attending symposia, and other expenses) by organizations that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript.

Employment: Recent (while engaged in the research project), present or anticipated employment by any organization that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript. This includes multiple affiliations (if applicable).

Financial interests: Stocks or shares in companies (including holdings of spouse and/or children) that may gain or lose financially through publication of this manuscript; consultation fees or other forms of remuneration from organizations that may gain or lose financially; patents or patent applications whose value may be affected by publication of this manuscript.

It is difficult to specify a threshold at which a financial interest becomes significant, any such figure is necessarily arbitrary, so one possible practical guideline is the following: "Any undeclared financial interest that could embarrass the author were it to become publicly known after the work was published."

Non-financial interests: In addition, authors are requested to disclose interests that go beyond financial interests that could impart bias on the work submitted for publication such as professional interests, personal relationships or personal beliefs (amongst others). Examples include, but are not limited to: position on editorial board, advisory board or board of directors or other type of management relationships; writing and/or consulting for educational purposes; expert witness; mentoring relations; and so forth.

Primary research articles require a disclosure statement. Review articles present an expert synthesis of evidence and may be treated as an authoritative work on a subject. Review articles therefore require a disclosure statement.Other article types such as editorials, book reviews, comments (amongst others) may, dependent on their content, require a disclosure statement. If you are unclear whether your article type requires a disclosure statement, please contact the Editor-in-Chief.

Please note that, in addition to the above requirements, funding information (given that funding is a potential competing interest (as mentioned above)) needs to be disclosed upon submission of the manuscript in the peer review system. This information will automatically be added to the Record of CrossMark, however it is not added to the manuscript itself. Under ‘summary of requirements’ (see below) funding information should be included in the ‘Declarations’ section.

Summary of requirements

The above should be summarized in a statement and placed in a ‘Declarations’ section before the reference list under a heading of ‘Funding’ and/or ‘Competing interests’. Other declarations include Ethics approval, Consent, Data, Material and/or Code availability and Authors’ contribution statements.

Please see the various examples of wording below and revise/customize the sample statements according to your own needs.

When all authors have the same (or no) conflicts and/or funding it is sufficient to use one blanket statement.

Examples of statements to be used when funding has been received:

  • Partial financial support was received from [...]
  • The research leading to these results received funding from […] under Grant Agreement No[…].
  • This study was funded by […]
  • This work was supported by […] (Grant numbers […] and […]

Examples of statements to be used when there is no funding:

  • The authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work.
  • No funding was received to assist with the preparation of this manuscript.
  • No funding was received for conducting this study.
  • No funds, grants, or other support was received.

Examples of statements to be used when there are interests to declare:

  • Financial interests: Author A has received research support from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company Wand owns stock in Company X. Author C is consultant to company Y.

    Non-financial interests: Author C is an unpaid member of committee Z.

  • Financial interests: The authors declare they have no financial interests.

    Non-financial interests: Author A is on the board of directors of Y and receives no compensation as member of the board of directors.

  • Financial interests: Author A received a speaking fee from Y for Z. Author B receives a salary from association X. X where s/he is the Executive Director.

    Non-financial interests: none.

  • Financial interests: Author A and B declare they have no financial interests. Author C has received speaker and consultant honoraria from Company M and Company N. Dr. C has received speaker honorarium and research funding from Company M and Company O. Author D has received travel support from Company O.

    Non-financial interests: Author D has served on advisory boards for Company M, Company N and Company O.

Examples of statements to be used when authors have nothing to declare:

  • The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
  • The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.
  • All authors certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.
  • The authors have no financial or proprietary interests in any material discussed in this article.

Authors are responsible for correctness of the statements provided in the manuscript. See also Authorship Principles. The Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to reject submissions that do not meet the guidelines described in this section.

Research involving animals, their data or biological material

The welfare of animals (vertebrate and higher invertebrate) used for research, education and testing must be respected. Authors should supply detailed information on the ethical treatment of their animals in their submission. For that purpose they may use the ARRIVE checklist which is designed to be used when submitting manuscripts describing animal research.

For studies involving client-owned animals, authors must also document informed consent from the client or owner and adherence to a high standard (best practice) of veterinary care.

Authors are recommended to comply with:

• The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Policy Statement on Research Involving Species at Risk of Extinction and consult the IUCN red list index of threatened species.

Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora

When reporting results authors should indicate:

• … that the studies have been approved by a research ethics committee at the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted. Please provide the name of ethics committee and relevant permit number;

• … whether the legal requirements or guidelines in the country and/or state or province for the care and use of animals have been followed.

Researchers from countries without any legal requirements or guidelines voluntarily should refer to the following sites for guidance:

The Basel Declaration describes fundamental principles of using animals in biomedical research

The International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) provides ethical guidelines for researchers as well as editors and reviewers

– The Association for the study of Animal Behaviour describes ethical guidelines for the treatment of animals in research and teaching

– The International Association of Veterinary Editors’ Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics provide guidelines for authors on animal ethics and welfare

Researchers may wish to consult the most recent (ethical) guidelines available from relevant taxon-oriented professional societies.

If a study was granted exemption or did not require ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript.

Summary of requirements

The above should be summarized in a statement and placed in a ‘Declarations’ section before the reference list under a heading of ‘Ethics approval’.

Please see the various examples of wording below and revise/customize the sample statements according to your own needs.

Examples of statements to be used when ethics approval has been obtained:

• All procedures involving animals were in compliance with the European Community Council Directive of 24 November 1986, and ethical approval was granted by the Kocaeli University Ethics Committee (No. 29 12 2014, Kocaeli, Turkey).

• All procedures performed in the study were in accordance with the ARVO Statement for Use of Animals in Ophthalmic Vision and Research. The ethical principles established by the National Institutes of Health Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (NIH Publications No. 8523, revised 2011) were followed. The research protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee on Animal Use (Protocol No. 06174/14) of FCAV/Unesp, Jaboticabal.

• This study involved a questionnaire-based survey of farmers as well as blood sampling from their animals. The study protocol was assessed and approved by Haramaya University, research and extension office. Participants provided their verbal informed consent for animal blood sampling as well as for the related survey questions. Collection of blood samples was carried out by veterinarians adhering to the regulations and guidelines on animal husbandry and welfare.

• All brown bear captures and handling were approved by the Ethical Committee on Animal Experiments, Uppsala, Sweden (Application C18/15) and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency in compliance with Swedish laws and regulations.

• The ethics governing the use and conduct of experiments on animals were strictly observed, and the experimental protocol was approved by the University of Maiduguri Senate committee on Medical Research ethics. Proper permit and consent were obtained from the Maiduguri abattoir management, before the faecal samples of the cattle and camels slaughtered in this abattoir were used for this experiment.

Examples of statements to be used when no ethical approval is required/exemption granted:

• No approval of research ethics committees was required to accomplish the goals of this study because experimental work was conducted with an unregulated invertebrate species.

• As the trappings of small mammals were conducted as part of regular pest control measures in accordance with the NATO Standardized Agreement 2048 "Deployment Pest and Vector Surveillance and Control ", no approval by an ethics committee was required.

• All experiments have been conducted as per the guidelines of the Institutional Animal Ethics Committee, Department of Zoology, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. However, the insect species used in this study is reared for commercial production of raw silk materials, as a part of agro-based industry. Therefore, use of this animal in research does not require ethical clearance. We have obtained permission from the office of Research officer sericulture, Baripada, Orissa, India for the provision of infrastructure and support for rearing of silkworm both in indoor and outdoor conditions related to our study to promote sericulture practices.

Authors are responsible for correctness of the statements provided in the manuscript. See also Authorship Principles. The Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to reject submissions that do not meet the guidelines described in this section.

Open access publishing

To find out more about publishing your work Open Access in Journal of Ethology, including information on fees, funding and licenses, visit our Open access publishing page.

Navigation