acta ethologica - Instructions For Authors Announcement

acta ethologica has changed the Instructions for Authors (this opens in a new tab)to incorporate suggestions made by Webster and Rutz in their 2020 paper (this opens in a new tab) setting out the STRANGE framework to identify, mitigate and report sampling biases in animal behaviour research. 

Authors are now asked to provide a greater level of detail at two points in their ms, to specifically identify sampling bias (a short paragraph in the Methods) and to discuss its likely impact on the generality of their results (a paragraph in the Discussion). The specifics can be found here (this opens in a new tab).

The extra detail will help editors, referees and readers to better evaluate the research at the different stages of the peer review publication process. It will also enhance reproducibility through increasing research transparency.