Submission guidelines

Authorship Policy

Authorship should incorporate and should be restricted to those who have contributed substantially to the work in one or more of the following categories:

• Conceived of or designed study

• Performed research

• Analyzed data

• Contributed new methods or models

• Wrote the paper

Types of papers

Mycotoxin Research publishes Original Papers and Review articles. The appropriate length of original articles may vary, from short research communication to comprehensive survey reports. Fragmentation of research reports should be avoided, and each report must give a well-rounded account of a particular research aspect.

Authors who intend to submit an unusually extensive review or original paper (>12000 words) are requested to contact the editor in advance.

Editorial procedure

Authors are requested to suggest 4 reviewers (please indicate the field of expertise with regard to the topic(s) of the submission) when submitting their manuscript and provide reviewers' title, full name and contact information including email address.

The editor will decide whether the recommendations will be used or not.

Manuscript Submission

Manuscript Submission

Submission of a manuscript implies: that the work described has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication anywhere else; that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – at the institute where the work has been carried out. The publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

Permissions

Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.

Online Submission

Please follow the hyperlink “Submit manuscript” and upload all of your manuscript files following the instructions given on the screen.

Source Files

Please ensure you provide all relevant editable source files at every submission and revision. Failing to submit a complete set of editable source files will result in your article not being considered for review. For your manuscript text please always submit in common word processing formats such as .docx or LaTeX.

Submitting Declarations

Please note that Author Contribution information and Competing Interest information must be provided at submission via the submission interface. Only the information submitted via the interface will be used in the final published version. Please make sure that if you are an editorial board member and also a listed author that you also declare this information in the Competing Interest section of the interface.

Please see the relevant sections in the submission guidelines for further information on these statements as well as possible other mandatory statements.

Plagiarism prevention with CrossCheck

Springer is a participant of CrossCheck, a multi-publisher plagiarism detection initiative to screen published and submitted content for originality. CrossCheck consists of two products: a database of scholarly publications (CrossCheck) and a web-based tool (iThenticate) to check an authored work against that database.

This journal uses the plagiarism tool to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts and your manuscript may be screened upon submission for plagiarism against previously published works.

Manuscript Preparation

Manuscript Structure

• Title page

• Abstract

• Keywords (4-6)

• List of abbreviations (please list unusual abbreviations used more than 4 times only, please do not abbreviate words or terms in the text if used 3 times or less)

• Introduction

• Materials and Methods

• Results

• Discussion

• Acknowledgement

• References

• List of figures

• Tables

• Figures

“Results” and “Discussion” sections may also be combined into one “Results and Discussion” section.

Place conclusions at the end of the discussion section, but do not add a specific header “Conclusion”.

If possible, submit manuscripts as a single file, including all tables, figures, and supplementary material (if any). Place the following items after the reference list of the manuscript: 1) List of figure captions, 2) Tables, 3) Figures, 4) Supplementary material (if any). Each table and each figure must be placed on a separate page. Do not insert tables and figures directly in the main body of the manuscript. Do not add callups for location of tables and figures in the manuscript text. Placement of tables and figures will be done by production of article production.

Avoid all non-essential formatting of text, tables and in figures.

Inexperienced authors are advised to study the author tutorials on manuscript preparation provided by Springer/Nature which are available from:

https://www.springernature.com/gp/authors/campaigns/writing-a-manuscript?utm_source=springer&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=RMarketing&utm_campaign=AEXS_2_SE01_GL_Tutorials_Redirect

Please note that non-compliance with formal requirements will delay manuscript processing. Submissions which are grossly non-compliant with formal requirements will be sent back immediately.

For review articles, this order of manuscript sections may be modified with regard to the “Materials and Methods” section according to the specific requirements.

Text

Line numbering: Consecutive line numbering throughout the manuscript is strongly recommended.

Do not use numbered sections headers. Please write all text double-spaced and left-aligned (do not use justified text).

Specifications regarding Language

Tense: Generally, all manuscripts must be written in past tense. The use of present tense should be limited to the absolute minimum.

Information about “scientific English usage”: Authors are informed that a manuscript may be rejected by the editor on the basis of an insufficient level of scientific English language usage, without peer review of its scientific merits. In case of a reject decision on a manuscript, this should be regarded as a final decision, attempts to appeal this decision are not encouraged.

References

Reference list, Journal article: The names of all authors should be provided. The usage of et al. after the third author in very long author lists (>12 authors) will be accepted.

Financial Disclaimers / Conflicts of Interest

Source of Funding

Authors are expected to disclose any commercial support in connection with submitted material. All funding sources supporting the work should be acknowledged in a separate “Source of funding” section to be placed before acknowledgements/conflicts of interest/reference list. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.

Conflicts of Interest

Authors are requested to state any further conflicts or disclosures within the manuscript in a separate section before the reference list. If none exist, add the statement "Conflicts of interest: None.". All manuscripts must also be accompanied by the “Authorship and Disclosure Form”. Please see the “Integrity of research and reporting” section below and download the form and upload the completed form together with the manuscript.

Title Page

Please make sure your title page contains the following information.

Title

The title should be concise and informative.

Author information

• The name(s) of the author(s)
• The affiliation(s) of the author(s), i.e. institution, (department), city, (state), country
• A clear indication and an active e-mail address of the corresponding author
• If available, the 16-digit ORCID of the author(s)

If address information is provided with the affiliation(s) it will also be published.

For authors that are (temporarily) unaffiliated we will only capture their city and country of residence, not their e-mail address unless specifically requested.

Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, do not currently satisfy our authorship criteria. Notably an attribution of authorship carries with it accountability for the work, which cannot be effectively applied to LLMs. Use of an LLM should be properly documented in the Methods section (and if a Methods section is not available, in a suitable alternative part) of the manuscript.

Abstract

Please provide an abstract of 150 to 250 words. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references.

For life science journals only (when applicable)

• Trial registration number and date of registration for prospectively registered trials
• Trial registration number and date of registration, followed by “retrospectively registered”, for retrospectively registered trials

Keywords

Please provide 4 to 6 keywords which can be used for indexing purposes.

Statements and Declarations

The following statements should be included under the heading "Statements and Declarations" for inclusion in the published paper. Please note that submissions that do not include relevant declarations will be returned as incomplete.

• Competing Interests: Authors are required to disclose financial or non-financial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Please refer to “Competing Interests and Funding” below for more information on how to complete this section.

Please see the relevant sections in the submission guidelines for further information as well as various examples of wording. Please revise/customize the sample statements according to your own needs.

Text

Text Formatting

Manuscripts should be submitted in Word.

• Use a normal, plain font (e.g., 10-point Times Roman) for text.
• Use italics for emphasis.
• Use the automatic page numbering function to number the pages.
• Do not use field functions.
• Use tab stops or other commands for indents, not the space bar.
• Use the table function, not spreadsheets, to make tables.
• Use the equation editor or MathType for equations.
• Save your file in docx format (Word 2007 or higher) or doc format (older Word versions).

Manuscripts with mathematical content can also be submitted in LaTeX. We recommend using Springer Nature’s LaTeX template.

Headings

Please use no more than three levels of displayed headings.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.

Footnotes

Footnotes can be used to give additional information, which may include the citation of a reference included in the reference list. They should not consist solely of a reference citation, and they should never include the bibliographic details of a reference. They should also not contain any figures or tables.

Footnotes to the text are numbered consecutively; those to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data). Footnotes to the title or the authors of the article are not given reference symbols.

Always use footnotes instead of endnotes.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section on the title page. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.

Abbreviations for Mycotoxins

If the authors want to use abbreviated forms for mycotoxins, the abbreviations listed below should be used for all types of manuscripts submitted to Mycotoxin Research. Give the full mycotoxin name, followed by the abbreviation (in parentheses) at first appearance (For example: ... the highly toxic aflatoxin B₁ (AFB₁) was found ...“ ). A mycotoxin should not be abbreviated if it is mentioned less than three times in a manuscript. It may also be advisable to use full names without abbreviations for the less common mycotoxins, keeping in mind that the readability of the text is of paramount importance in an interdisciplinary journal.

Aflatoxins = AFs; Aflatoxin B₁ = AFB₁; Aflatoxin B₂ = AFB₂; Aflatoxin G₁ = AFG₁; Aflatoxin G₂ = AFG₂; Aflatoxin M₁ = AFM₁; Fumigaclavine A = FuA; Ochratoxin A = OTA; Citrinin = CIT; Patulin = PAT; Ergot alkaloids = EAs; For individual ergot alkaloids, full names should preferably be given, alternatively a unified 3-letter system should be used (for example: ergotamine = TAM); Nivalenol = NIV; Fusarenone X = FUS-X; Deoxynivalenol = DON (not vomitoxin); 3-Acetyldeoxynivalenol = 3-AcDON; Diacetoxyscirpenol = DAS; T-2 Toxin = T-2; HT-2 Toxin = HT-2; Fumonisin B₁ = FB₁; Alternariol = AOH; Alternariol monomethyl ether = AME; Altenuene = ALT; Altertoxin I = ATX-I; Tenuazonic acid = TeA; Note that zearalenone should as of now be abbreviated as ZEN (not ZEA or ZON). Zearalenone derivatives (such as α-zearalenol, zearalanone) should normally not be abbreviated, unless they are mentioned frequently in a manuscript. If abbreviations are used for zearalenone derivatives, please follow the recommendations of Metzler (Mycotoxin Res. 2011, 27, 1-3).

Text Specific Remarks

• Introduction The Introduction should state the purpose of the investigation, cite those publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work, and give a short review of the pertinent literature. It is the authors obligation to perform a literature search to find, and then cite, the original publications that describe closely related work.
• Materials and methods The Materials and methods section should follow the Introduction and should provide sufficient detail and reference to public sources of information to permit repetition of the experimental work.
• Results and Discussion Results and Discussion may either be prepared as a combined section, or under separate headers, whatever the authors find more appropriate. The Results section should describe the outcome of the study. Data should be presented as concisely as possible, if appropriate in the form of tables or figures, although very large tables should be avoided. The Discussion section should contain an interpretation of the results and their significance with reference to work by other authors. Conclusions (if any) should be placed at the end of this section, not as a separate section.
• Manuscripts reporting quantitative results for mycotoxinsCommercial mycotoxin standards, as well as standards which have been obtained as gifts from other sources (including standard solutions) may deviate considerably from the nominal values. Further, mycotoxin standards may contain impurities which could affect the outcome of, for example, toxicological experiments. Authors are therefore requested to perform and report checks of identity and quantity of mycotoxin standards. Reasonable efforts should be made here, depending on the toxins under study. For many of the more common mycotoxins, UV spectroscopy checks in defined solvent, plus quantitation using peak maximum and published molar absorptivity values may be an appropriate approach. For readily available and less expensive toxins, qravimetric determination could be an alternative. Quantitative NMR may be preferred by well equipped laboratories. For mycotoxins with known stability problems in solution, repeated checks may be advisable in case of extended duration of a study. Safety considerations concerning proper handling of mycotoxins may be advisable for manuscripts reporting new analytical methods.Authors are also requested to carefully consider the overall experimental uncertainty of their study, and meaningfully round the numerical values of the reported data accordingly. For many analytical systems, reporting of more than three significant digits may already be meaningless. Presentation of an excessively high number of significant digits (for example 123456 ng/kg, 1.23456 mol/l) for experimental/analytical data is not acceptable.

Scientific style

• Please always use internationally accepted signs and symbols for units (SI units).

• Do not use ppm or ppb but µg/g or ng/g.

• Centrifugation: do not use rpm (rounds per minute) but relative centrifugal force (for example, 3000 x g)

• Nomenclature: Nomenclature: As far as possible, authors should use systematic names similar to those used by Chemical Abstract Service or IUPAC

• Genus and species names should be in italics.

• Generic names of drugs and pesticides are preferred; if trade names are used, the generic name should be given at first mention.

• Terminology for reporting data from monitoring or survey studies: the terms “incidence” and “prevalence” are disease-related and should not be used to describe relative or absolute occurrence of mycotoxins or toxigenic fungi in non-living sample material (food, feed, environmental samples). Use “frequency” instead.

References

Citation

Cite references in the text by name and year in parentheses. Some examples:

• Negotiation research spans many disciplines (Thompson 1990).
• This result was later contradicted by Becker and Seligman (1996).
• This effect has been widely studied (Abbott 1991; Barakat et al. 1995a, b; Kelso and Smith 1998; Medvec et al. 1999, 2000).

Reference list

The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text.

Reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last names of the first author of each work. Please alphabetize according to the following rules: 1) For one author, by name of author, then chronologically; 2) For two authors, by name of author, then name of coauthor, then chronologically; 3) For more than two authors, by name of first author, then chronologically.

If available, please always include DOIs as full DOI links in your reference list (e.g. “https://doi.org/abc”).

• Journal article

  Gamelin FX, Baquet G, Berthoin S, Thevenet D, Nourry C, Nottin S, Bosquet L (2009) Effect of high intensity intermittent training on heart rate variability in prepubescent children. Eur J Appl Physiol 105:731-738. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-008-0955-8

  Ideally, the names of all authors should be provided, but the usage of “et al” in long author lists will also be accepted:

  Smith J, Jones M Jr, Houghton L et al (1999) Future of health insurance. N Engl J Med 965:325–329

• Article by DOI

  Slifka MK, Whitton JL (2000) Clinical implications of dysregulated cytokine production. J Mol Med. https://doi.org/10.1007/s001090000086

• Book

  South J, Blass B (2001) The future of modern genomics. Blackwell, London

• Book chapter

  Brown B, Aaron M (2001) The politics of nature. In: Smith J (ed) The rise of modern genomics, 3rd edn. Wiley, New York, pp 230-257

• Online document

  Cartwright J (2007) Big stars have weather too. IOP Publishing PhysicsWeb. http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/11/6/16/1. Accessed 26 June 2007

• Dissertation

  Trent JW (1975) Experimental acute renal failure. Dissertation, University of California

Always use the standard abbreviation of a journal’s name according to the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations, see

ISSN LTWA

If you are unsure, please use the full journal title.

References Specific Remarks

● Citation of official (regulatory) documents

Manuscripts submitted to Mycotoxin Research frequently give reference to official (international or national) documents. Such documents should be added in the reference list in a clear and sufficiently complete form, ideally providing enough information so that the reader could retrieve a document from the source. When giving reference to official regulatory documents (laws, regulations, guidance documents, opinions expressed by governmental scientific organisations; international or national), monographs by international agriculture, health and welfare institutions, please try to adopt the style shown in the following examples. If available, please provide a valid URL for each document. For European law (regulations, directives), it may be important to indicate a specific amendment or a specific consolidated version.

In the manuscript text, cite reference as EU (2002), EC (2006), EFSA (2007) etc. In the reference list, write as follows:

EU - European Union (2002) Directive 2002/32/EC of the European parliament and of the council of 7 May 2002 on undesirable substances in animal feed. Off J Eur Comm L 140:10–21. Last consolidated version available from: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:02002L0032-20190726

EC – European Commission (2006) Commission regulation (EC) No 1881/2006 of 19 December 2006 setting maximum levels for certain contaminants in foodstuffs. Off J Eur Union L 364:5–24 Last consolidated version available from: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/DE/AUTO/?uri=CELEX:02006R1881-20180319

EC- European Commission (2016) Commission recommendation (EU) 2016/1319 of 29 July 2016 amending recommendation 2006/576/EC as regards deoxynivalenol, zearalenone and ochratoxin A in pet food. Off J Eur Union L 108:58–60. Available from: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32016H1319&from=EN

EFSA – European Food Safety Authority, Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (2007) European food safety authority (EFSA) scientific opinion related to the potential increase of consumer health risk by a possible increase of the existing maximum levels for aflatoxins in almonds, hazelnuts and pistachios and derived products. EFSA J 446:1–127. Available from: https://www.efsa.europa.eu/de/efsajournal/pub/446

EMEA – European Medicines Agency (2011) Guideline on bioanalytical method validation. EMEA/CHMP/EWP/192217/2009 Rev. 1 Corr. 2**. Available from: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/bioanalytical-method-validation

EPA – US Environmental Protection Agency (1984) Guidelines establishing test procedures for the analysis of pollutants under the clean water act.40 cfr, appendix b to part 136: definition and procedure for the determination of the method detection limit. Washington (DC): USA. Available from: https://www.epa.gov/quality/guidelines-establishing-test-procedures-analysis-pollutants-code-federal-regulations-excerpt

FDA – US Food and Drug Administration (2019) Sec. 683.100 Action levels for aflatoxins in animal food. Available from: https://www.fda.gov/ICECI/ComplianceManuals/CompliancePolicyGuidanceManual/default.htm

IARC – International Agency for Research on Cancer (2012) Aflatoxins. In: Chemical agents and related occupations, Vol. 100F: a review of human carcinogens, pp. 225–248. Available from: https://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol100F/mono100F.pdf

JECFA – Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (2011) Deoxynivalenol. In: Evaluation of certain food contaminants in food: seventy-second report of the Joint FAO/WHO expert committee on food additives. WHO Technical Report Series No 959, pp. 37–47. Available from: https://www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/jecfa-reports/en/

WHO – World Health Organization (1995) Technical framework. in: Physical status: the use and interpretation of anthropometry. Report of a WHO Expert Committee. WHO Technical Report Series 854, pp. 4–36. Available from: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/37003/WHO_TRS_854.pdf;jsessionid=974368CE703873214393AC8598E54C34?sequence=1

Reference to national, non-English regulatory texts should be prepared as shown in the following example, if possible. A meaningful translation of the document title should be provided in […].

FRG – Federal Republic of Germany, Federal Ministry of Nutrition, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (2010) Verordnung zur Begrenzung von Kontaminanten in Lebensmitteln [Regulation to limit the levels of contaminants in food]. Bundesgesetzblatt 2010 I 12:286–291. Available from: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/kmv/index.html

Tables

• All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
• Tables should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
• For each table, please supply a table caption (title) explaining the components of the table.
• Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table caption.
• Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body.

Tables Specific Remarks

Tables should present data in a clear and unambiguous order. Tables should be provided with a descriptive heading. Table heading plus column headings should make the table as much as possible self-explanatory. Do not mix different logical meanings within one row columns or row. Tables should have only three horizontal lines, one above and one below the main body of the table, and one line separating the first row (column headings) from the data below. Tables should not contain any vertical lines or shaded/colored fields. Avoid very large and complex tables, and avoid tables containing many empty columns/rows. Data which are sufficiently important to be included in a submission but are less vital for understanding the manuscript may be presented separately in a supplementary file. Very small data sets usually do not justify a table but should be directly given in the manuscript text.

Artwork and Illustrations Guidelines

Electronic Figure Submission

• Supply all figures electronically.
• Indicate what graphics program was used to create the artwork.
• For vector graphics, the preferred format is EPS; for halftones, please use TIFF format. MSOffice files are also acceptable.
• Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.
• Name your figure files with "Fig" and the figure number, e.g., Fig1.eps.

Line Art

• Definition: Black and white graphic with no shading.
• Do not use faint lines and/or lettering and check that all lines and lettering within the figures are legible at final size.
• All lines should be at least 0.1 mm (0.3 pt) wide.
• Scanned line drawings and line drawings in bitmap format should have a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi.
• Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.

Halftone Art

• Definition: Photographs, drawings, or paintings with fine shading, etc.
• If any magnification is used in the photographs, indicate this by using scale bars within the figures themselves.
• Halftones should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.

Combination Art

• Definition: a combination of halftone and line art, e.g., halftones containing line drawing, extensive lettering, color diagrams, etc.
• Combination artwork should have a minimum resolution of 600 dpi.

Color Art

• Color art is free of charge for online publication.
• If black and white will be shown in the print version, make sure that the main information will still be visible. Many colors are not distinguishable from one another when converted to black and white. A simple way to check this is to make a xerographic copy to see if the necessary distinctions between the different colors are still apparent.
• If the figures will be printed in black and white, do not refer to color in the captions.
• Color illustrations should be submitted as RGB (8 bits per channel).

Figure Lettering

• To add lettering, it is best to use Helvetica or Arial (sans serif fonts).
• Keep lettering consistently sized throughout your final-sized artwork, usually about 2–3 mm (8–12 pt).
• Variance of type size within an illustration should be minimal, e.g., do not use 8-pt type on an axis and 20-pt type for the axis label.
• Avoid effects such as shading, outline letters, etc.
• Do not include titles or captions within your illustrations.

Figure Numbering

• All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
• Figures should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
• Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).
• If an appendix appears in your article and it contains one or more figures, continue the consecutive numbering of the main text. Do not number the appendix figures,"A1, A2, A3, etc." Figures in online appendices [Supplementary Information (SI)] should, however, be numbered separately.

Figure Captions

• Each figure should have a concise caption describing accurately what the figure depicts. Include the captions in the text file of the manuscript, not in the figure file.
• Figure captions begin with the term Fig. in bold type, followed by the figure number, also in bold type.
• No punctuation is to be included after the number, nor is any punctuation to be placed at the end of the caption.
• Identify all elements found in the figure in the figure caption; and use boxes, circles, etc., as coordinate points in graphs.
• Identify previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference citation at the end of the figure caption.

Figure Placement and Size

• Figures should be submitted within the body of the text. Only if the file size of the manuscript causes problems in uploading it, the large figures should be submitted separately from the text.
• When preparing your figures, size figures to fit in the column width.
• For large-sized journals the figures should be 84 mm (for double-column text areas), or 174 mm (for single-column text areas) wide and not higher than 234 mm.
• For small-sized journals, the figures should be 119 mm wide and not higher than 195 mm.

Permissions

If you include figures that have already been published elsewhere, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format. Please be aware that some publishers do not grant electronic rights for free and that Springer will not be able to refund any costs that may have occurred to receive these permissions. In such cases, material from other sources should be used.

Accessibility

In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your figures, please make sure that

• All figures have descriptive captions (blind users could then use a text-to-speech software or a text-to-Braille hardware)
• Patterns are used instead of or in addition to colors for conveying information (colorblind users would then be able to distinguish the visual elements)
• Any figure lettering has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1

Generative AI Images

Please check Springer’s policy on generative AI images and make sure your work adheres to the principles described therein.

Supplementary Information (SI)

Springer accepts electronic multimedia files (animations, movies, audio, etc.) and other supplementary files to be published online along with an article or a book chapter. This feature can add dimension to the author's article, as certain information cannot be printed or is more convenient in electronic form.

Before submitting research datasets as Supplementary Information, authors should read the journal’s Research data policy. We encourage research data to be archived in data repositories wherever possible.

Submission

• Supply all supplementary material in standard file formats.
• Please include in each file the following information: article title, journal name, author names; affiliation and e-mail address of the corresponding author.
• To accommodate user downloads, please keep in mind that larger-sized files may require very long download times and that some users may experience other problems during downloading.
• High resolution (streamable quality) videos can be submitted up to a maximum of 25GB; low resolution videos should not be larger than 5GB.

Audio, Video, and Animations

• Aspect ratio: 16:9 or 4:3
• Maximum file size: 25 GB for high resolution files; 5 GB for low resolution files
• Minimum video duration: 1 sec
• Supported file formats: avi, wmv, mp4, mov, m2p, mp2, mpg, mpeg, flv, mxf, mts, m4v, 3gp

Text and Presentations

• Submit your material in PDF format; .doc or .ppt files are not suitable for long-term viability.
• A collection of figures may also be combined in a PDF file.

Spreadsheets

• Spreadsheets should be submitted as .csv or .xlsx files (MS Excel).

Specialized Formats

• Specialized format such as .pdb (chemical), .wrl (VRML), .nb (Mathematica notebook), and .tex can also be supplied.

Collecting Multiple Files

• It is possible to collect multiple files in a .zip or .gz file.

Numbering

• If supplying any supplementary material, the text must make specific mention of the material as a citation, similar to that of figures and tables.
• Refer to the supplementary files as “Online Resource”, e.g., "... as shown in the animation (Online Resource 3)", “... additional data are given in Online Resource 4”.
• Name the files consecutively, e.g. “ESM_3.mpg”, “ESM_4.pdf”.

Captions

• For each supplementary material, please supply a concise caption describing the content of the file.

Processing of supplementary files

• Supplementary Information (SI) will be published as received from the author without any conversion, editing, or reformatting.

Accessibility

In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your supplementary files, please make sure that

• The manuscript contains a descriptive caption for each supplementary material
• Video files do not contain anything that flashes more than three times per second (so that users prone to seizures caused by such effects are not put at risk)

Generative AI Images

Please check Springer’s policy on generative AI images and make sure your work adheres to the principles described therein.

Integrity of research and reporting

Ethical standards

Manuscripts submitted for publication must contain a declaration that the experiments comply with the current laws of the country in which they were performed. Please include this note in a separate section before the reference list.

Manuscripts submitted for publication must contain a statement to the effect that all human studies have been approved by the appropriate ethics committee and have therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments. It should also be stated clearly in the text that all persons gave their informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study. Details that might disclose the identity of the subjects under study should be omitted.

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

Conflict of interest

Authors must indicate whether or not they have a financial relationship with the organization that sponsored the research. They should also state that they have full control of all primary data and that they agree to allow the journal to review their data if requested. Therefore the manuscript must be accompanied by the “Authorship and Disclosure Form”. To download this form, please follow the hyperlink below.

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.

MYRE_Authorship_and_Disclosure_Form (Download pdf, 105 kB)

Research Data Policy and Data Availability Statements

This journal follows Springer Nature research data policy. Sharing of all relevant research data is strongly encouraged and authors must add a Data Availability Statement to original research articles.

Research data includes a wide range of types, including spreadsheets, images, textual extracts, archival documents, video or audio, interview notes or any specialist formats generated during research.

Data availability statements

All original research must include a data availability statement. This statement should explain how to access data supporting the results and analysis in the article, including links/citations to publicly archived datasets analysed or generated during the study. Please see our full policy here.

If it is not possible to share research data publicly, for instance when individual privacy could be compromised, this statement should describe how data can be accessed and any conditions for reuse. Participant consent should be obtained and documented prior to data collection. See our guidance on sensitive data for more information.

When creating a data availability statement, authors are encouraged to consider the minimal dataset that would be necessary to interpret, replicate and build upon the findings reported in the article.

Further guidance on writing a data availability statement, including examples, is available at:

Data availability statements

Data repositories

Authors are strongly encouraged to deposit their supporting data in a publicly available repository. Sharing your data in a repository promotes the integrity, discovery and reuse of your research, making it easier for the research community to build on and credit your work.

See our data repository guidance for information on finding a suitable repository.

We recommend the use of discipline-specific repositories where available. For a number of data types, submission to specific public repositories is mandatory.

See our list of mandated data types.

The journal encourages making research data available under open licences that permit reuse. The journal does not enforce use of particular licences in third party repositories. You should ensure you have necessary rights to share any data that you deposit in a repository.

Data citation

The journal recommends that authors cite any publicly available data on which the conclusions of the paper rely. This includes data the authors are sharing alongside their publication and any secondary data the authors have reused. Data citations should include a persistent identifier (such as a DOI), should be included in the reference list using the minimum information recommended by DataCite (Dataset Creator, Dataset Title, Publisher [repository], Publication Year, Identifier [e.g. DOI, Handle, Accession or ARK]) and follow journal style.

See our further guidance on citing datasets.

Research data and peer review

If the journal that you are submitting to uses double-anonymous 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 anonymised. There are data repositories that can assist with this and/or will create a link to mask the authorship of your data.

Support with research data policy

Authors who need help understanding our data sharing policy, finding a suitable data repository, or organising and sharing research data can consult our Research Data Helpdesk for guidance.

See our FAQ page for more information on Springer Nature’s research data policy.

After acceptance

Upon acceptance, your article will be exported to Production to undergo typesetting. Shortly after this you will receive two e-mails. One contains a request to confirm your affiliation, choose the publishing model for your article, as well as to arrange rights and payment of any associated publication cost. A second e-mail containing a link to your article’s proofs will be sent once typesetting is completed.

Article publishing agreement

Depending on the ownership of the journal and its policies, you will either grant the Publisher an exclusive licence to publish the article or will be asked to transfer copyright of the article to the Publisher.

Offprints

Offprints can be ordered by the corresponding author.

Color illustrations

Online publication of color illustrations is free of charge. For color in the print version, authors will be expected to make a contribution towards the extra costs.

Proof reading

The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting or 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 Editor.

After online publication, further changes can only be made in the form of an Erratum, which will be hyperlinked to the article.

Online First

The article will be published online after receipt of the corrected proofs. This is the official first publication citable with the 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

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