Submission guidelines

Australasian Plant Pathology

only accepts articles in English, based upon original, non-previously published data, regardless if the data were previously published in a language other than English.

Any new pathogen records for Australia and New Zealand must be reported to authorities before they can be published.

Please consult the relevant website for details prior to submission of manuscript.

For Australia

For New Zealand

Types of Articles Published

Disease Notes

First records of a disease, or notes on changes in the geographical distribution of diseases are referred to our companion online journal Australasian Plant Disease Notes for publication.

Australasian Plant Disease Notes

Research Papers

Australasian Plant Pathology welcomes the submission of research papers describing significant high quality research in plant pathology. Research papers should not exceed 20 pages of printed text including Tables, Figures and References (1 page of printed text is approx 600 words).

Research Notes

Research Notes are for publication of results that although they are insufficient to form a full paper are nonetheless deserving of publication. For example, descriptions of new methods, molecular data useful for typing pathogens short descriptions of genes isolated from pathogens and pest organisms, or of plant genes with a putative function in plant-pathogen interactions Research Notes should contain firm data and will be refereed. Research Notes are not divided into sections as are research articles, the only heading is for the Abstract. Leave a blank line between the Abstract and the rest of the text. The rest of the text is merged into one continuous section. Research Notes should not exceed four pages of printed text including the Abstract (1 page is printed text is approx 600 words). They would usually contain one Table or Figure. However supplementary information can be provided on the web.

Reviews

Reviews should summarise the present knowledge in a certain field and should be focused around an attractive question of research rather than simply being a repository of all studies in a field. The most important criteria are that reviews are of interest to a wider audience and/or make a wide audience aware of novel and interesting aspects. Reviews should not be longer than ten pages of printed text; one page of printed text = approximately 600 words). Authors interested in writing a review are encouraged to discuss their ideas with the Editor-in-Chief before commencing to write the review.

Obituaries

Obituaries to commemorate prominent plant pathologists who have passed away are published in the journal. They should be written by a colleague who has been closely associated with the deceased and is familiar with their work. The obituary should highlight their contribution to plant pathology. Obituaries should not be longer than two printed pages and may contain a photograph.

Disease Notes

First records of a disease, or notes on changes in the geographical distribution of diseases are referred to our companion online journal Australasian Plant Disease Notes for publication.

Australasian Plant Disease Notes

Emerging Plant Pathogens

In many countries it is a requirement for information about emerging plant pathogens, to be reported to government or local authorities before publication. It is the responsibility of the author to comply with such requirements.

Genome Reports

The APPS is pleased to announce that from Feb 2024 we will be publishing genome sequences in Aust. Pl. Pathol. This includes phytopathogenic fungi, bacteria, nematodes, and viruses and non-pathogens with relevance to plant pathology (e.g., biocontrol agents, endophytes).

Where a genome report is from a strain that has not previously been published, it will be published as a stand alone paper. However, where the report is the genome of a strain related to a previously published genome it may be published as a composite paper with other genome reports e.g. Wingfield et al IMA Fungus (2022) Fungus 13:3.

Genome Reports will contain the following sections: Significance, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, and Data Availability.

Genome Reports must meet the criteria listed below:

1. The organism sequenced must be of interest to the broad community of plant pathologists. While this means most sequences will mainly be from pathogenic microorganisms, sequences from other organisms e.g., biolcontrol bacteria or fungi are also acceptable
2. Details on species identification based on molecular sequence data and/or phylogenetic analysis must be provided and the sequenced strain(s) deposited in a recognized herbaria or culture collection i.e. those listed by the World Directory of Collections and Cultures of Microorganisms. The herbarium accession number(s) must be included in the Materials and Methods section of the manuscript.
3. The analyses must include removal of contaminant sequences as appropriate (for example bacterial contamination of eukaryotes, or host contamination for obligate biotrophs). Sequencing, quality assessment and filtering , assembly and annotation methodologies must be well described; the version number of all software used, and the N50 and BUSCO completeness scores must be reported.
4. Raw sequence reads, assembled genome and predicted transcriptome must be made available to reviewers on request, and must be made available in a public database (NCBI, ENA or similar) upon publication, with accession numbers included in the Data Availability section

Phylogenetic Trees

Authors are required to provide alignments and phylogenetic trees as supplementary data or deposit in TreeBase. The accession numbers for these depositions must be quoted in the paper. If it is required that the data is kept confidential then the accession numbers do not have to be included in the paper, but they must be provided to reviewers and editorial staff so that the manuscript can be properly reviewed.

As an alternative to Treebase, alignments and tree files could be provided as supplementary data.

Gene Expression Data

APP requires that microarray data to be reported in accordance with the MIAME standards and this to be clearly documented in the Materials and Methods section (please refer to the below link).

In addition expression data should be deposited in a relevant repository (cf below).

Submission should be documented in the manuscript.

TreeBASE

MIAME standards

Gene expression omnibus

Centre for Information Biology Gene Expression Database

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.

Reviewers

During the submission process you are required to nominate four reviewers who are able to review your manuscript. Note that the editor retains the sole right to decide whether or not the suggested reviewers are used. In the event that the editor considers your suggested reviewers to be inappropriate you may be asked to suggest additional reviewers. This may delay the review process. Alternatively the editor may decide to select reviewers for your paper. Authors can also request that certain individuals should not review the manuscript.

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.

Preparing the Manuscript

Structure of the manuscript

Research Papers are divided into the following sections:

1. Abstract

2. Additional Keywords

3. Introduction

4. Materials and Methods

5. Results

6. Discussion (the results and Discussion must be separate sections. Manuscript with combined Results and Discussion will not be accepted.)

7. Acknowledgment

8. References.

Title page

• Title informative and not more than 30 words

• Authors listed with first names as initials only (preceding the name)

• Addresses at which the work was carried out follow the names

• Author for correspondence indicated by an asterisk with an e-mail address provided (one author only)

• Short title of no more than 60 characters (including spaces) at the top of the page

• Key words - provide up to 6

Abstract

• Indicate why and how the work was done, the result and conclusions

• 250 words or less

• Abstracts should not be unnecessarily descriptive and must, where appropriate, contain quantitative data.

• They should not contain abbreviations or reference citations.

Introduction

• Describe, succinctly, the current state of work in the relevant field

• Describe the reasons for carrying out the experiments

• Give a clear statement of the objectives and hypotheses being tested.

• The Introduction should emphasise the significance of the work and make a case as to why it should be published.

Materials and methods

• Sufficient information must be given in this section to allow the reader to understand the experimental design and statistical methods used in the data analysis. All experiments should have adequate replication and, should have been repeated for confirmation.

• Where methods used have been described in a previous publication simply cite the publication rather than reproducing the description of the method.

• Système International (SI) units are preferred. Others should be related to SI units at the first mention.

• Commercial equipment and products used in experiments should name the product and company location.

• State the methods used e.g. analysis of variance (ANOVA), or mixed models and ensure that the analysis method chosen is appropriate for the data. Data tables presenting, for example, mean values should include the appropriate standard errors (SE) and degrees of freedom (DF) relevant to the SE. Where comparisons are made between data values care should be taken to ensure that the SE values quoted are suitable for the comparisons. Indiscriminate use of multiple range tests should be avoided.

• Molecular marker data need to be properly replicated using appropriate positive and negative controls and provide an assessment of error rates based on independent DNA extractions.

Results

• The data presentation should follow a logical flow starting with a short description of the incentive of the experiment, followed by a description of the results. Do not repeat information on the experimental details; those belong to Materials and Methods. Describe the data, but interpretations and conclusions should be given in the Discussion. Papers with combined Results and Discussion sections will not be accepted.

• Make use of tables and figures where necessary and without duplication.

• Data should be presented as Figures or Tables but not both.

Discussion

• Focus on the work presented and its relationship with other relevant published work

• It should not digress widely into general discussion of a research area, or into excessive speculation,.

Acknowledgements

• All sources of funding should be listed (see Conflict of Interest below).

• Colleagues who contributed through helpful discussion, or review of the paper should also be acknowledged.

General Style for all manuscripts

1. Typed with double spacing throughout.

2. Typescript should be font Times 12 point size.

3. Continuous line numbers must be used throughout.

4. Pages to be numbered consecutively including those carrying Tables and Figure Captions.

5. There must be a 3 cm margin on the left hand side of each page.

6. Author(s) names to be listed under the title.

7. Institutional affiliations and addresses for each author to be listed beneath the author list.

8. Corresponding authors name and email address listed before the abstract.

9. Abstract limited to 250 words.

10. Additional keywords useful for index retrieval listed following the abstract.

11. Tables follow the literature cited section

12. Each Table to be on a separate page.

13. Figures can be presented following the Tables

14. Each Figure to be on a separate page with the caption below the figure.

15. Figures and Tables are to be presented in the same order in which they are mentioned in the text.

Headings

Section Headings should be in bold roman type. Subheadings should be roman type plain font. Level 3 headings should be in light italic type. Please use no more than three levels of displayed headings.

Australasian Plant Disease Notes

Nomenclature

Enzyme nomenclature

Enzyme names should conform to the Recommendations of the Nomenclature Committee of the IUB on the Nomenclature and Classification of Enzymes as published in Enzyme Nomenclature 1984 (Academic Press Inc.: New York, 1984). If there is good reason to use a name other than the recommended name, at the first mention of the alternative name in the text it should be identified by the recommended name and EC number. The Editor-in-Chief should be advised of the reason for using the alternative name.

Chemical Nomenclature

The nomenclature of compounds such as amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids, steroids, vitamins etc. should follow the recommendations of the IUPAC–IUB Commission on

Biochemical Nomenclature. Other biologically active compounds, such as metabolic inhibitors, plant growth regulators, buffers etc. should be referred to once by their correct chemical name (which is in accordance with IUPAC Rules of Chemical Nomenclature) and then by their most widely accepted common name. For pesticides, the latest issue of Pesticides–Synonyms and Chemical Names (Australian Government Publishing Service) should be followed. Where there is no common name, trade names or letter, abbreviations of the chemical may be used.

Virus Nomenclature

In formal taxonomic usage, the first letters of virus order, family, subfamily, genus and species names are capitalised and the terms are printed in italics. Other words in the species name are not capitalised unless they are proper nouns, or parts of proper nouns (e.g. Tobacco mosaic virus, East African cassava mosaic virus). It should be stressed that italics and capital letters need to be used only if the species name refers to a taxonomic category, and not a physical entity such as a virion or coat protein (e.g. tobacco mosaic virus virions were observed under the electron microscope). Tentative species that have

not been officially assigned to a virus genus should also not be italicised, although the initial letter should be capitalised. See Mayo MA, Horzinek MC (1998) A revised version of the international code of virus classification and nomenclature. Archives of Virology 143, 1645–1654. Standard abbreviations for virus names are provided by Fauquet MC, Mayo MA (1999) Abbreviations for plant virus names–1999. Archives of Virology 144, 1249–1273.

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.

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.

Lodgment of Cultures

Authors must lodge cultures and/or specimens of plant pathogens at recognized herbaria or culture collections i.e. those listed by Index Herbariorum or World Directory of Collections and Cultures of Microorganisms. This applies: (1) where a new record is being reported; (2) for papers describing comparative studies of two or more organisms; (3) where a study is based on a particular strain of a microorganism. The specimen numbers must be quoted in the paper.

Records for new species of fungi must be lodged with Mycobank. From 1st July 2011 no new fungal species will be valid unless nomenclature data has been lodged with Mycobank.

Index Herbariorum

Mycobank

Lodgement of Data

Gene Sequences

Nucleic acid sequences of limited length, which are the primary subject of a study, may be presented freestyle in the most effective format. Only in exceptional circumstances will long sequences be published. Deposition of sequences with one of the publicly accessible databases (see below) is preferred. Accession numbers for primary nucleotide and/or amino acid sequence data must be included in the original manuscript or be inserted at the time the manuscript is last revised. The accession number should be included in the Methods section in research papers or at the end of the text in Research Notes.

DNA Sequence Databases

DNA sequences must be lodged in one of these public databases and the accession numbers provided in the paper.

Studies that use DNA sequence-based analysis (e.g. BLAST, Phylogenetics) must submit the unedited electropherogram/trace files, in standard formats (e.g. .abi files), with the manuscript. The files should be labelled as below with the addition of the published primer abbreviation used for the sequencing reaction (where available).

Examples:

NRRL46589_Fusarium_oxysporum_ITS1.abi

NRRL46589_Fusarium_oxysporum_ITS4.abi

Where:

NRRL46589= Culture accession number

Fusarium_oxysporum= Binomial nomenclature

ITS1.abi= The published primer abbreviation (where available)

Taxon labelling for phylogenetic trees, including references, should be as follows:

‘culture accession number_binomial_citation’

Examples:

Published

NRRL46589_Fusarium_oxysporum_(O’Donnell_et_al._2009)

Unpublished

NRRL46589_Fusarium_oxysporum_(Unpublished)

Current Study

NRRL46589_Fusarium_oxysporum_(Current_Study)

If a culture accession is not available, then substitute for the NCBI GenBank accession.

The ex-type sequence should be included in the phylogenetic analyses, especially if authors are applying the name in a phylogenetic species concept framework. Ideally, ex-type sequences for reference taxa should also be included in the phylogenetic analyses.

Ex-type sequences should be labelled with the designation ‘ET’ following the binomial in superscript as below:

Example:

RBG5315_Fusarium_burgessiiET_(Laurence_et_al._2009)

Manuscripts with phylogenetic analyses must also include the alignment used for tree construction in the standard file formats (e.g. nexus, fasta, phylip) with the taxon labeling as above.

Genbank

DNA Data Bank of Japan

European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL)

Amino Acid Sequences

Where amino acid sequences are not derived from a DNA sequence, the amino acid sequence should be deposited with the SwissProt protein database:

SwissProt protein database

Phylogenetic Trees

Authors are required to deposit phylogenetic trees and the data used to generate them in TreeBASE. The accession numbers for these depositions must be quoted in the paper. If it is required that the data is kept confidential, then the accession numbers do not have to be included in the paper, but they must be provided to the reviewers and editorial staff so that the manuscript can be properly reviewed.

Gene Expression Data

APP requires microarray data to be reported in accordance with the MIAME standards and this to be clearly documented in the Materials and Methods section (please refer to the below link).

In addition, expression data should be deposited in a relevant repository (cf. below).

Submission should be documented in the manuscript.

TreeBASE

MIAME standards

Gene expression omnibus

Centre for Information Biology gene Expression database

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.

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.

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 deposition	Suitable repositories
Protein sequences	Uniprot
DNA and RNA sequences	Genbank DNA DataBank of Japan (DDBJ) EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (ENA)
DNA and RNA sequencing data	NCBI Trace Archive NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA)
Genetic polymorphisms	dbSNP dbVar European Variation Archive (EVA)
Linked genotype and phenotype data	dbGAP The European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA)
Macromolecular structure	Worldwide 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 molecules	Cambridge 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, 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

Publication of color illustrations is free of charge.

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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