Editorial policies
Editorial Policies
The rules Journal of Zoological Research applies to the manuscripts it receives, the people who assess them and the record it publishes.
- ISSN 2694-2275
- CC BY 4.0
- Single-blind by default
Contents
What this page covers
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The model, who reviews, and what a decision is based on.
Independence, conflicts and recusal
What must not influence an editorial decision.
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Who may be listed, and what changes require agreement.
Research ethics, animals and permits
Approvals and permissions, applied as the work requires.
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Availability statements, deposition and image integrity.
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Disclosure by authors, and the rule for reviewers.
Misconduct, corrections and retractions
How a concern is handled and how the record is amended.
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How to challenge a decision or raise a concern.
Copyright, licensing and self-archiving
What authors keep and what readers may do.
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Withdrawing a submission, and how personal data is handled.
Peer review
Peer review and decisions
All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review.
Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.
Where double-blind review is requested, the manuscript prepared for reviewers must carry no author-identifying information; the preparation rules are in the instructions for authors. Editors ensure that author-identifying information is not shared with reviewers for those manuscripts.
Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal.
A decision letter sets out the reviewers' assessments and the editor's reasoning, and identifies what a revision would need to address.
Independence
Independence, conflicts and recusal
Editorial decisions are independent of article processing charges, membership, editorial or reviewer roles, and any paid service, including language editing.
Authors, editors and reviewers disclose financial and non-financial interests that a reasonable reader might consider relevant to the work: funding, employment, consultancies, patents, and personal or institutional relationships with the subject of the study.
An editor with a competing interest in a manuscript steps aside and the manuscript is handled by another editor. An editor's own submissions are handled independently of that editor, and holding a role on the board confers no advantage in the review or acceptance of their work. A reviewer who has a competing interest declines the invitation and tells the editor why.
Authorship
Authorship and contribution
Authorship reflects a substantial contribution to the work and accountability for it.
Each listed author is expected to have contributed to the conception, design, acquisition, analysis or interpretation of the work; to have taken part in drafting or revising it; to have approved the version submitted; and to be answerable for its accuracy and integrity. Contributors whose role falls short of those conditions are recognized in the acknowledgments, with their permission.
The corresponding author confirms that every listed author has agreed to the submission. Any change to the author list after submission — an addition, a removal or a change of order — requires the written agreement of all authors, including the one affected, and the editor's approval before it takes effect.
Research ethics
Research ethics, animals and permits
Requirements follow the work. A manuscript reports the approvals and permissions that apply to what it actually did, in the jurisdiction where it was done.
- Animal research
- Studies involving live animals report the institutional or national approval under which the work was carried out, the approving body and the reference where one was issued, together with the housing, handling and humane-endpoint provisions applied. Where the work is observational and non-invasive, the manuscript says so and reports any permission its setting required.
- Field and collection work
- Collection, capture, sampling, import and export are reported with the permits that authorized them, including the permissions of landowners, protected areas and relevant national authorities. Where a species is protected, the manuscript reports the permissions that applied, and locality information for sensitive species may be generalized to protect the population.
- Specimens and material
- Voucher specimens, type material and tissue or sequence samples are reported with their repository and accession or catalog numbers so the material can be re-examined.
- Human participants
- Where a study involves human participants or identifiable human data, it reports ethical approval and the consent obtained. Interventional clinical trials must be registered in an accepted public trial registry at or before the first participant provides consent for enrollment. The registry name, registration number, and registration date must be reported in the manuscript.
Reporting guidance appropriate to a study's design, including the ARRIVE guidelines for research involving animals, is given in the instructions for authors.
Data and images
Data, materials and images
Every empirical research manuscript must include a data-availability statement.
The statement says where the data behind the findings can be found and on what terms: a repository and accession where the data are deposited, the supplementary files where they are supplied with the article, or the conditions under which they are available from the authors. Where a legal, ethical or conservation restriction applies, the statement says so and names the restriction.
Deposition in a recognized repository is encouraged for datasets, and is expected for nucleotide and protein sequences, which are reported with their accession numbers. Code used for analysis is best deposited where it can be cited.
Images are the record of an observation and are treated as such. Adjustments to brightness, contrast or color are applied to the whole image and must not obscure, remove or introduce a feature. Grouping images from different fields, gels or specimens into one figure is indicated by clear dividing lines. Authors retain the original, unprocessed files and supply them on request.
Artificial intelligence
Use of artificial intelligence
Responsibility for a manuscript rests with its authors, whatever tools were used to prepare it.
Authors disclose the use of generative artificial intelligence in the preparation of a manuscript, naming the tool and describing what it was used for. Authorship rests with people, who can be held answerable for the work, so a tool is credited as a tool. Authors remain answerable for the accuracy of every statement and every reference.
Reviewers must obtain journal permission before using AI to assist with a review. Any permitted use must be disclosed, and confidential manuscript content must not be uploaded where confidentiality cannot be assured.
Research integrity
Misconduct, corrections and retractions
The journal's policies follow the guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics, and a concern about a submitted or published manuscript is investigated on that basis.
Submissions are screened for similarity with the published literature. A similarity report is read in context by an editor: overlap in a methods description is assessed differently from overlap in a results or discussion section, and the report informs an editorial judgment rather than replacing one.
Where a concern is raised about fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, duplicate publication, image manipulation or undisclosed competing interests, the editor asks the corresponding author for an explanation, and may consult the authors' institution.
- Correction
- A correction notice is published where an error affects part of the record but the findings stand. The notice is linked to the article and carries its own identifier.
- Retraction
- A retraction is published where the findings are unreliable, whether through error or misconduct. The article remains available and is clearly marked, so the record of what was published is preserved.
- Expression of concern
- An expression of concern is published where an investigation is unresolved and readers need to know that a question has been raised.
Appeals
Complaints and appeals
An author who considers a decision mistaken may appeal it.
An appeal is sent to the editorial office, addresses the specific points in the decision letter and the reviewers' reports, and explains the basis of the disagreement. The appeal is considered by an editor who was not responsible for the original decision, and the outcome is communicated to the corresponding author.
Complaints about editorial process, conduct or publication ethics are directed to the same address and are handled by the Editor-in-Chief, or, where the Editor-in-Chief is a party to the complaint, by the publisher.
The editorial office can be reached at [email protected].
Rights
Copyright, licensing and self-archiving
- Copyright
- Authors retain copyright in their work.
- License
- Articles are published under CC BY 4.0.
- Reuse
- Anyone may share and adapt the work, including commercially, with attribution and a link to the license.
- Self-archiving
- Authors may deposit the published version in a repository or personal page immediately.
Third-party material reproduced in an article keeps its own terms, which the article states alongside it: authors supply evidence of an appropriate license, an applicable exception, public-domain status or the rights holder's permission, and the material is credited separately.
The full rights terms are on copyright and license.
Withdrawal and privacy
Withdrawing a submission, and personal data
Authors should contact the editorial office promptly and wait for written confirmation before submitting the work elsewhere.
Manuscripts withdrawn within 3 days of submission are not subject to a withdrawal charge.
Manuscripts withdrawn more than 3 days after submission incur a withdrawal charge equal to 30% of the journal's APC.
Authors must receive official withdrawal confirmation before submitting the manuscript to another journal.
The same terms are published with the charge itself on article processing charges.
Names, affiliations and contact details supplied during submission are used to operate peer review and to publish the article, and are shared with editors and reviewers for that purpose. Reviewer identities are kept confidential. Manuscripts under consideration are confidential, and after submitting a review, reviewers should securely delete downloaded manuscript files and must not retain or use unpublished material.
Related
Where these rules apply
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Preparation and submission guidance.
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What a review is asked to cover, and its confidentiality.
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How an editor handles a manuscript.
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The charge, when it applies, and the withdrawal terms.
Digital preservation
This journal’s content is committed to Portico, a not-for-profit digital-preservation archive run by ITHAKA (the organization behind JSTOR). As articles are deposited they enter Portico’s permanent archive, so the scholarly record stays available for the long term — even if a title one day ceases to publish. Read our preservation policy.