Author Guidelines

The Belgian Journal of Zoology is a diamond open access journal that publishes research papers, reviews, opinion papers and short notes in Zoology. Purely descriptive papers will no longer be accepted as analytical or hypothesis-driven research is a prerequisite. Only manuscripts in English are processed. They should contain significant, new findings or a novel point of view for review and opinion papers and must not have been published elsewhere (except as part of a thesis, lecture note, report, or in the form of an abstract) nor be simultaneously under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Submitting a manuscript implies that the publication has been approved by all co-authors as well as by the authorities of the institute where the work has been carried out, and that permission for reproduction was obtained by the authors for material derived from other copyrighted sources, including online.

Publication cost

The Belgian Journal of Zoology is now a Diamond Open Access Journal. This means that all publication charges are now cancelled, both for authors and readers.

Print on demand

The journal does not distribute reprints any more. Copies of the printed version can be ordered as print-on-demand. Price (per article, per complete issue or per complete volume) is obtainable on demand and will depend on the number of pages and on the number of colour illustrations.

1. PREPARATION OF YOUR MANUSCRIPT

Manuscripts must be submitted electronically to the Editor-in-Chief (bjz@naturalsciences.be) in one single file (see below for more details) and should be formatted as described below. Manuscripts not corresponding to these guidelines will be returned to the authors and not further processed.

As a general rule, please follow the format of recently published papers, freely downloadable from the website (https://belgianjournalofzoology.eu/index.php/BJZ). The journal will not make a distinction anymore between full Research articles and Short notes, all will be treated as Research articles and should follow the IMRAD structure (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMRAD): Abstract – Introduction – Material and methods – Results – Discussion – Acknowledgements – References – Appendix (if any). All papers have to be in clear, concise English. Manuscripts with substandard English will be returned to the authors immediately.

Upon submission, please provide the email addresses and affiliations of all co-authors and comply with the rules for cybersecurity on our website. Manuscripts cannot be submitted as links to external servers.

Manuscripts must be submitted electronically to the Editor-in-Chief (bjz@naturalsciences.be) as a Word file for the text and Word or Excel files for the tables. Figures and graphs can be submitted as jpg, tiff, svg, png or other formats compatible with Adobe and should be of high quality, with a maximum size of 16 x 23.5 cm. Figures and tables should be cited in numerical order in the text. Manuscripts not corresponding to these guidelines will be returned to the authors.

References are based on the APA format as specified below, which is available in various reference management tools. References in the text are cited chronologically with the author and the year, for example: (Richards 1928a; Navas 1996; Williams & Jepsen 2014) or Williams et al. (2011). Multiple references from the same year are indicated with a, b, c… in the text and the list, and the letters ordered according to the appearance of the references in the manuscript. References are ordered alphabetically in the list of References, based on the same first author in the case of two- or multi-author papers (two-author papers with the same first author are in alphabetical order and then in chronological order, and multi-author papers with the same first author are in chronological order), see the examples below.  Journal names should be in full (see “World list of Scientific Periodicals” http://abbreviations.com for the correct spelling of journal names).

As BJZ adheres to the rules of CrossRef for publication with a DOI, each reference must be provided with its correct DOI (whenever available), which can be found on the website of the respective journal or the Biodiversity Heritage Library. The DOI is formatted as follows: https://doi.org/(follows the DOI). This is mandatory. A tool to help find all DOIs is available from https://search.crossref.org/search/references.

For all queries concerning the format, please contact us at bjz@naturalsciences.be.

The journal does not distribute reprints anymore. Copies of the printed version can be ordered as print-on-demand.

Examples

Journal article citations:

Navas C.A. 1996. Implications of microhabitat selection and pattern of activity on the thermal ecology of high elevation neotropical anurans. Oecologia 108: 617–626. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00329034

Ree R.H. & Sanmartín I. 2009. Prospects and challenges for parametric models in historical biogeographical inference. Journal of Biogeography 36: 1211–1220. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2008.02068.x

Ree R.H. & Smith S.A. 2008. Maximum likelihood inference of geographic range evolution by dispersal, local extinction, and cladogenesis. Systematic Biology 57: 4–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/10635150701883881

Richards O.W. 1928a. Bombus and Volucella in the Himalayas. Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine 64: 107–108. 

Richards O.W. 1928b. On a collection of bumble-bees (Hymenoptera, Bombidae) made in Ladakh by Col. R. Meinertzhagen. Annals and Magazine of Natural History Series 10 (2): 333–336. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222932808672888

Williams P.H. 2018. In a group of its own? Rediscovery of one of the world’s rarest and highest mountain bumblebees, Bombus tanguticus. Journal of Natural History 52: 305–321. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222933.2018.1428377

Williams P.H. 2021. Not just cryptic, but a barcode bush: PTP re-analysis of global data for the bumblebee subgenus Bombus s.str. supports additional species (Apidae, genus Bombus). Journal of Natural History 55 (5–6): 271–282. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222933.2021.1900444

Williams P.H. & Jepsen S. 2014. IUCN BBSG – Bumblebee Specialist Group Report 2013. Natural History Museum, London.

Williams P.H., Araújo M.B. & Rasmont P. 2007. Can vulnerability among British bumblebee (Bombus) species be explained by niche position and breadth? Biological Conservation 138: 493–505. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2007.06.001

Williams P.H., An J.-D. & Huang J.-X. 2011. The bumblebees of the subgenus Subterraneobombus: integrating evidence from morphology and DNA barcodes (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Bombus). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 163: 813–862. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1096-3642.2011.00729.x

Williams P.H., Altanchimeg D., Byvaltsev A., De Jonghe R., Jaffar S., Japoshvili G., Kahono S., Liang H., Mei M., Monfared A., Nidup T., Raina R., Ren Z., Thanoosing C., Zhao X. & Orr M. 2020. Widespread polytypic species or complexes of local species? Revising bumblebees of the subgenus Melanobombus world-wide (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Bombus). European Journal of Taxonomy 719: 1–120. https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2020.719.1107

Book chapter citation:

Mallefet J., Vanhoutte P. & Baguet F. 1992. Study of Amphipholis squamata luminescence. In: Alera-Liaci F.G. & Canicatti T.I. (eds) Echinoderm Research: 125–130. L. Balkema, Rotterdam.

 Book citation:

Bellairs R. 1991. Egg Incubation: its Effects on an Embryonic Development in Birds and Reptiles. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

 Website citation:

Sabaj M.H., Armbruster J.W., Ferrarisjr. C.J., Friel J.P., Lundberg J.G. & Page L.M. (eds) 2003–2006. The All Catfish Species Inventory. Available from http://silurus.acnatsci.org/ [accessed on {here comes the date}].

• Additional on-line information:

Supplementary information can be put online with the publication. This should be limited to information that cannot be included in a manuscript (such as movies or additional figures in colour) or is too elaborate to be included (such as extensive data tables). The supplementary information should be submitted together with the manuscript for reviewing purposes. The editorial board has the right to reject that supplementary information is put online.

2. FORMAT OF ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS

An electronic version of the manuscript including the tables and figures (as one PDF file or zipped) and the text as a WORD doc., should be sent by e-mail to the Editor-in-Chief (bjz@naturalsciences.be) as an attachment, together with a submission letter indicating a scientific editor and suggesting up to three referees with their email addresses and affiliations. The files should be named with the name of the first author and should also include the MS number once it has been allocated by the editorial office of the BJZ(see below).

3. ANIMAL WELFARE CONCERNS

All animal experimentation reported on in the Belgian Journal of Zoologymust have been conducted in accordance with the pertinent national animal welfare and/or ethical regulations regarding the care and use of animals in the country of residence of the principal author.

4. REVIEWING PROCESS

Upon receipt of the manuscript, the corresponding author is notified and will receive the number under which the manuscript has been registered, as well as the name and e-mail address of the scientific editor who will handle it. From this point onwards, authors should communicate with the editor-in-chief only about the progress of the reviewing process. The manuscript will be sent to at least two referees and a reply may be expected at the earliest four weeks after submission. Manuscripts can be accepted, with minor or major revision, or rejected. If the decision is ‘revision’, the authors are requested to take the remarks of the referees and editors into account. A second reviewing process can follow. Upon final acceptance, the authors provide a final version of the manuscript in appropriate file formats (not a pdf) (text as WORD doc. and tables as Excell file) and send these to the editor in chief. The authors will then be notified when the paper will be published. Only one galley proof will be sent as a PDF file to the corresponding author. This proof must be carefully corrected and sent back within 2 working days.