Submissions

Author Guidelines

Download HERE the Good Practice Code in PDF
Download HERE the Authorship Form in PDF

Scope

Scientia Marina welcomes original manuscripts on all aspects of marine research including, but not limited to the following fields: Physical and Chemical Oceanography, Marine Biology and Ecology, Fisheries Research, Genetics, Marine Geology, Systematics and Marine Biogeography, Coastal Dynamics, Ecosystem Management and Global Change. Preference will be given to manuscripts of a multi-disciplinary nature and to those of broad interest to marine scientists and beyond. Studies of local interest or of a descriptive nature will not be considered unless a considerable scientific advance is shown. While the aim is to continue being a reference journal for the Mediterranean Sea, there are no geographic restrictions.The following types of contributions are published in Scientia Marina: Articles, Reviews, News and Comments and Book Reviews.

The CSIC Editorial Board has determined to publish only the online edition of the journal, starting with the first issue of volume 78(2014). As such, the printed edition and its associated subscriptions will be suppressed.

Editorial Policy

Manuscripts that do not fall within the scope of Scientia Marina and those which do not follow the Instructions to Authors will be returned to the authors. Manuscripts will be assigned to one of the Scientific Editors, who will critically evaluate their scientific merits, choose at least two appropriate referees and evaluate the reviewer's comments. The Editor-in-Chief decides to accept or reject them based on the reports and recommendations of the Scientific Editor. Every five years, Scientia Marina will publish the list of reviewers who have given their consent to be disclosed.

The manuscripts of the journal Scientia Marina published on paper and in electronic format are the property of the "Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas", and their origin must be cited in any partial or total reproduction. However, the author retains the right to disseminate his/her own work.

Impact Factor

Impact Factor 2017 (2 years): 1.183
Impact Factor 2017 (5 years): 1.182
Rank: 63/106 (Q3, Marine and Freshwater Research)
Source: Clarivate Analytics©, Journal Citation Reports®

Online publication

The corresponding author will receive galley proofs and will be responsible for the final version of the published article. Accepted articles appear online as "Forthcoming articles" as soon as the galley proofs have been approved by the authors and the Editor-in-Chief. No changes can be made after online publication. The dates of submission, acceptance and online publication will appear at the beginning of each article.

Submission of Manuscripts

• Submission of a manuscript implies that all co-authors have approved and agree on the contents of the submitted text, tables and graphic material. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author that all co-authors have the correct information on the submitted manuscript. Manuscripts must not be submitted simultaneously to any other journal.
• A single file in pdf format (including text, tables and figures) must be sent electronically to scimar@icm.csic.es
• Language: Contributions must be in English. Submitted manuscripts will first be checked for language. Scientists who use English as a foreign language are strongly recommended to have their manuscript proofread by a native English-speaking colleague. Manuscripts which are substandard in this respect will be returned without review.

• Please include the title, the complete name (first name and family name) and postal address of the author(s), and the fax number and e-mail address of the corresponding author.
• From 1 January 2017, it is a condition of publication for all the authors to provide an Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID). The benefits of registering an ORCID iD are outlined here.
• Title: Titles which include species names must also specify the necessary taxa and subtaxa, so that readers not acquainted with the species may at least know the zoological/botanical group the species belongs to.
• Summary: No longer than 200 words, in a single paragraph.
• Running title: A short title not exceeding 50 characters must be included.
• Keywords: Please provide 6 to 8 keywords. In agreement with the recommendations of the IOC-UNESCO, we recommend that the authors use the ASFA Thesaurus to identify the right keywords for their articles.

• Length: The total number of typed pages should not exceed 30 and will usually be lower (fewer than 7000 words, including references and figure legends). Font size 12 is recommended. Leave 25 mm margins on all sides. Manuscripts must be printed double-spaced throughout. Pages and lines must be numbered.
• Sections: Follow the usual sections (INTRODUCTION, MATERIALS AND METHODS, RESULTS, DISCUSSION). Avoid a single section on Results and Discussion. Avoid numbering sections. Main headings should be in capital letters, subheadings in bold type sentence case.
• Do not use ampersands (&); instead use the word "and"
• Some Latin abbreviations are set in roman type because they have been thoroughly incorporated into English (note that no comma follows the abbreviations). These include: e.g./ i.e./ ca./ in situ/ vs/ per se/.
• Figures and tables should be numbered sequentially in the order that they appear in the text. Do not place figures or tables in the main body of the text, but at the end of the manuscript. Place every table and every figure in separate pages. Figure parts should be labelled with capital letters (A, B, C, etc.). References to figures in the main body of the text: (Fig. 1), (Fig. 1A, B) or (Figs 1 and 2) or full Figure 9.
• Note the style of citing figures in the following examples: "The Balearic Islands (Fig. 1) are separated from the Iberian Peninsula by…"; "The bathymetric distribution of the species is shown in Figure 3."

• Genetic nomenclature: Use the zebrafish system (see http://zfin.org/zf info/nomen.html) for gene and protein nomenclature originated from fish species. Genes should be in italic lower case text and proteins in non-italic lower case text with the first letter capitalized. The article of Chakrabarty (2010) [Chakrabarty, P. (2010).
• Genotypes: a concept to help integrate molecular phylogenetics and taxonomy. Zootaxa 2632, 67-68] can be used as general guidelines for genetic nomenclature.
• Sequence data: Manuscripts containing novel amino acid, DNA, RNA and genomic sequences will only be accepted if they carry an International Nucleotide Sequence Databases (INSD) accession number from the European Biology Laboratory (EMBL), GenBank Data Libraries (GenBank) or DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ). The data base accession number must be given in the Materials and Methods or Results sections of the manuscript. For taxonomic papers that refer to sequences derived from specimens preserved in collections, authors should reference the individual voucher from the collection. Lengthy nucleotide sequences will not be published except in very restricted occasions when these date are of general interest and importance. Refer to the original reference when the sequence used is already published.
• All new nomenclatural acts referring new species will be registered in ZooBank in order to fulfill the ICNZ.

• Applicable to both text and figure legends and axes.
• Use International System units (km, m, kg, g, etc.).
• Use the symbol "t" for metric tons.
• The symbols h, min and s must be used for hours, minutes and seconds.
• Use spaces between the quantity and the units (e.g. 2 m, 3 kg, 7 g). Exceptions: degree Celsius °C, latitude or longitude units and % (e.g. 37°C; 41°N, 1°17'E and 10%).
• Do not include spaces between arithmetic symbols and numeric values: >, < (e.g. >7, <7, a=b+1).
• Do not use • in mathematical formulae or between units to the denote the multiplier terms, except when its omission may lead to confusion.
• Abbreviations for "standard deviation" and "standard error" are "sd" and "se" respectively.
• Use a dot "." as a decimal marker: Do not use any symbol to separate thousands (e.g. 5200 or 10300).
• Salinity is a dimensionless unit, and should not have units such as ‰. It is valid to state once in the paper that salinity was measured in practical salinity units (psu), but thereafter no units should be used.

• When several references are cited between brackets they must follow a chronological order. Note the style of punctuation in the following examples:

... poses systematic problems (Hulley 1981, Smith and Millar 1995, Carter et al. 2001).

... in coastal upwelled waters (Olivieri 1983a,b, Salat 2000, 2002, Horstman SFRI unpublished data).

... following the opinions expressed by Margalef (1978).

Roel et al. (1985) reported that...

• Ensure that there is a perfect match between references in the text and in the reference list. All references, both published and in press, cited in the text, tables or figures, must be included in the reference list. It is not necessary to include the reference when the scientific name of a species is cited in full (e.g. Liocarcinus depurator (Linnaeus, 1758)).

• We recommend a maximum rate of 1 page of citations for every 4 pages of text in the manuscript (from Introduction to Discussion).
• No more than 3 references can be cited to support any statement.
• References must be ordered alphabetically.
• Journal names must always be abbreviated.
• Papers "in preparation" or "submitted" are not acceptable as references. Once accepted, they may be quoted as "in press", but not before.
• The format of the references must be strictly followed.
• The list of references should include the complete list of authors, year of publication, title (in the original language), journal, volume and page numbers. Journal abbreviations should be in accordance with the WORLD LIST OF SCIENTIFIC PERIODICALS.
• Follow the punctuation and style shown in the examples below:

Pauly D. 2009. Beyond duplicity and ignorance in global fisheries. Sci. Mar. 73: 215-224.

Rossi S., Fiorillo I. 2010. Biochemical features of a Protoceratium reticulatum red tide in Chipana Bay (Northern Chile) in summer conditions. Sci. Mar. 74: 633-642.

Merino G., Maynou F., García-Olivares A. 2007. Effort dynamics in a fisheries bioeconomic model: A vessel level approach through Game Theory. Sci. Mar. 71: 537-550.

Margalef R. 1974. Ecología. Ediciones Omega, Barcelona, 951 pp.

Romero E. 2010. Sources of plankton variability in an urbanized coastal ecosystem. Ph.D. thesis, Tech. Univ. Catalonia, 244 pp.

• Please pay especial attention to the citation of articles within books according to the following examples. Do not forget to give the publisher and place of publication and to check the punctuation:

Ruiz-Villarreal M., Bolding K., Burchard H., Demirov E. 2005. Coupling of the GOTM turbulence model to some three-dimensional ocean models. In: Baumert H.Z., Simpson J.H., Sundermann J. (eds), Marine Turbulence: Theories, Observations and Models. Cambridge Univ. Press, pp. 225-237.

Pichon A., Correard S. 2006. Internal tides modelling in the bay of Biscay. Comparisons with observations. In: Morán X.A.G., Rodríguez J.M., Petitgas P. (eds), Oceanography of the Bay of Biscay. Sci. Mar. 70S1: 65-88.

• Tables should be consecutively numbered with Arabic numerals and typed on separate pages.
• Table headings should be given above each table.
• Tables should be designed to fit in the format of the printed page.
• Vertical lines should not be used.

• When submiting a manuscript, figures must be placed at the end of the manuscript and their legends must be placed separately.
• Figures presenting the study area should include a small general map showing a larger geographical region. Maps must show the locations cited in the text, the names of seas or oceans and the main isobaths. Please, avoid political maps.
• Drawings, graphs and photographs should be carefully presented on separate sheets. Figures must be prepared so that, after reduction to fit the size of the journal page (16.9 cm for full page width or 8.1 cm one column width), characters and symbols will still be readable.
• All figures included in a manuscript should use the same font type.
• Avoid very thin or very thick lines.
• Please do not draw with hairlines. The minimum line width is 0.2 mm (0.5 pt) measured at the final scale.
• Map figures must indicate °N, °S, °E or °W.

Once the manuscript has been accepted for publication, authors will be asked to send the final version. It may be sent by e-mail, or on CD-ROM or DVD.

Text must be sent in "Word" format. The illustrations must be sent separately from the text. Image files should not be embedded in a word-processor file.

Vector graphics exported from a drawing program should be stored in EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) format. Fonts used in the graphics (use preferably Times) must be included. Suitable programs include Freehand, Illustrator and Corel Draw.

Most presentation programs, such as Excel and Power Point, produce data that cannot be processed since they do not support the export of EPS data.

Halftone images Store colour illustrations as CMYK and monotone as greyscale in TIFF or JPEG format. Whenever you use JPEG format, choose maximum quality instead of high compression in the options window. Suitable programs include Photoshop, Picture Publisher and Photo Paint.

Please send comments to scimar@icm.csic.es ICM (CSIC) - Passeig Maritim de la Barceloneta, 37-49. E-08003 (Spain)

Research data policy

We recommend authors depositing data obtained from the research developed for the preparation of their article in repositories of recognized prestige, specific to the discipline or of a generalist nature. In any case, it must be a FAIR repository (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), preferably in open access.

There are several repositories destined to conserve and disseminate concrete data such as results of surveys, observations, interviews, simulations, automatically collected data, samples, models ... If necessary, authors can consult the Registry of Research Data Repositories re3data taking into account that each repository has its own deposit rules.

Those CSIC authors who would like to deposit their datasets in Digital.CSIC may do so by following these guidelines. They can use the Servicio de Archivo Delegado made available by the Technical Office of DIGITAL.CSIC and the Red de Bibliotecas CSIC.

DIGITAL.CSIC generates DOIs for datasets and associated software and is certified as data repository in re3data and Repository Finder. More information at Política de datos en Digital.CSIC.

If the author has deposited datasets in a repository, he should mention it in the article providing a brief description of the type of data deposited, the name and URL of the repository, the identification code and the data of the license for use and distribution. This information must be included at the end of the article, immediately before the bibliographic listing, under the heading "Data availability".

Download HERE the Good Practice Code in PDF
Download HERE the Authorship Form in PDF