Aims and Scope

Perspectives in Biodiversity is an Aotearoa / New Zealand biodiversity journal considering submissions from Australasia and the Pacific (and on occasion further afield). The journal is intended to have broad coverage, considering manuscripts encompassing biosystematics and biogeography, ecology, genetics, reproductive biology (including pollination biology), taxonomy, ethology, entomology, ethnobotany, ethnozoology, herpetology, ornithology, bryology, lichenology, mycology and phycology. Annotated checklists and conservation assessments of Aotearoa / New Zealand biota are encouraged. We will also consider manuscripts describing new, novel or unusual field techniques.

Perspectives in Biodiversity fills a gap in New Zealand scientific literature. Specifically, the journal is intended to enable students, graduates and researchers to publish their natural-history discoveries in a peer-reviewed format. Particular attention will be given to the following:

• Documentation of the biota of a region, island or island group, with an emphasis on annotated checklists and descriptions of landform and vegetation associations.
• Results of wildlife or vegetation survey and monitoring for conservation, restoration, or mitigations.
• Population biology and phylogenetic studies of a species, taxonomic group, community, or region.
• Formal taxonomic description of new species and/or combinations.

Prospective contributors should consult with the Senior Editors to determine whether a planned submission is appropriate.

The Journal’s publisher is ePress (Unitec | Te Pūkenga).

Types of manuscripts

Four types of manuscripts are considered – these will be published throughout the year and then compiled in a single issue at the end of each year (December):

• Research Papers. Conventional research articles that are 5,000 words, excluding references, tables and captions. Longer papers will be considered.
• Annotated Checklists. Typically, these are biogeographic papers that outline the biota of a specific location through listings of taxa seen, supplemented with notes on abundance, ecology and, if required, taxonomy.
• Review Papers. These are critical overviews of topics that are likely to be of general interest to the readership of the journal. Review articles are 5,000 to 10,000 words, excluding references, tables and captions.
• Short Communications. These are shorter research papers that are 1,000 to 3,000 words, excluding references, tables and captions.

Submission of manuscripts

Submit a copy of the manuscript to PIBiodiversity@unitec.ac.nz with Perspectives in Biodiversity in the subject field.

Manuscripts must include all figures and tables in a single document at the end of the written text. Microsoft Word documents are preferred (for reviewers to use ‘tracked changes’ to make comments). All documents must be:

• In English. Abstracts may also be written in reo Māori and re Moriori, provided they are accompanied by an English translation.
• Times New Roman, size 12 pt.
• Double spaced.
• Page and lines are numbered continuously.

In your cover letter or email, please recommend 2–3 potential reviewers, along with their affiliation (if any) and email addresses. Please confirm (in your email submission) that:

• All authors have seen the final version of the manuscript and approved the submission.
• All relevant animal welfare and conservation permissions have been obtained (see the Ethics policy section below).
• All graphic imagery permissions have been attained and appropriately attributed to the source.

The process

Once you have submitted your work following the submission guidelines detailed above, you will be sent an email of receipt. You can expect to have a response from the editorial team within 2–4 working weeks. Each submitted manuscript that is considered by the journal Editor to be appropriate for the journal is allocated to a member of the Editorial Board (i.e., Associate Editor) who will oversee the review process. The review is double-blind, and this process can take up to three months. Reviewer feedback will be collated and sent to you.

Referees and Board members do all their tasks voluntarily, so to ease the process, please submit manuscripts that have been thoroughly appraised by your colleagues, including someone with excellent knowledge of English grammar.

On acceptance

Authors will be asked to email the revised manuscript (including any responses to reviewer comments) as a Microsoft Word document within two months of receiving an acceptance email. All figures must be supplied as large as possible electronically as separate JPG files. Page proofs will be sent by email to authors for approval, and papers will appear online as they are approved.

Please check that:

• Your citations and referencing style are correct for the journal (see the Manuscript style section).
• All citation and reference links have been removed if you have used referencing software (e.g., EndNote).
• All tables and figures are on separate pages.
• Remove page and line numbers.

During this process, it is the author’s responsibility to keep the copy editor/publications manager informed of any changes in the author’s address and to make their own arrangements for colleagues to correct proofs if the author is unavailable when proofs are to be dispatched. If proofs are not received back from the author within the set time frame, the manuscript will be published without the author’s corrections.

Copyright

Copyright is maintained by the author as ePress operates an open-access Creative Commons International Licensing system. All publications are automatically assigned the Attribution-Non-Commerical licence. However, if an author would prefer a different licence, this can be requested at the time of submission. For more information, see links below:

• About the Attribution-Non-Commerical license
• About open-access publishing
• About Creative Commons

Ethics policy

If applicable, authors or researchers must acknowledge the approval of Animal Ethics Committees and demonstrate approval from relevant government agencies (e.g., New Zealand Department of Conservation), imi / iwi / hapū, landowners or other relevant stakeholders.

Manuscript style

All manuscripts must use SI units, UK English following the Concise Oxford Dictionary for spelling and the appropriate macrons in Māori and Moriori. Please visit Te Aka Māori Dictionary for guidance on using macrons in Māori words. Nomenclature and taxonomic convention must follow the International Code of Nomenclature (see International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants; International Code for Zoological Nomenclature)

Manuscripts are to include the following elements:

• Title: Informative and concise description of the content of the paper.
• Authors: Include the names of all authors who have had a significant role in the research. Include the addresses of all authors, ORCID iD if available, and the email address of the corresponding author/s.
• Running head: Short title for the top of the page.
• Acknowledgements: Acknowledge all those who provided significant assistance to the research, sources of funding, details of Animal Ethics approvals, permit numbers and landowner approvals for research and/or specimen collection.
• Data accessibility statement: Manuscripts to provide details of the availability of associated data and/or code under the heading ‘Data accessibility’. The journal encourages data sharing, where authors can share the data, code and other artefacts supporting the results in the paper by archiving it in an appropriate public repository (e.g., GenBank, ResearchGate, Dryad). If appropriate, authors can include a data accessibility statement with a link to the repository they have used in order that this statement can be published alongside their paper.
• Author contributions: Manuscripts must include a statement of each author’s contribution, ideally following the CRedIT taxonomy (Brand et al. 2015). For posthumous authorships, where an author has contributed sufficiently to warrant authorship but has died before they can approve the final version of the manuscript, we suggest following Teixeira da Silva and Dobránszki (2015). We ask that authors include a statement in the Author Contributions section that the authorship is posthumous and to make it clear which aspects of the work the author was unable to take responsibility for. The statement will acknowledge and credit a deceased researcher’s work and contributions while safeguarding their legacy so that they are not associated with any work that was beyond their control.
• Author biography: Each author submits a brief paragraph about themselves that may include their current position, information on the university and speciality they are currently studying or graduated from, their field of interest, and any awards received. Place an email address at the end of the paragraph.
• Abstract: A summary of the main findings of the paper. Maximum of 300 words for research, review, annotated checklists and threat listings papers and 150 words for Short Notes. Abstracts may also be written in te reo Māori and ta re Moriori, provided it is accompanied by an English translation.
• Keywords: Up to ten keywords. (five for Short Notes)
• Main text: The main headings will normally be: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion. It is permitted to have a combined Results and Discussion section for Short Notes and Annotated Checklist. For Review Papers, there will be some differences in main text due to their nature. See below for guidelines for reporting phylogenetic methods.
• References: See below for referencing style for Perspectives in Biodiversity. The authors are responsible for maintaining accurate and up-to-date referencing and citations. Contact ePress (epress@unitec.ac.nz) if you require further instructions on referencing.
• Figure legends: Should be presented after the references in the initial submission.
• Figures: These can be photographs, line drawings, maps or graphs. Figures must be submitted initially on separate pages and numbered to follow the order they appear in the text. Figures must be clear and easy to interpret. Colour figures are acceptable as this is an online publication. Sources must be credited if the figures do not belong to the author(s). See below for guidelines for creating phylogenetic figures.
• Tables: Each table should be on a separate page after the reference section, numbered with Arabic numerals, in the same order as they are referred to in the text of the paper, and with a short title or caption at the top. Horizontal lines should only be used at the top and bottom of the table and between the headings and the body of the table.