Submissions

Author Guidelines

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

Authors are advised to prepare their manuscripts closely following the instructions below to avoid delays in the editorial process. The submission of a manuscript implies that the manuscript is original and has not been submitted or published elsewhere in its current or modified form.

Authors can submit their manuscripts through our submission platform.

Manuscript length and word limit:

In principle, there is no word limit for articles, but we advise contacting the editorial team beforehand regarding articles over 50 published pages (circa 25,000 words, without figures or tables).

Book reviews and obituaries have a limit of 3 published pages (circa 1,500 words, without figures or tables).

Title page:

The title page should contain the following items.

Title: The title should be concise and accurately reflect the article's content or message. It should be in sentence case; only proper nouns (including scientific names) should start with a capital letter.

If names of higher taxa are necessary for clarity, only two taxa must be included in the title, one broad and one narrow, e.g., “(Gastropoda, Helicidae)”.

Running title: A short running title (maximum 50 characters) for the page’s header should be provided.

Author(s) and affiliation: The full names of all authors should be provided; middle names can be abbreviated. The author affiliation should be indicated with superscript numbering. Please include the institutional affiliation (e.g., university, museum), physical address, city, state/province (if applicable), and country.

One of the authors must be designated as the corresponding author, and their email address for contact should be provided. Corresponding authors are also responsible for ensuring that the author list and author contributions are accurate.

Author ORCID iDs: Include if available.

Abstract: The abstract must accurately and concisely describe the study (maximum 250 words). Literature references should not be included in the abstract. However, we encourage the inclusion of taxa authorship.

Abstracts in other languages: A translation of the abstract to a language relevant to the study is highly recommended (e.g., Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French). A translation of the title to the chosen language must also be provided.

Keywords: A maximum of 6 keywords should be given. They must differ from the words and expressions already present in the title.

Main text:

Language and style: Manuscripts must be submitted in English. Both British/Commonwealth and American English can be used, provided that the choice is consistent throughout the entire manuscript. We encourage usage of the active voice and the first person whenever appropriate.

Although the quality of written English will not affect the acceptance/rejection of a manuscript, in some cases, we might require that a manuscript undergo linguistic editing.

General formatting: Manuscripts must be prepared using a common 12-point font, with 1.5 line spacing and page numbering. Do not use tabulation for marking paragraphs. For the convenience of the referees, the lines should be numbered.

Footnotes and endnotes: Do not use.

Italicisation: The following terms should be italicised: scientific names of genus- and species-level taxa; words in foreign languages the first time they appear; titles of artworks, films, plays, music albums, video games, radio/TV series, exhibitions, and books; names of ships and other vessels; and, when appropriate, symbols of variables and constants.

Quotations: Short quotations should be embedded in the text, enclosed in double quotation marks, with an indication of the page (or time frame for non-textual media) in which they appeared within the cited work. Long quotations should follow the same guidelines, but must be placed on a separate line. Single quotation marks should be used for a quotation that occurs within another quotation.

En-dashes: Use an en-dash (–), not a hyphen, to link spans, such as page numbers, sizes, and dates (e.g., pp. 54–58, figs 2–4, 1939–1945).

Units: Use the International System of Units (SI). Measurements in other units (e.g., inches, miles, Fahrenheit) can be provided when context-appropriate, in addition to those in SI units.

Geographical coordinates: Coordinates must be listed in one of the following formats: Decimal Degrees (DD); Degrees, Minutes, and Seconds (DMS); Degrees and Decimal Minutes (DDM); or Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM).

Section headings and subheadings: The main text should be divided into sections with headings, as and when appropriate. For example, research articles typically include the standard sections/headings: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, References. Alternative or additional headings are permissible when necessary.

Sections and subsections should be numbered accordingly, in a standardised manner.

Codes and notations: Articles must abide by the guidelines of international commissions, their codes, and standard notations of their study area. For instance, nomenclature and nomenclatural acts must agree with the current edition of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature and its amendments. Other standards include those of the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), among others.

Scientific names: Scientific names of genus- and species-level taxa must be italicised, and the authorship for the taxon must be provided. We strongly encourage that the bibliographical reference for the authorship of species that are the focus of the study be listed in the References section.

Voucher material: Authors are required to deposit type specimens and other voucher material in open natural history collections, such as museums, universities, and other research institutions. Registration numbers should be provided.

Genetic data: Manuscripts containing nucleotide sequences must have an International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC) accession number from GenBank Data Libraries (GenBank), European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), or DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ).

Ethics of animal research: When applicable, the manuscript’s methodology must comply with international, national, and/or institutional legislation and regulations for the collection and/or the ethical treatment of animals. All permits (e.g., collection, experimental) should be noted.

New taxa:

Whenever a new family-, genus- or species-level animal taxon is proposed in a study, the article and the new taxa must be registered in ZooBank. This step will be done by the editor after acceptance.

Each new taxon name must be accompanied by its ZooBank registration number, i.e., the Life Science Identifier (LSID), which takes the form urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:#######

The LSID for the publication as a whole should also be provided as urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:#######

Additional information & declarations:

The following items should be placed in the end of the article, before the References.

Acknowledgements: Acknowledgements to external people.

Author contributions: For all manuscripts with two or more authors, a section describing the contribution of each author is required. We suggest the use of the CRediT author statement. Identify authors by their initials.

Funding: When applicable, information on funding.

Data availability: Statement regarding data availability when there is data that is not present in the manuscript or its supplements.

Conflict of interest: The authors are kindly advised to identify possible conflicts of interest. When none exist, please include the standard sentence: “The authors have declared that no conflicts of interest exist.”

Use of AI: Authors are permitted to use AI or AI-assisted technologies (henceforth referred to as AI) solely to improve language and readability during the writing process. AI must not be used to generate content, produce citations, conduct data analyses, or create figures. All AI use must occur under human control and oversight, and all AI-assisted work must be reviewed by the authors. AI cannot be listed or cited as an author; authorship requires tasks and responsibilities that only human beings can perform. Authors must be transparent about the use of Artificial Intelligence tools in the manuscript preparation and disclose details of their usage. Authors remain fully responsible and accountable for the contents of their work. When no AI tools were used, please include the standard sentence: “No use of AI.”

Citations & references:

References in the text to published material should be presented as: “Smith (2001) said…” or “… (Smith 2001)” or “… (Smith 2000a, 2000b; Brown & Smith 2004; Smith et al. 2010).”

Published references (articles, books, chapters, etc.) must be presented in a References list at the end of the main body of the text. It is important to format the references properly because all references will be linked electronically as completely as possible to the papers cited. A DOI (digital object identifier) or BHL number must accompany the references when possible.

References should be listed alphabetically by author name. If the first author is the same, then the second author, etc. If all authors are the same, then by year and title.

Please use the following style for the reference list.

Journal article: Schneckenmeister H, Sluglord L (2022) Why are snails so awesome? Journal of Fabulous Molluscs 38(2): 103–118. https://doi.org/10.1000/000111000

*For accepted papers, “in press” appears in parentheses instead of the year.

Book: Schneckenmeister H (2023) Tales from the Achatina Kingdom. Helix Publishers, Wonderland, 151 pp.

Book chapter: van de Mosselen M (2017) Bivalves in space. In: Schneckenmeister H (Ed) Science Fiction in a Shell. Bulimus University Press, Chaldea, 45–62.

Conference proceedings: Sluglord L (2012) How to hide from birds. In: Schneckenmeister H, van de Mosselen M (Eds) XXIII International Meeting of Molluscs, Conch Town, August 2012. Sepia Editions, Atlantis, 98–100.

Thesis and dissertations: Le Calamar T (2020) Of fisheries and eldritch horrors. PhD Thesis, Arcana University, Baldur’s Gate, 99 pp.

Internet articles and websites: Le Calamar T (2024) 2024’s top mollusc games. The Oyster Times 24/Nov/2024. Available from https://theoystertimes.com/2024s-top-mollusc-games (date of access 27/Jul/2025).

Figures:

All figures should be submitted as high-resolution (minimum 300 dpi) .tiff, .jpeg, or .png files. The .eps, .svg, and .pdf formats are also accepted for diagrams. All figures must be prepared in a manner ready for publication (i.e., we do not offer figure editing services).

Figure citations in the text should always be with Capital "F" and en-dash for ranges. One figure with a full stop, figures without. Examples: Fig. 1; Figs 1, 2; Figs 1–3; Fig. 1A, B; Fig. 2A–E.

Citations of figures from other publications should always be lowercase (fig. / figs).

Figure captions should be placed at the end of the manuscript, after the References.

Image copyright and costs: It is the author’s responsibility to clear any copyright and to pay any fees for image usage/publication.

Tables:

Tables should be referred to in the text as “Table 1” and so forth. Table captions should be placed at the end of the manuscript, after the References or Figure Captions.

Each table should be submitted as a separate .docx or .xlsx document, or equivalent formats.

Supplementary files:

Not all information needs to be included in the main body of the text. Molluscan Horizons accepts supplementary files in the most common file extensions. These can include: datasets, images, supporting tables and graphs, slideshows, code, audio, video, and software, among others. For large files (e.g., audio, video, software), we encourage deposition in external data repositories, such as Dryad and GitHub.

Supplementary files must be cited in the main text where appropriate. A brief explanation of each Supplementary File should be provided at the end of the manuscript, after the Figure/Table Captions.