Mission

The Museum of Southwestern Biology (MBS) of the University of New Mexico (UNM) has a long-standing (1983) Publication Series that offers an outlet for two kinds of scholarly manuscripts. The Occasional Papers series is intended for manuscripts that constitute primary literature, such as that found in other refereed journals and the Special Publications series is intended for longer monographic manuscripts. Contingent upon successful review, the MSB Publication Series will publish high quality, specimen-based papers that focus on the areas of taxonomy, systematics, ecology, and natural history of microbes, plants, and animals of the southwestern United States and Latin America. However, specimen-based work from other regional, national, and international locations will be considered if they seem relevant to our areas of interest, or are of special merit. Our Publication Series is non-profit and the cost of publications is supported by modest page charges and by the MSB. Manuscripts in English are accepted from investigators in any country, regardless of whether they are affiliated with the MSB, but the topical areas of submitted papers should fall within our Mission as noted above.

Policy

Conditions of acceptance

1. all manuscripts and accompanying figures and tables must be submitted electronically;
   
2. all authors have approved the manuscript’s submission;
   
3. the results or ideas contained therein are original;
   
4. the work has not been published previously;
   
5. the paper is not under consideration for publication elsewhere and will not be submitted elsewhere unless rejected by the MSB Publication Series or withdrawn by written notification to the Editor;
   
6. if accepted for publication and published, the article, or portions thereof, will not be published elsewhere unless consent is obtained in writing from the Editor;
   
7. reproduction and fair use of articles in either the Occasional Papers or the Special Publications are permitted in accordance with the United States Copyright Revision Law (PL94-533), provided the intended use is for non-profit educational purposes. All other use requires consent and fees where appropriate;
   
8. the obligation for page charges is accepted by the authors.
   
   
   

Articles reporting original research are evaluated by at least two anonymous members of our Editorial Board (see www.msb.unm.edu) selected by the Editor, who may consult with the Director of the MSB and/or the most appropriate division Curator. The final decision of whether or not to publish is made by the Editor after reviews and opinions of the Editorial Board are considered.

Page charges

Authors will be charged $10.00 for each published page. Authors may request the waiving of page charges and their requests will be considered on the basis of need.

Return of materials

Rejected papers: When the decision is made not to publish a paper all materials submitted electronically are destroyed. Rejected manuscripts are not reconsidered.

Papers returned for revision: Based on the review, manuscripts may be accepted with minor revision or may be re-reviewed following a decision to make major revisions and reconsider. Specific instructions regarding the revision format will be supplied by the Editor after a manuscript has been accepted for publication in the Series. If the revision is not received within three months, or if other arrangements have not been made with the Editor, the manuscript is considered to have been withdrawn and the submitted materials are destroyed.

Form of publication

All papers will be published electronically and pdfs will be available for reprints.

Guidelines for Authors

Preparation and submission

All manuscripts must be prepared and submitted according to the guidelines of this section.

Submission and Typing: All original manuscripts must be submitted electronically. Typing should be double spaced in 12-point Times New Roman or Arial font as either a Word, RTF, or LaTex document. Proportional spacing and hyphenation should not be used, i.e., do not justify right-hand margin. Do not leave extra space between paragraphs in the text. Genera and species should be in italics. Authors' names in the literature cited section should be typed with capitals for the initials and first letter of the last name and lowercase for all other letters.

Acceptance: When a manuscript has been accepted for publication by the Editor, specific instructions for preparation of the revision will be supplied electronically to the senior author. It remains the responsibility of the author to retain a copy of the manuscript for reference and to protect against loss. Manuscripts should be addressed to: Prof. Howard Snell, Editorial Board, MSB Publication Series, 1 Univ of NM, MSC03 2020, Alb, NM 87131, snell@unm.edu.

Occasional Papers Articles

Manuscripts are to be organized in the following format and sequence, with all pages numbered consecutively and line numbers provided throughout the manuscript.

Title page (page 1): Give the title of the article, the names of authors, and address of first author. At the bottom of the page, give the name, address, telephone number and email address of the author designated to receive correspondence from the Editor. The title and authors’ names should be in bold type, and the same font size as the text. Titles should be short and descriptive. Avoid empty words such as, “preliminary studies on ...” and “biology or ecology of ....” Do not use the authority (author and date citations) with scientific names in the title. Numbers less than 11 are spelled out. Complete addresses, including email addresses for other authors, if different from that of the first author, are given as footnotes.

ABSTRACT: On a single page (page 2), provide an abstract of the paper that does not exceed 400-500 words. The abstract should be factual (as opposed to indicative) and should outline the objective(s) and/or question(s) addressed, methods used, results, conclusions, and significance of the study. The abstract is headed with the word abstract, marginal (i.e., not indented), and typed in bold capital letters, ending with a colon also in bold type. Text is run in after the colon, is not subdivided, and does not contain literature citations.

Introduction (page 3): Start the introduction on an unheaded page with the first word of the first paragraph started at the left-hand margin. Following paragraphs should begin with a single indent. The introduction should establish the context of the paper by stating the general field of interest and how the research to be presented fits into this field, presenting findings of others that will be challenged or developed, and specifying the specific question to be addressed. Accounts of previous work should be limited to the minimum information necessary to give an appropriate perspective. The introduction should not be subdivided and extra spacing between paragraphs should not be used here or throughout the remainder of the manuscript.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: This heading should be typed in bold capital letters started at the left-hand margin of the page without punctuation. The text of this section should start on the next line and give sufficient information to permit repetition of the study by others. Methods and apparatus used should be indicated, but specific brand names and models need to be mentioned only if significant. The source (e.g., city and state, both spelled in full) of special equipment or chemicals should be given. Previously published or standard techniques are to be referenced, but not detailed.

Second-level headings in bold type should be on a separate line beginning at the left-hand margin. The initial letter of the first word is the only capital letter except capitals needed for proper nouns. These headings are unnumbered and end without punctuation. Text is run immediately following this heading.

Third-level headings: are indented for a paragraph, italicized, and end with a colon. The initial letter of the first word is the only capital letter, except capitals needed for proper nouns. Text is run in immediately following this heading. Further subdivision should not be needed. If the materials and methods section is short, it should not be subdivided; it is unnecessary to provide headings, beyond the primary head, for a series of subsections comprising single paragraphs.

RESULTS: This heading should be typed in bold capital letters started at the left-hand margin of the page without punctuation. This section should begin on the next line and contain a concise account of the new information. Tables and figures are to be used as appropriate, but information presented in them only should be repeated in the text as necessary. Because of the electronic nature of publication, color photos are encouraged. Avoid detailing methods and interpreting results in this section. The results section may be subdivided and headed as for the materials and methods section.

Taxonomic papers have distinct conditions that must be adhered to; principally, museum accession numbers for appropriate type material (new taxa) and for voucher specimens (surveys) are required. Appropriate photographic material should be deposited for descriptions of protists for which individual specimens cannot be fixed and archived, and frozen tissues must also include accession numbers if deposited in a museum. Gene sequences should be deposited in GenBank prior to submission of the manuscript, with appropriate accession numbers provided.

Taxonomic papers should include at least three distinct sections: description, taxonomic summary, and remarks. The description of a new taxon must follow the most rigorous currently accepted standards for the taxonomic group being reported. The taxonomic summary section should include a listing of the taxon or taxa, locality (GPS coordinates, if possible), and specimens deposited. Full scientific names of each taxon mentioned, including the complete authority's name, should be written out the first time it is mentioned. The taxonomic summary is followed by a remarks section which gives comparisons to the most similar taxa. These three sections should be headed as described for second-level headings in the instructions for the materials and methods section.

DISCUSSION: This heading should be typed in bold, capital letters, started at the left-hand margin without punctuation. An interpretation and explanation of the relationship of the results to existing knowledge should appear in the discussion section and should parallel the presentation of results. Emphasis should be placed on the important new findings, and new hypotheses should be identified clearly. Conclusions must be supported by facts or data.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: These should be concise. The heading for this section is as for the primary head described for the materials and methods section. Subdivisions are not used in this section.

LITERATURE CITED: Citations are arranged alphabetically by author’s last name. All references cited in the text must appear in the literature cited section, and all items in this section must be cited in the text. Abstracts may not be cited. Work may be cited as "in press.” A statement may be documented in the text of the paper by “pers. comm.” and is indicated in the style: (X.Y. Smith, pers. comm.). Personal communications do not appear in the literature cited section. The first line of each citation should be indented one tab with all other lines marginal.

Style in the text:
(Allen, 1989) (Allen and Smith, 1989)
(Allen et al., 1989) (Jones, 1987, 1988a, 1988b, 1989)
(Jones, 1987; Allen, 1989), chronological
(Jones 1987; Allen, 1989; Smith, 1989), chronological and alphabetical within year
Multiple authors with the same year of publication should be (Smith, Jones, Walker, l988; Smith, Walker, and Jones,1988), not (Smith et al., 1988a, 1988b)

Style in the literature cited section (all journal names spelled out):
Journal article, 1 author: Corliss, J.O. 1962. Taxonomic-nomenclatural practices in protozoology and the new international code of zoological nomenclature. Journal of Protozoology 9:307-324.

Journal article, 2 authors: Hoffman, R.L. and J.A. Payne. 1969. Diplopods as carnivores. Ecology 50:1096-1098.

Journal article, 3 or more authors: write name of first author as above and initials and names of all other authors in the same order as they appear in the article.

Book: Barnes, R.D. 1987. Invertebrate zoology (5th ed.). Saunders, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 893 p.

Chapter in edited book: Ubaghs, G. 1960. General characteristics of the Echinodermata. Pp. 3-46, In Chemical zoology, Vol. 3. (M. Florkin and B.T. Scheer, eds.). Academic Press, New York, New York.

Thesis or dissertation: Moore, D.W. 1986. Systematic and biogeographic relationships among the Talpinae (Insectivora: Talpidae). Unpublished dissertation, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico. 105 p.

TABLES. Tables are used to present data that cannot be incorporated conveniently into the text. Ordinarily values from statistical tests are not published as tables; tests employed and probability accepted for significance can be stated in the materials and methods section with significant differences indicated in tables by footnotes or in the text by a statement. Tables may be continued on following pages to accommodate length.

Tables are numbered with Roman numerals in a continuous series and so referenced, in sequence, in the text. Table headings are typed above the table on the same page. Species names are spelled out in full, and italicized, the first time used in each caption. All columns in a table must have headings, with the first letter of the first word and proper nouns capitalized (e.g., “Number sampled,” “% Recaptured”).

Horizontal lines should be avoided in the body of the table; one horizontal line should be used to separate column headers from the data beneath and one horizontal line should be used to separate the last row in the table from footnotes (if used). Footnotes can be designated by the use of letters or numbers as superscripts, but must be internally consistent (i.e., all letters alphabetically or all numbers sequentially). Symbol designations also may be employed but only used in this obligate sequence: *, †, ‡, §, , ¦, #, **, ‡‡.

FIGURES. Each figure or plate of figures must have a caption. The caption is written in paragraph style, beginning with the word "Figure." Captions are typed in roman, except when italic type is required (e.g., a genus and species). For plates, a summary statement should precede the specific explanation of each figure. Avoid repeating information for each figure that can be placed in the summary statement. Species names are spelled out in full the first time used in each caption. The caption must contain an explanation of all abbreviations used on the figures and indicate the value of lines or bars used to show size (unless the value is shown directly on the figure). Size should not be indicated by magnification in the caption because the figure might not be printed at the size calculated.

Figures are numbered consecutively in the sequence mentioned in the text. Non-parenthetical references to figures in the text are not abbreviated (i.e., Figure l; Figures 1, 2; Figures 1-3); references to figures in parentheses in the text are abbreviated (i.e., Fig. 1; Figs. 1, 2; Figs. 1-3). All symbols used in a figure must be defined when possible by a key within the body of the figure. When symbols are set in the caption, the following are available: .

Figures may be used singly or grouped in a plate. Photographs and line drawings generally are not combined in a single plate and should be labeled as separate figures. Single figures and each figure in a plate must include a number or letter. All figures and plates should be prepared in a size proportional to the printed dimensions and must be able to stand reduction if deemed appropriate by the Editor.

Special Publication articles

Monographic or review-length articles should generally follow the form described for Occasional Papers articles, except that other sections may be used in place of the materials and methods, results, and discussion sections. Headings should be restricted to major headings and no more than two sublevels. Extra spacing between paragraphs is not permitted. Use of tabular data or figures from the work of others must be consistent with copyright law, and it is the responsibility of the author to supply appropriate permissions when the manuscript is submitted.


General points of style

Scientific names: The full binominal name is written out at the first use of a species name. At subsequent use, the generic component is abbreviated by use of the first letter, except at the beginning of a sentence where it is written out. Genera and species should be italicized, not underlined ,throughout the manuscript. Author and date citations are used the first time a taxon is mentioned in the abstract and the text, but not subsequently except as described for tables and figures. Use must be in accordance with the appropriate international code for the taxa under study. Author and date citations used only as authorities for scientific names do not appear in the literature cited section.

Authors are reminded that names of taxa are not names of organisms. For example, Canis is the name of a genus (a group of related species) and as such it does not give birth, ingest rodents, possess a tail, etc. These are properties of organisms.

Mathematical and chemical notations: These should conform to the same conventions as those used for chemical and biochemical/molecular nomenclature.

Use of numbers: In the text, numbers should be Arabic numerals except when beginning a sentence. Naked decimals are not permitted in the text, tables, legends, or on figures; i.e., use 0.1, not .1. Numbers greater than 999 must have commas. Metric units are to be used in all articles. The 24-hour or military time system should be used to indicate time; e.g., 1500 hr.

Acronyms and abbreviations: At first use, acronyms are placed in parentheses following the name written out in full. In subsequent use, the acronym alone is used. An acronym may begin a sentence. Sentences may not begin with an abbreviation and abbreviations are as recommended in the Council of Biology Editors (CBE) style manual. The Publication Series uses all International System of Measurement (SI) metric unit abbreviations. Common CBE and SI abbreviations include the following (the same abbreviation is used for plural form):


CBE abbreviations

wk (week)
hr (hour; use 0-2400 hr for time)
sec (second)
min (minute)
mo (month)
day (not abbreviated)
n. sp. (new species)
n. gen. (new genus)
L (liter; but ml for milliliter)
g (gravity; not x g)
RH (relative humidity)
P.o. (per os)
s.c. (subcutaneous)
i.pl. (intrapleural)
i.p. (intraperitoneal)
PI (postinoculation)
p. (page)
ad lib. (ad libitum)
U.S.A. (as a noun)
U.S. (as an adjective)
sp. gr. (specific gravity)
t-test
U-test
P (probability)
x (arithmetic mean)
r (correlation coefficient)
n (sample size)
SD (standard deviation of the mean)
SE (standard error of the mean)
df (degrees of freedom)
NS (not significant)

Basic Sl units

m meter
kg kilogram
sec second
A ampere
V volt
mol mole

Prefixes for Sl units

d deci
c centi
m milli
µ micro
n nano
p pico
da deca
h hecto
k kilo
M mega
G giga
T tera

Words and abbreviations in Latin (e.g., a priori) and other non-English languages, except for genus and species names, are not italicized.

American spelling supersedes English spelling.

No and none are treated as singular; e.g., no flower was found. If this form is not satisfactory, avoid use of the words.

The suffix “-like” is hyphenated only in combination with a name in italic type or to avoid a triple l.

Because manuscripts are accepted only with the understanding that the work was conducted in compliance with all relevant laws and within the policy on animal care and use, a separate statement regarding animal care and use is not required as a part of each paper.

Revising manuscripts

When manuscripts are returned (electronically) for revision, a cover letter from the Editor provides directions that must be followed carefully. When returning the revised manuscript, include a cover letter giving the manuscript number and describing how the manuscript has been revised. A point-by-point statement of what has been revised and a brief rebuttal of those criticisms not addressed should be provided. All suggestions of the reviewers and the Editor must be addressed individually. Reviewers are assigned numbers to simplify this process. The revised manuscript and the author's comments are reviewed again before the final electronic “proof” is sent back to the corresponding author.

Correcting proofs

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their revised proofs and, therefore, what ultimately is produced as the final version published electronically in the Publication Series. Corrected proofs must be returned to the Editor promptly, ideally within a week of receipt, or less. Receipt of proof is not acknowledged, but authors are notified when proof is not received within the week. Proofs are to be corrected, not revised. Additions usually are disallowed except to correct errors made by the Editor. Correction of errors made by the author may be billed to the author at the rate of $5.00 each. Queries on the proof are to be answered by "yes" or "no"; do not use "ok" or "stet."

MSB Publications Editorial Board 2005-2008

DR. RICHARD E. CLOPTON (term exp. 2008)
College of Science, P.O. Box 10
Peru State College
Peru NE 68421
Tel: 402-872-2255
Fax: 402-872-2375
rclopton@oakmail.peru.edu
Expertise: parasites of arthropods, taxonomy, systematics

MR. JONATHAN L. DUNN (term expires 2008)
RR2 Box 52R
Bishop, CA 93514
Tel: 760 387-1301
cerwa@earthlink.net
Expertise: bird taxonomy and systematics

DR. WAYNE J. ELISENS (term exp. 2008)
Dept of Botany & Microbiology
University of Oklahoma
770 Van Vleet Oval
Norman, OK 73019-6131 U.S.A.
Tel: 405-325-5923
Fax: 405-325-7619
elisens@ou.edu
Expertise: systematics of Scrophulariaceae, biogeography

DR. TOM FRITTS (term exp. 2008)
24 Madrone Flyway
Belen, New Mexico
Tel: 505 861-5365
Fax: 505 861-6814 (call phone first)
Frittstom@cs.com
Expertise: ecology, herpetology

MR. DANIEL D. GIBSON (term exp. 2008)
Collections Manager
University of Alaska Museum
907 Yukon Drive
Fairbanks, AK 99775-6960
Tel: 907 -474 7359
fnddg@uaf.edu
Expertise: birds systematics

DR. KEITH B. GIDO (term exp. 2008)
Division of Biology
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506-4901
Tel: 785-532-6616
kgido@ksu.edu
Expertise: fish ecology, invasive species effects, fish assemblage structure

DR. JOHN J. JANOVY, JR. (term exp. 2008)
Varner Professor of Biological Sciences
School of Biological Sciences
University of Nebraska Lincoln
Lincoln, NE 68588-0118
Tel: 402-472-2754
Fax: 402-472-2083
jjanovy1@unl.edu
Expertise: parasites of vertebrates and invertebrates

DR. CLYDE JONES (term exp. 2008)
Professor and Curator of Mammals,
NSRL
Museum of Texas Tech University
Box 43191
Lubbock, TX 79409-3191
Tel: 806-742-2715
Fax: 806-742-2963
cjones@packrat.musm.ttu.edu
Expertise: mammals, faunal inventories

DR. ENRIQUE LESSA
Professor of Evolution
Facultad de Ciencias
P.O. Box: Casilla 12106
Universidad de la República
Montevideo 11300, Uruguay
Tel: 598-2-525-8618 (dial 7 to access extensions, then ext 143)
Fax: 598-2-525 8617
mailto:lessa@fcien.edu.uy
Expertise: mammals, phylogenetics, evolution

DR. JAMES A. MACMAHON (term exp. 2008)
Department of Biology
Utah State University
Logan, UT 84322
Tel: 435-797-8151
jam@cc.usu.edu
Expertise: ecology of plants, vertebrates and invertebrates (esp. grasshoppers, spiders)