Author Guidelines

JOURNAL POLICIES
SUBMISSION AND REVIEW
MANUSCRIPT FILE
COVER LETTER
TEXT FILE
File type and metadata
IMRaD structure
General formatting
Figure and table citations in the text
Reference citations in the text
Authorships of taxa
Taxonomic novelties
Introduction
Material and methods
Results
Taxonomic hierarchy
Structure of taxonomic treatment
Synonymy
Material citations
Discussion
Acknowledgements
References
Figure and table captions
FIGURE FILES
TABLE FILES
SUPPLEMENTARY FILES

 

JOURNAL POLICIES

Vision
The European Journal of Taxonomy (EJT) is published and fully funded by a consortium of (European) Natural History Institutes. Therefore, neither authors, nor readers are required to pay open access fees or subscriptions. By coordinating institutional resources to create a single publishing platform, the journal encourages excellence, prevents redundancy, and increases efficiency in the dissemination of taxonomic data. It provides a secure, long-term publication platform at minimum cost.

EJT is thus a high-quality, fully free taxonomic journal that will offer all the modern interactive web-based facilities expected of a high-level, high-impact journal. EJT endeavours to set a high standard in taxonomic publishing.

Scope
EJT is a fully refereed, international, fully electronic Open Access journal in descriptive taxonomy, covering subjects in zoology (including entomology), botany (in its broadest sense), mycology, and palaeontology. EJT-papers must be original and adhere to high scientific (content) and technical (language, artwork, etc.) standards. Manuscripts that are clearly substandard in either of these categories will not be sent out for review.

EJT is supported by a consortium of European Natural History Institutes, but its scope is global. Both authorship and geographical region of study need not be European. Authors are, however, strongly encouraged to involve also European Natural History Institutes by consulting material from their collections.

Categories of papers published by EJT
EJT publishes the following categories of papers:
- Research articles: contributions to the field of descriptive taxonomy, including (re-) descriptions of taxa or global checklists, taxonomic revisions, etc.
- Monographs: papers falling into the categories listed above and exceeding 50 printed pages.
- Opinion papers: in which authors offer information and interpretation of issues related to theory and history of biological systematics and taxonomy, and science policy making.

EJT will not publish correspondence, short notes, book reviews or any other kind of announcements.
Submitted manuscripts will need to have sufficient critical mass to be considered by EJT. For example, manuscripts describing a single or very few species will need to demonstrate the general relevance of their publication. Larger and revisionary papers are preferred. Note also that EJT publishes such longer papers in FREE open access!

Editorial policy
By submitting a manuscript to European Journal of Taxonomy, the corresponding author guarantees the full agreement of all co-authors, that all co-authors are aware of the Copyright and Open Access policies of the journal (including publication under CC-BY license), and that the manuscript fully complies with the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement, particularly with regard to the rules on co-authorship, collection of material, plagiarism/use of AI, research misconduct and conflicts of interest.

Manuscripts should conform to standard rules of English grammar and style. Either British or American spelling may be used as long as usage is consistent throughout the manuscript. Scientists who use English as a foreign language are urged to have their manuscript read by a native English-speaking colleague or a professional proofreader.
Although no page limit is imposed, manuscripts should always be as concise as possible.

The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (Zoology, Entomology, Fossil animals), the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants and the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants should be followed rigorously.

The editorial team of European Journal of Taxonomy aims at reviewing and publishing as many high-quality papers as possible, and at respecting reasonable delays between submission and publication.
The use of our specific, standardized format for all EJT papers allows compliance with international publication standards, enhances readability, and enables data dissemination accross platforms such as our GBIF-hosted data portal, the Plazi Treatment Bank, Zenodo, the Catalogue of Life, and the shared ChecklistBank.

To ensure efficiency and the optimal use of the editorial team’s resources, we expect authors to follow rigorously the format and requirements described in these Author Guidelines and in the Material Citations Formatting Guide. Manuscripts not conforming to these Guidelines will sent back to authors for technical revision.

Upon submission, manuscripts will be checked for language, presentation and format.

Manuscripts which conform to the journal’s scope and format will be sent to at least two referees by a member of the editorial board, who will then act as the handling editor.

SUBMISSION AND REVIEW

Manuscripts submitted for publication in EJT should be uploaded in the NESTOR system, by following the instructions on the screen. By registering in the NESTOR system, authors agree to the journal’s Privacy Policy and to the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement. Hard copy submissions or submissions as email attachments will not be considered.

The entire review process will be conducted online through the NESTOR system, up to the final decision (accept or reject). Authors will be able to track the status of their submission online at any stage. If there are multiple authors for one manuscript, only the corresponding author is able to track the submission status.

Manuscripts returned to authors with referee reports should be revised and sent back through the NESTOR system within 4 weeks (5 weeks for monographs). If a major revision of a manuscript is requested, the revised manuscript will be sent out for re-review. Final decisions on acceptance or rejection will be made by the Editor-in-Chief. Papers will be published online individually as soon as corrected proofs have been received and processed.

Upon first submission or technical revision, authors should submit the following elements on the NESTOR system:
- manuscript file (.pdf) of less than 50 MB
- cover letter
- text file (.doc, .docx, or .rtf)
- each table as an individual file (.doc, .docx, or .rtf)
- each figure as an individual file (.tif, .jpeg) of less than 20 MB
- any supplementary material (individual files, less than 20 MB) related to the paper: dataset, additional illustrations, document for methodology, video file...

During peer-review, authors should submit the following elements for their revised version of the manuscript:
- revised manuscript file (.pdf) of less than 50 MB
- revised text file without track changes (.doc, .docx, .rtf)
- revised text file with track changes (.doc, .docx, .rtf)
- revision cover letter: addressing the reviewers’ suggestions and comments
- if some tables, figures or supplementary files were also revised, delete the original file in the submission module, and upload the revised file.

MANUSCRIPT FILE

The manuscript file is a pdf (less than 50 MB) containing the text, the figure captions, the figure files (images), the table captions and the tables.

Ideally, the figures and tables are placed in the document closely to their first citation in the text.

COVER LETTER

First submission
- you can motivate why you have chosen to send your contribution to EJT and why you consider it relevant to this journal
- you must suggest minimum 3 potential reviewers for a research article, minimum 5 reviewers for a monograph (> 50 pages); for each reviewer, indicate the full name, the affiliation and email, and explain the reason why you selected them as potential reviewer for your manuscript
- you may specify opposed reviewers (with a strong reason for this suggestion).

Revision
In your revision cover letter, you should reply to the reviewers’ suggestions and comments and answer any specific questions from the reviewers. If you disagree with any reviewers’ observation, please motivate why you do not wish to follow a particular suggestion.

TEXT FILE

File type and metadata
The text file is a Word or Rich Text Format file (.doc, .docx, .rtf) containing the main text and the captions of tables and figures:
- Times New Roman font size 12, double-spaced
- margins of 3 cm on all sides
- all pages and all lines are numbered sequentially.

The first page of the text file should contain:
- the main title: maximum 250 characters, spaces included; the title includes reference to two higher hierarchical taxonomic categories, e.g.,
Water diviners described: six new species of the Niphargus aquilex (Crustacea, Amphipoda) complex

- the list of authors (First Name LAST NAME) in the desired order. Assign one superscript number to each author in the sequence (author¹, author², author³...), and use this unique superscript number to mark all the personal data of this author (adress(es), email, and if available LSID and/or ORCID)

- the list of addresses (affiliations) of the authors: before each address, add the superscript number of the author(s) concerned, for example:
^1,2,4 address of author 1, author 2 and author 4
³ address of author 3

- the list of emails of the authors; one email per author; the corresponding author is indicated with a superscript asterisk

- if available, the personal LSID and/or ORCID of authors.

- a running title of less than 75 characters, spaces included, e.g.,
Six new species of the Niphargus aquilex complex (Amphipoda)

- the following disclaimer:
“The present paper has not been submitted to another journal, nor will it be in the 6 months after initial submission to EJT. All co-authors are aware of the present submission.”

The second page should contain the abstract and 2 to 5 keywords.

The abstract:
- contains typically less than 200 words, except for monographs with many new taxa and alterations in the taxonomy
- does not contain any bibliographic references, nor unexplained abbreviations/acronyms
- contains all the new taxa names, new combinations and new synonymies from the paper
- may contain authorships of taxa (not mandatory).

Monographs (more than 50 pages) can include a table of contents and an index.

IMRaD structure
In the manuscript, follow the IMRaD structure:

Introduction
Material and methods
Results
Discussion
Acknowledgements
References

Exception: the structure of ‘opinion papers’ is flexible and may not follow this IMRaD structure.

General formatting
- bold font should only be used for headers (Introduction, Diagnosis...), in table/figure captions (‘Fig. 1.’, ‘Table 1’, letters A, B, C...), for regions in material citations (Gia Lai Province, Baden-Württemberg...), and to introduce new synonyms (‘syn. nov.’) or new lectotypes (‘designated here’).
Bold should not be used elsewhere in the text (not for ‘sp. nov.’ in abstract/text, not on authorships, abbreviations, acronyms, etc.).
- bold italic font should only be used for taxa names in the headers of the taxonomic treatment and within an identification key.
- italic font is used in the main text for genera and infrageneric names (not for family, class..). It is also used in the list of References for the word ‘in’, for book titles and journal titles.
- CAPITAL letters should only be used for authors’ last names (on the first page), for countries in the material citation (see Structure of taxonomic treatment) and for letters in a figure (A, B, C...).
- Small capital letters may be used (but not mandatory) for body parts and organs within a taxon description:
Head (Fig. 3A). In dorsal view, ...
- underlining should not be used in the manuscript.

- headers should be placed on a separate line, not
Morphological examination and imaging. External morphological characteristics…
but write
Morphological examination and imaging
External morphological characteristics…

- ranges: use a n-dash (–) and not a hyphen (-) for measurements, page numbers, elevation range, figure range...
5–10 mm
100–250 m
(Yu & Wang 2022: figs 100–102)
Figs 1–4, Fig. 6A–B, E
Molecular Biology and Evolution 16 (2): 218–233

- abbreviations are followed by a full stop:
species = sp., several species = spp., subspecies =  subsp., specimen = spec., one figure = Fig., editor = ed., etc. (s.s., s.l., a.s.l., pers. comm., pers. obs.....). Use comma for ‘e.g.,’ and ‘i.e.,’.

- a full stop is not added for contractions in which the last letter of the word is present:
circa = ca, versus = vs, specimens = specs, station = stn, several figures = Figs, editors = eds, doctor = Dr, etc.

Figure and table citations in the text

Only the terms ‘Table’, ‘Tables’, ‘Fig.’, and ‘Figs’ should be used. Other categories (e.g. ‘plates’, ‘Tab.’) are not accepted. Do not use ‘Figs.’

Figures and tables are cited in ascending numerical order:
- first figure mentioned in the text: Fig. 1
- second figure mentioned: Fig. 2
etc.

One figure = one file, and follow the technical requirements to prepare your figure files.

For a composite figure (several images assembled on the same figure), think carefully about the order of the taxa in the text:
- use A, B, C, D... for each image of the composition
- when numbering the figures, follow as much as possible the order of taxa in the text; preferably use one taxon per figure; or, for comparison, preferably use less than 4 taxa on the same figure file, to obtain a correct placement of figures throughout the manuscript.

To cite one figure, use ‘Fig.’:
Fig. 1
To cite several figures, use ‘Figs’ (no full-stop):
Figs 1A–D, 2A, 3E
Figs 4–6
When starting a sentence, use ‘Figure’, ‘Figures’:
Figure 2 shows....

To cite figures from another source, use lowercase ‘fig.’ and ‘figs’:
Yu & Wang (2022: figs 100–102)

Reference citations in the text
When citing an external source, use the following format:
one author:
Author (year), or (Author year)
2 authors:
Author & Author (year), (Author & Author year)
3 or more authors:
Author et al. (year), (Author et al. year)

No comma between ‘Author’ and the year; use ‘&’ (not ‘and’); use italic on ‘et al.’
When a first author has more than one publication in the same year, use lowercase letters a, b, c...
Harzhauser et al. (2022a, 2022b)

To cite several sources:
- order citations from oldest to newest, use semicolons between citations
- if more than one citation from the same year, order alphabetically:
(Brunetti & Della Bella 2005; Ceulemans 2005)
-group citations with the same authorship (also from oldest to newest), separate years with comma.
An example of multiple citation:
(Giannuzzi-Savelli & Reina 1987, 2001; Lozouet 1999; Landau et al. 2003, 2017; Brunetti & Della Bella 2005; Ceulemans 2005; Harzhauser et al. 2014, 2021, 2022a, 2022b; Ceulemans et al. 2017)

To cite pages from an external source, use a colon (:); to cite tables or figures, use lowercase: ‘table/tables’, ‘fig./figs’...
(Landau et al. 2003: 127)
Yu & Wang (2022: figs 100–102)

Specific formatting rules apply to references in the taxonomic treatments (synonymy). See the Results section for more details.

Authorships of taxa

Authorships in zoology/entomology are in the format: ‘Author, year’ or ‘(Author, year)’; e.g.,
The genus Cheilosia Meigen, 1822....

Authorships in botany/mycology follow the standard forms available in IPNI.; e.g.,
Chlorophytum sofiense (H.Perrier) Marais & Reilly

Add authorships of all taxa (old and new):
- at the first mention of this taxon in the text
- in the headers of the taxonomic treament
- in figure and table captions
- in identification keys.

Exception: if the taxon is newly described in the manuscript and its authorship is identical to the manuscript's authorship, it is not necessary to mention it in the text, captions and keys.

EJT adheres to the CETAF e-publishing recommendations for authorship citation, as detailed by Bénichou et al. (2018) (https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2018.475). Authors are encouraged to apply Appropriate Citation of Taxonomy: the authors who want their citations of taxonomic names to be considered as references (and consequently to appear in the references list) should formally cite the taxonomic papers where they originate in their articles. See the required format in the References section.
For example, instead of writing “Chlamydotheca Saussure, 1858 was first described from South America”, write: “Chlamydothecawas first described from South America (Saussure 1858)”. In the latter case, the reference “(Saussure 1858)” is a real reference and citation (name and date not separated by a comma), in the former it is the authorship of the taxon (name and date separated by a comma). Works given in the References section but only cited in the text as taxon authorship will be removed, with the exception of the synonyms given in a taxonomic treatment that provide precise page references.

Taxonomic novelties

For new taxa or recombinations, names at new rank, replacement names, use abbreviations with ‘nov.’: ‘sp. nov.’, ‘gen. nov.’, ‘gen. et sp. nov.’, ‘fam. nov.’, ‘comb. nov.’, ‘gen. et comb. nov.’, ‘comb. et stat. nov.’ etc.

These abbreviations should be added:
- in the abstract
- in the core text (first mention of this taxon in any paragraph, not for subsequent mentions in the same paragraph)
- in the headers of the taxonomic treatment
- in figure captions and table captions
- in identification keys.

Do not use other conventions: not ‘n. sp.’, not ‘sp. new’ etc.

References to unpublished epithets (sp. ined.) should be avoided, use instead a numbering or lettering system: sp. 1, sp. 2; or sp. a, sp. b...

Introduction

The Introduction should provide a succinct overview of past work in the field, illustrate why the present work is needed and in which domain it is situated. The progress offered by the present contribution should be summarised in one or two paragraphs at the end of the introduction.

Material and methods

In Material and methods, only acronyms of collections and names of institutions should be cited (not a detailed account of all museum material used, which should be given in the Results section).

Additionally, authors might add the origin of the new material, technical equipment used, major technical literature applied, and software used for analyses or illustrations. If molecular analyses are performed, the methodology should be described in detail so that all procedures are reproducible.

Acronyms of collections (zoology, entomology): when available, use codes from GRSciColl, followed by the full name of the collection, the institution, city and country.
Acronyms of herbaria (botany, mycology): use acronyms available in Index Herbariorum (IH), or from GRSciColl when no acronym exists in IH.

All abbreviations used within the manuscript (parts of animals/plants, collections, localities, etc.) should be listed and explained in this section.

When citing software, include the version (with ‘ver.’) and a bibliographic reference (user manual, wesbite...), e.g. “QGIS ver. 3.22 (QGIS Development Team 2024)”.

Results

The main part of the paper will be found under the Results, including taxonomic descriptions, ecology, (molecular) phylogeny, biostratigraphy, etc. This section may be divided into different sections, e.g., Phylogenetic results and Taxonomy.

If no holotype was originally designated from the available type material (syntypes), it is strongly recommended to designate a lectotype.

Redundancy of data should be avoided.

Taxonomic hierarchy
The Taxonomy section should start with a contextual account of the current hierarchy of the target taxon, starting with class. An example here:

Class Insecta Linnaeus, 1758
Order Diptera Linnaeus, 1758
Family Syrphidae Latreille, 1802
Subfamily Eristalinae Newman, 1834
Genus Cheilosia Meigen, 1822

Structure of taxonomic treatment
Each taxonomic treatment should include the items in the following order:

1°) Accepted taxon name with authorship:
Ozestheria berneyi (Gurney, 1927)

2°) Reference to illustrations (Fig./Figs) and/or tables (Table/Tables) in the present manuscript
Figs 9–10; Table 1

3°) Synonymy
For each name, the source citation must include the page number (and figures if applicable). Each source must be added to the list of References. Inside a paragraph, the sources are ordered from oldest to newest.
Refer to the examples below for the use of comma, full-stop, n-dash and m-dash in paragraphs.

Zoology/entomology
- original description and actual synonyms; the authorship of the taxon (with comma) is used as a reference citation.
Calobata belzebul Schiner, 1868: 251.
Scipopus bolivianus Hennig, 1934: 328. Syn. nov.

- non-original uses of taxonomic names: listed without commas, and introduced with n-dash – (oldest source) and m-dash — (other sources, from oldest to newest).
Scipopus belzebul – Enderlein 1922: 210 (key). — Frey 1927: 74 (listed). — Curran 1934a: 451 (key).

- incorrect referral to a taxon: name preceded by ‘non’, listed without commas, and introduced with n-dash – (oldest source) and m-dash — (other sources, from oldest to newest).
Non Scipopus belzebul – Cresson 1930: 327 (S. (S.) planus sp. nov.).

A full example of synonymy here:

Scipopus (Scipopus) belzebul (Schiner, 1868)
Figs 6B, 7

Calobata belzebul Schiner, 1868: 251.
Scipopus bolivianus Hennig, 1934: 328. Syn. nov.

Scipopus belzebul – Enderlein 1922: 210 (key). — Frey 1927: 74 (listed). — Curran 1934a: 451 (key). — Aczél 1949: 339 (catalog); 1951: 538 (key). — Steyskal 1968: 48.15 (catalog). — Ferro & de Carvalho 2014: 59 (listed). — Marshall et al.2016: 544 (catalog).
Scipopus bolivianus – Aczél 1949: 340 (catalog); 1951: 539 (key). — Steyskal 1968: 48.15 (catalog).

Non Scipopus belzebul – Cresson 1930: 327 (S. (S.) planus sp. nov.). — Hendel 1933: 61 (S. (S.) convexus sp. nov.). — Hennig 1934: 322 (key), 324 (diagnosis) (S. (S.) convexus). — Albuquerque 1972a: 92, figs 1–9 (re-description) (S. (S.) convexus).

Botany
- original name and synonyms sharing the same type (homotypic synonyms) are grouped in the same paragraph, from oldest to newest. The type is not mentioned here, see 6°) Type material.
- other synonyms are grouped according to their type. Heterotypic synonyms based on the same type are grouped in the same paragraph, from oldest to newest, and their type information is added at the end of the paragraph.

Inside paragraphs, a full-stop followed by n-dash ‘. –’ is used as delimiter.
Use bold for new type designation (designated here) and for new synonym (syn. nov.). Add the status for any illegitimate or invalid names (nom. illeg., nom. inval.).
For new combinations (comb. nov.), refer to the format example in the Material Citations Formatting Guide.

A full example of synonymy here:
Begonia hirta (Klotzsch) L.B.Sm. & B.G.Schub.
Figs 21A, 22

Begonia hirta (Klotzsch) L.B.Sm. & B.G.Schub. (Smith & Schubert 1941a: 197). – Casparya hirta Klotzsch (Klotzsch 1855: 247). – Casparya cordifolia var. hirta (Klotzsch) A.DC. (de Candolle 1864: 273).

Casparya columnaris Klotzsch (Klotzsch 1855: 247). – Type: PERU – [Huánuco Region: Prov. Huánuco] • in Muña; [9°40′ S, 75°49′ W]; H. Ruiz s.n.; lectotype: B [F neg. 20853], designated here; isolectotype: HAL ex B [HAL0121732].

Casparya grewiifolia var. pavoniana A.DC. (de Candolle 1864: 272). – Type: PERU • [Peru]; 1777–1788; J.A. s.n.; lectotype: G-BOIS ex B ex herb. Lamberti, designated here. Syn. nov.

Casparya cordifolia A.DC. (de Candolle 1864: 273). – Begonia cordifolia (A.DC.) Warb., nom. illeg.; later homonym (non Begonia cordifolia (Wight) Thwaites) (Warburg 1894: 146). – Begonia hirta var. cordifolia (A.DC.) L.B.Sm. & B.G. Schub. (Smith & Schubert 1941a: 192). – Type: PERU • J.A. Pavón s.n.; lectotype: G-BOIS, designated here • J.A. Pavón s.n.; syntype: G-DC ex G-BOIS [F neg. 7315] • 1777–1788; H. Ruiz L. s.n.; syntype: B [F neg. 20853] • 1777–1788; H. Ruiz L. s.n.; syntype: HAL ex B ex herb. Lamberti [HAL0121732] • 1777–1788; H. Ruiz L. s.n.; syntype: B [F neg. 20854]. Syn. nov.

4°) For new taxa: Diagnosis.
In botanical papers, the diagnosis can be in English or in Latin.
Authors should write their diagnoses in the narrative form.

5°) For new taxa: Etymology.

6°) Type material
7°) Other material examined
EJT operates XML conversion for these material sections, allowing the rich specimen data and relative nomenclatural acts to be distributed to biodiversity databases and linked back to the article (see ‘FAIR & Open Science’). Therefore, the material citations must be standardised to a specific format, which is mandatory.

A short example is given below, but consider the detailed rules for data placement, punctuation, geographical coordinates, month abbreviations, repository and indentifiers in the Material Citations Formatting Guide:

Type material
Holotype
COLOMBIA – Vaupés • ♂; Lago Taraira, Estación Biológica Mosiro Itájura Caparú; 1°04′ S, 69°30′ W; 200 m a.s.l.; 2002–2004; J. Pinzón leg.; ICN-Ao 1890.

Paratypes
COLOMBIA – Guaviare • 1 ♀; San José del Guaviare, vereda Playa Güio Las Iracas; 2°34′37.5″ N, 72°43′21.1″ W; 208 m a.s.l.; 20 Oct. 2012; D. Luna leg.; ICN-Ao 1128. – Vaupés • 4 ♂♂, 4 ♀♀; same data as for holotype; ICN-Ao 978.

Other material examined
COLOMBIA – Guaviare • 1 ♂; Calamar, Parque Nacional Natural Chiribiquete, Cerro Campana; 01°17′15.9″ N, 72°37′53.7″ W; 242 m; 4 Mar. 2018; D. Luna and A. Pinzón leg.; manual night collection, terra firme forest; ICNAo-1910. – Vaupés • 1 ♂, 2 ♀♀; Lago Taraira, Estación Biológica Mosiro Itájura Caparú; 1°04′ S, 69°30′ W; 200 m; 2002–2004; J. Pinzón leg.; ICN-Ao 985....

8°) Description
Full description of all relevant characters. Telegraphic style and/or narrative form are accepted for descriptions.

9°) Ecology, Distribution...

10°) Taxonomic remarks and/or Differential diagnosis.

Discussion

The mandatory Discussion will consider the findings of the paper in the context of the wider literature and indicates progress made within the field. It should be written in the narrative form (no telegraphic style).

Acknowledgements

The Acknowledgements section (one paragraph) specifies any persons and/or organizations the authors wish to mention.

References

The journal style for the List of References is available in the Zotero Style Repository (‘European Journal of Taxonomy’).

References are listed in alphabetical order, based on the surname of the first author.

If two first authors share the same surname, the alphabetical order is then based also on the first name initial of each author: Miller P. comes after Miller J.

References sharing the same first author surname and initial are arranged according to the following order:
1°) single-authored papers, and arranged chronologically (from the oldest to the newest year of publication)
2°) two-authored papers, arranged alphabetically based on surname of second author; when papers share the same authorship in this group, they are arranged chronologically
3°) three-or-more-authored papers, arranged chronologically.

When three-or-more-authored papers share the same year of publication, they are listed according to surname of second author, surname of third author, etc. The alphabetical order of second author surname, third author surname determines the use of letters a, b, c, etc.

Reference with less than 20 authors, or with 20 authors: list all authors.
Reference with more than 20 authors: list the first 19 authors, followed by ‘... &’ and by the name of the last author.

No comma between surname and initials, no space between initials, each initial followed by full-stop, use ‘&’ before the last author.
Italics should only be used for genera, infrageneric names, journal names, book titles, and ‘In’.
No bold font should be used in the references.
Journal article titles: words are not capitalised (except proper nouns, genera...).
Book titles, jounal titles: words are capitalised (except prepositions, articles, and connective words: of, the and...); journal titles are written in full and not abbreviated.

When available, the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) must be added at the end of the reference.The following tool may be used to find DOIs:
https://doi.crossref.org/simpleTextQuery
- verify each DOI by clicking on the DOI link, do not add DOIs referring to another source (e.g., a book review).
- DOIs must be introduced by the url prefix: https://doi.org/ (not http://, not dx. doi, not DOI:...)

- do not add an acccess date to DOI.

For urls of websites (except DOIs), add the date when the resource was last accessed, e.g., ‘[accessed 29 Oct. 2025]’.

Examples of appropriate formats for references:
Article in a journal
Curran C.H. 1934. The Diptera of Kartabo, Bartica District, British Guiana. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 66 (3): 287–232.

Article in a journal, with a doi (Digital Object Identifier) reference
Milá B., Tavares E.S., Muñoz Saldaña A., Karubian J., Smith T.B. & Baker A.J. 2012. A trans-Amazonian screening of mtDNA reveals deep intraspecific divergence in forest birds and suggests a vast underestimation of species diversity. PLoS ONE 7 (7): e40541. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0040541

Denoeud F., Carretero-Paulet L., Dereeper A., Droc G., Guyot R., Pietrella M., Zheng C., Alberti A., Anthony F., Aprea G., Aury J.-M., Bento P., Bernard M., Bocs S., Campa C., Cenci A., Combes M.-C., Crouzillat D., Da Silva C., ... & Lashermes P. 2014. The coffee genome provides insight into the convergent evolution of caffeine biosynthesis. Science 345 (6201): 1181–1184. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1255274

Article in a thematic volume of a journal
Guyot M. 2000. Intricate aspects of sponge chemistry. In: Vacelet J. (ed.) Porifera 2000: Volume in honour to Professor Claude Lévi. Zoosystema 22 (2): 419–431.

Book
Ruiter R.H. & Debelius H. 2006. World Atlas of Marine Fishes. IKAN-Unterwasserarchiv, Frankfurt.

Book belonging to a series
Griswold Ch.E. 1994. A Revision and Phylogenetic Analysis of the Spider Genus Phanotea Simon (Araneae, Lycosoidea). Annales Sciences zoologiques 273, Musée royal de l’Afrique centrale, Tervuren.

Chapter or article in a book
Rougier G.W. & Wible J.R. 2006. Major changes in the ear region and basicranium of early mammals. In: Carrano M., Gaudin T.J., Blob R. & Wible J.R. (eds) Amniote Paleobiology: Phylogenetic and Functional Perspectives on the Evolution of Mammals, Birds and Reptiles: 269–311. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Book with several volumes or parts
Nairn A., Kains W.H. & Stehli F.G. (eds) 1978. The Ocean Basins and Margins. Vol. 4B: The Western Mediterranean. Plenum Press, New-York.

Contribution in a Proceedings book, Conference report, etc.

Shandra P. & Mirad D. 1999. On the taxonomy of carabids (Coleoptera, Carabidae) from mountain forest in Zimbabwe. In: Merger T., Formsfield J. & Brooke D. (eds) Insect Diversity in Southern Africa. Proceedings of the First International Symposium on African Insect Diversity: 117–128. Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren.

Thesis
DeRijk P. 1995. Optimisation of a Database for Ribosomal RNA Structure and Application in Structural and Evolutionary Research. PhD thesis, University of Antwerp, Belgium.
Note that references to so-called ‘grey literature’, such as theses, should be avoided.

Website, software
QGIS Development Team 2025. QGIS Geographic Information System. Ver. 3.40. Open Source Geospatial Foundation. Available from https://qgis.org [accessed 29 Oct. 2025].

Figure and table captions

At the end of the text file, include the figure captions and table captions.

In accordance with the EJT FAIR & Open Science policy, published illustrations are archived individually on the Biodiversity Literature Repository (Zenodo), where they are assigned an individual DataCite-DOI. The figure captions should therefore be self-explanatory, without recourse to the main text.

Specimens should therefore be clearly identified in the figure captions, by adding at least the acronyme of the repository and the specimen identifier within this repository. If there is no specimen identifier, the repository should be mentioned, and other data should be included for means of identification: holotype/paratype, sex, locality...

Examples of format for figure captions:

Fig. 3. Galathea sayaensis sp. nov., holotype, ♀, 2.4 mm (MNHN-IU-2021-5797), Saya de Malha. A. Carapace and abdomen, dorsal view. B. Sternal plastron. C. Left cephalic region, showing antennular and antennal peduncles, ventral view. D. Right Mxp3, showing ischium and merus, lateral view. E. Right P1, merus and carpus, dorsal view. F. Right P1, palm and fingers, dorsal view. G. Right P2, lateral view. H. Right P4, lateral view. Scale bars: A–B, E–H = 0.6 mm; C–D = 0.3 mm.

Fig. 9. Metabiantes elongatus sp. nov., scanning electron micrographs of pedipalp and chelicera. A–F. Paratype, ♂ (MACN-Ar 45425), left pedipalp. A. Mesal view. B. Femur, ventral view. C. Tibia and tarsus, ventral view. D. Detail of femur, ventral view. E. Detail of proximal spines on tibia. F. Detail of microtrichia. G–H. Paratype, ♂ (MACN-Ar 45430), left chelicera. G. Mesal view. H. Frontal view. Scale bars: A = 200 μm; B–C, G–H = 100 μm; D–E = 20 μm; F = 1 μm.

The table captions should be self-explanatory, without recourse to the main text.

FIGURES FILES

Illustrations must be of high quality and in portrait format. Standards for size and resolution are: width of 16 cm, for a resolution of at least 300 dpi for photographs, or 1200 dpi for line drawings.

Figure files must be in .jpeg or .tiff format, and the maximum size for each file is 20 MB.

One figure = one file

Figures files are labelled in ascending numerical order: the first figure mentioned in the text is labelled Fig. 1, the second one mentioned is labelled Fig. 2, etc.

Lettering should be uniform and consistent, in capital letters (A, B, C, D...), using Arial font, size 10 or 12.

Scale bars are required for each image of specimen (exceptions: habit/details in the wild, data labels).

For a composite figure (several images assembled on the same figure), think carefully about the order of the taxa in the text:
- use A, B, C, D... for each image of the composition
- when numbering the figures, follow as much as possible the order of taxa in the text; preferably use one taxon per figure; or, for comparison, preferably use less than 4 taxa on the same figure file, to obtain a correct placement of figures throughout the manuscript.

TABLE FILES

Authors are free to present tables the way it suits their publication best, but all tables must have a caption, are preferably presented in portrait format, and columns should fit a print page (minimum font size accepted: 8 pt).

Table files must be in .doc, .docx, or .rtf format.

Tables are labelled in ascending numerical order: the first table mentioned in the text is labelled Table 1, the second one mentioned is labelled Table 2, etc.

SUPPLEMENTARY FILES

To ensure appropriate data extraction, the specimen data should not be included in supplementary files, but should be cited in the main text (Results section,taxonomic treatments). The material citations must be standardised to the mandatory format (see Material Citations Formatting Guide).

Authors are free to publish underlying/complementary data that supports the study as supplementary files if the format is not suitable for inclusion within the article (e.g., incompatible file type). The file size should ideally be less than 20 MB.