ASIAN
MYRMECOLOGY
Updated March 2020
ASIAN MYRMECOLOGY is a peer reviewed online-only journal covering all aspects of research on ants in or from Asia and is published by the International Network for the Study of Asian Ants, “ANeT”.
The journal publishes original research papers, reviews, and short communications in important subfields of myrmecology, without any page charges. Although the journal is partly intended to support beginners in the field of myrmecology, high quality standards will be applied. Please note our statement on publication ethics.
Editors :
| Adam L. Cronin | Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan |
| Benoit Guénard | University of Hong Kong, PRC |
| Francisco Hita Garcia | OIST, Japan |
| Sumana Annagiri | Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata, India |
| Himender Bharti | Punjabi University, India |
| Meenakshi Bharti | Punjabi University, India |
| Shingo Hosoishi | Kyushu University, Japan |
| Fuminori Ito | Kagawa University, Japan |
| Petr Klimes | University of South Bohemia, Czech Republic |
| Cong Liu | Harvard University, US |
| Kei-ichi Masuko | Senshu University, Japan |
| Dirk Mezger | University of Bayreuth, Germany |
| Joachim Offenberg | Aarhaus University, Denmark |
| Omid Paknia | University of Veterinary Medicine, Germany |
| Martin Pfeiffer | University of Bayreuth, Germany |
| Simon K.A. Robson | University of Sydney, Australia |
| Wendy Wang | National University of Singapore |
| Mark Wong | Hong Kong University, China |
| Scotty Yang | National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan |
| Sze Huei 'Zoe' Yek | University Malaysia Sabah |
| Kalsum Mohd Yusah | Royal Botanic Gardens, United Kingdom |
Scope
Asian Myrmecology publishes research on ants in Asia, including, but not exclusive to, taxonomy, behavior, life-history, ecology and morphology.
In principle, we will publish any work on Asian ants which is of sufficient scientific rigor. However, authors should take note that this requirement includes setting findings within appropriate context with regards to broader regional patterns in diversity, taxonomy and/or ecology.
We will generally not consider observations or new distribution records of single species from single sites, or species surveys from single sites. Exceptions may be made if it can be demonstrated that the data present a broadly significant novel finding and findings are presented appropriately in a general context.
We will consider works from outside of Asia if the focal organisms are pertinent to Asia or the work covers aspects of broad regional or global importance.
Article submission
Manuscripts should be submitted via email in grammatically correct English as a Microsoft Word document and formatted according to the guidelines given below.
Submissions should be accompanied by a covering letter with the full address and email address where the corresponding author can be reached. In the covering letter the authors should state that:
- the research is original and has not been published before
- all authors have contributed to the manuscript and approve of its publication
- permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (if these materials have been used)
- that the manuscript has been submitted solely to Asian Myrmecology and is not published, in press, or submitted elsewhere
- in case of animal experiments a statement is needed that the experiments were conducted according to the laws of the country where they have been performed.
Submit your article to the e-mail address of the Editors: editors[at]asian-myrmecology.org
Submitted manuscripts will be assessed by the editor for suitability before being assigned to a handling editor. Handling editors will request reviews of the manuscript from suitably qualified referees. Authors are encouraged to assist the review process by suggesting suitable referees, though the final decision will be up to the editors.
Once referee reports have been returned, a decision will be made on the manuscript and comments returned to the authors.
Manuscript preparation
Authors should refer to the guidelines below when preparing a manuscript for submission or making a revision of a submitted manuscript.
Text should be formatted to fit A4, with margins on all four sides of at least 30 mm. Submitted documents must be in editable (WORD, ODT or RTF) format, not a pdf.
Articles should not exceed a length of 15 printed pages (including figures and tables), except by special permission.
Authors, particularly non-native English speakers, should have their manuscripts checked linguistically before initial submission.
Manuscript format
All text should be left justified. Lines should be numbered continuously throughout the text for editorial purposes. Pages should be numbered and footnotes avoided. Text should include the following components in this order:
title page
abstract
main text
references
tables
figure legends
figures
Title page
The title page should include a full concise but informative title, and an abridged title for a running header of no more than 50 characters. The full names and addresses (affiliations) of all authors when the work was performed (and current addresses if different) should be included, and full contact information for the corresponding author, including an email address. Up to seven keywords for indexing purposes can be included under a separate heading; these should not be the same terms as in the title.
Abstract
The abstract should comprise a single paragraph summarising the main findings of the study that places the work in scientific context and makes clear what was accomplished. This should be of 150-200 words, and not include any references. Authors may include a translation of the abstract in the language of the country in which the work took place. Authors who write in non-European characters are asked to submit a true-type font (ttf) file with their submitted abstract.
Main text
The main text can include sub-sections as appropriate for the manuscript, but standard scientific articles should follow the pattern:
- Introduction
- Materials and Methods
- Results
- Discussion
For formatting of headers please refer to a recent edition of the journal.
The Introduction should include sufficient background information for the main findings of the study to be understood, without being a comprehensive literature review. Materials and Methods should include sufficient information for the study to be repeated. Results should report all data in the study with minimal or no interpretation, while the Discussion should place this information into a broader context with the available literature and explain clearly the novel aspects of the study.
Taxonomic names should be given in full with author and year at the first instance. Subsequent use should employ the abbreviated species name only, except at the start of sentence.
Use the metric system in text, figures and tables. Designate time in the 24-hour system and write it as 06:30 h or 20:00 h. Use the European system of calendar notation (e.g. 4 December 2005).
Presentation of statistics
Summary statistics should include measures of both central tendency and dispersion where appropriate, e.g. means and standard deviations (SD). Reports of all statistical tests should include the name of the statistical test, the name of the test statistic and its value, the degrees of freedom and the probability value used to determine significance and the authors’ interpretation of their analysis. Probabilities should be reported as exact values unless highly significant (ie: p < 0.001). For example: "Mean head widths were significantly different between the two colonies (mean ± SD = 0.95 ± 0.20 mm vs. 1.10 ± 0.23 mm, t-test, t38 = 2.22, P = 0.034). Authors are encouraged to give details of statistical analyses in a separate section of the Methods when complex statistical techniques are used.
Acknowledgements
At the end of the main text and before the reference list, please include any acknowledgements. This should include grants and sources of any other support to the study and preparation of the manuscript.
References
Authors are encouraged to use the EndNote style provided on the Asian Myrmecology website. Citations in the text should have the authors immediately followed by the date; for example: (Maschwitz & Maryati 2001). If multiple papers by the same author in the same year are cited, they should be lettered in sequence (Brown 2000a, b). In-text citations of publications by three or more authors should be in the form (Buckley et al. 2000). Successive in-text citations should be in chronological order. The reference list should be arranged alphabetically and presented as follows:
Reference to article in journal: Yamane S, Itino T and Abdal Rahman Nona, 1996. Ground ant fauna in a Bornean dipterocarp forest. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 44(1): 253-262.
Reference to book: Hölldobler B and Wilson EO, 1990. The Ants. Springer Verlag, Berlin, 732 pp.
Reference to chapter in book: Moffett MW, 1988. Nesting, emigrations, and colony foundation in two group-hunting myrmicine ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Pheidologeton). In: Advances in Myrmecology (Trager JC, ed.), Brill, Leiden, 355-370.
Reference to unpublished thesis or report: Mezger D, 2010. Litter and soil ants in tropical rain forests: How are their diversity, community and food web structured by environmental factors? A case study from four forest types of Sarawak, Malaysia. PhD thesis. University of Ulm, Ulm, 232 pp.
Reference to article on the Internet: Eguchi K, 2005. Important characters for sorting and identifying Indo-Malayan Pheidole species. Downloaded from www.antbase.net/poster-exhibition.html on 9 May 2006.
Tables
Tables and figures must be numbered with Arabic characters and referred to in the text (as Table 1, Fig. 1 etc.).
Tables should be presented separately on consecutive pages following the reference section. Each table should be typed on a separate sheet with title and header. Tables should include a descriptive header above the table. This should include a brief title summarising the contents of the table, and a description of the data presented in the table including explanations of any abbreviations used.
Tables should use only the minimal horizontal rules necessary for clarity, and should not include vertical rules.
Figure legends
Figure legends should be presented separately from the figures themselves, on a separate page following Tables and References. Figure legends should be self-sufficient explanations of no more than four lines. Figure legends should provide a brief sentence which concisely describes the figure, followed by an explanation of the figure itself in as concise a manner as possible. Please do not include character symbols in the legend.
Figures
Final figures must be included as separate files, though may be included at the end of the main document at the review stage. Drawings and figures must be presented in electronic format. Font size for text in figures should be appropriate for reduction in the published version. Textures and/or grey-shading for distinguishing lines and/or bars should be carefully selected for clarity in final form. Figures should be submitted with clearly legible labels (type font: Arial). Maps should have a scale bar and indicate the direction of north. Photographs and paintings can be published in colour. Figures should include a legend and should have the authors’ names and the figure number include in the page header.
Authors must provide written permissions for any reproduced figures/illustrations.
Electronic supplementary material
Manuscripts may have accompanying electronic supplementary material (ESM) that will not appear in pdf version of the main manuscript, but contains information directly pertinent to understanding that work. This may include for example additional figures, images, videos or datasets. Any form of ESM will be considered, and those deemed to represent a valuable addition to the main document will be permanently accessible online from the manuscript DOI page.
Formatting of ESM should follow the rules above as closely as possible, though all citations to figures, tables etc. should be preceded by ‘S’ to denote a supplementary file (eg; Table S1; Video S1), labelled sequentially for each type of item. Reference to ESM in the main text should be provide where helpful as ‘see Electronic Supplementary Material’, with reference to specific items added to this if required (eg; ‘Fig. S3’).
Revising manuscripts
Revised manuscripts should be returned to the editorial office within one month of the date on which revision was invited, and accompanied by a separate file containing a detailed response letter on how all the concerns of the Editors and referees have been addressed. Papers are still subject to rejection until the editors deem that suggested corrections have been made satisfactorily.
Please note that we are following a slow publication philosophy as we publish only one online-only issue per year, though articles will now be published online as soon as they are accepted. Final proofs of accepted manuscripts will be sent to the corresponding author by email as a PDF file. Please check proofs carefully against the typescript for errors before returning the corrected proofs to the corresponding Editor within one week of receipt.
Partnership between Asian Myrmecology and AntWiki
Antwiki is the product of a global effort to compile information about ants in a freely accessible, well organized, and broadly expandable website. In an effort to contribute to this worthy goal, Asian Myrmecology is partnering with the editors of AntWiki to disseminate selected information from the journal's published papers on relevant AntWiki webpages.
Pertinent material from published Asian Myrmecology studies (e.g., keys, images, life-history details) will be posted online on Antwiki, in addition to appearing in standard format as pdf-version. Authors may be asked if they have any additional information, media, field observations, etc. to contribute. You will also be offered an opportunity to edit any of the details and material that is posted from your work.
Any information posted to AntWiki from Asian Myrmecology articles will be properly attributed and only posted with the author's approval. Your research will be more widely accessible and your contribution to what is known about Asian ants will become part of the repository of ant data and information that can be found on Antwiki.
Online first
Accepted manuscripts will be assigned a permanent DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and published online immediately following production of corrected proofs. Articles published online will be freely available as downloadable pdf files under a Creative Commons Attribution license (see below).
Asian Myrmecology has switched to an e-number system from issue 9. Each article will be citable via issue and e-number (e.g. Asian Myrmecology 9:e009002). All articles have standard page numbers of 1…x.
Language editing
Non-native English speakers should have their manuscript checked by a colleague or service to improve the English prior to submission. Asian Myrmecology is unusual in that we offer English editing as part of the standard review process. However, we stress that this is provided as a final polishing stage for manuscripts that have passed review for scientific content, and is not intended to replace author’s own efforts to ensure their manuscript is legible and as grammatically correct as possible when submitted. Authors may be consulted again for clarification as necessary during the final language editing stage.
Cover images
Authors with colour images that may be suitable for a journal cover image are invited to submit these with their manuscript.
Copyright
Asian Myrmecology follows an 'open access' policy and publishes all articles under the
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
Under this license, authors retain the copyright to articles they produce but allow material to be accessed, copied,
reused and distributed without permission or fees, as long as the original source and author are properly cited.
Attribution should include details of the authors of the article and publication source, for example as follows:
Bayartogtokh, B., Aibek, U., Yamane, S. and Pfeiffer, M. (2014) Diversity and biogeography of ants in Mongolia (Hymenoptera: Formicidae).
Asian Myrmecology 6: 63–82
This license encompasses the entire article and any component of it (such as images, figures and data).
For further details see the Creative Commons website.
Download a complete version of these guidelines: Guidelines PDF
