Authors' guidelines

Authors must submit a single manuscript file; tables and figures must be included in the manuscript file, and other supplementary material, if any, must be uploaded separately. When submitting, authors should be working at a computer where all of the relevant files for their paper are available. Submission of a typical manuscript requires about 10 minutes, but upload time depends on the speed of the Internet connection.

Manuscript types

Full papers have no limits in length as well as in figure and table number. Authors are encouraged to add supplemental material in form of colour figures, original datasets and/or computer program source code. Supplemental material and colour figures will appear only in the online edition.

Short notes must be about 16000 characters long (including title, author names and affiliations, abstract and references) and do not include supplemental material.

Manuscript preparation

Please follow the instructions reported in this page before sumbission.
Manuscripts that do not comply with the Journal's guidelines are returned to authors for editing before further consideration.

Language

The text should be written in (British) English.

Style and formatting

The whole manuscript should be prepared as a single file, including the final version of the manuscript, comprehensive of tables, figure captions and figures, in this order. It is strongly recommended to upload figures as high-resolution, separate files during the submission process. Note that on manuscript acceptance, the Layout Editor handling your manuscript could ask for high resolution graphics.
Pages should be numbered, but not lines. Line numbering is added automatically when a Portable Document Format (PDF) file is assembled during the submission process.

Accepted formats are:

• Open document format (.odt);
• Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx);
• Rich Text format (.rtf).

Manuscript layout

Full paper manuscripts must be divided into sections in the following sequence: title page, abstract (300 words maximum) and keywords (6 maximum), introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion, acknowledgements and references. Tables with captions should be one per page, figure captions should be all on a dedicated page, each figure should be on separate page, or (better) should be uploaded separately during the submission process.

Short notes manuscripts should be organised in a single section.

No particular fonts or page setting is required at this stage.

Title page

The title page must contain the following informations:

• The full title of the paper;
• Authors' names, listed in the order in which they are to appear at the head of the printed article;
• Affiliation and address for each author at the time of the study;
• Name, address, and e-mail address of the corresponding author;
  
• A running title no longer than 6-8 words.

Tables

Each table must be preceded by its caption.
The number of tables should be kept to the minimum necessary to concisely summarise results. Please avoid using more than three or four decimal digits. Use the same number of decimal figures consistently throughout the whole manuscript.

Figures

Figure captions must be listed on a separate page after the tables.
Figures can be embedded in the manuscript or uploaded separately as high resolution files (recommended).
Colour figures are used only in the electronic version of the Journal, they will be converted into greyscale for the printed version. Consider this when preparing figures for your manuscript and provide in advance a grayscale version: the Layout Editor handling your manuscript in case of acceptance could ask you for separate colour and graysacale figures, if needed. As well, high resolution figures may be requested later on.

Supplemental materials

Other supplemental material, if any, can be uploaded separately during the submission process.
Supplemental material can be made available in its native electronic format. It will be available via the electronic version of the journal only.
Short notes should not have any supplemental materials.

References

Each reference must be cited in the text using the surnames of the authors (if more than two authors, simply provide the last name of the first author with "et al.") and the year of publication. References cited together should be arranged chronologically, most recent first: for example (Mitchell-Jones 1996, Palomares and Delibes 1993).
The reference list must be arranged in alphabetical order according to the name of the first author.
Please read carefully the Authors' guidelines to format correcly the references. The punctuation must be followed exactly. Journal titles should be abbreviated according to International Standard ISO 4:1997 list of serial title word abbreviations, or as abbreviated in Journal Citation Reports database. A convenient list of Journal titles can be found, for example at the International Standard Serial Number List of Title Word Abbreviations or in the PubMed list of Journals.

The reference list must be double-spaced and placed at the end of the text, arranged in alphabetical order according to the name of the first author. Each reference should be on a separate paragraph. Author names always have to be written as Last name followed by the initials of first and (if any) second name, followed (if any) by name suffixes (Jr., III, etc.). References with the same first author are listed in the following order. (i) Papers with one author only are listed first, in chronological order among them, beginning with the earliest paper. (ii) Papers with dual authorship follow, and are listed in alphabetical order by the last name of the second author. (iii) Papers with three or more authors appear after the dual-authored papers and are arranged in alphabetical order. Journal titles should be abbreviated according to the ISO 4 list of serial title word abbreviations (ISO 3297:1988) published by the ISSN International Centre and used on the ISI Journal of Citation Report. The journal encourages the inclusion of issue numbers which should be placed in parentheses after the volume number. Citation of material in electronic format such as World Wide Web pages is encouraged. Always indicate a recently visited URI, specifying last visit date. The following examples for the reference list cover most situations. The punctuation must be followed exactly.

Journal article:
Webb R.A., Davey K.G., 1976. The fine structure of the nervous tissue of the metacestode of Hymenolepis microstoma. Can. J. Zool. 54(7): 1206-1222.

Entire issue of journal:
Gordon D.C. Jr., Hourston A.S. (Eds.) 1983. Proceedings of the Symposium on the Dynamics of Turbid Coastal Environments. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 40(Suppl. 1).

Report:
Sanders W.W. Jr., Elleby H.A., 1970. Distribution of wheel loads in highway bridges. National Cooperative Highway Research Program Report 83, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, D.C.

Book:
Begon M., Harper J., Towsend C., 1990. Ecology. Individuals, Populations and Communities, Blackwell Scientific Publications, London.

Book in a series:
Scott W.B., Crossman E.J., 1973. Freshwater fishes of Canada. Bull. Fish. Res. Board Can. No. 184.

Part of book (book chapter):
Healey M.C., 1980. The ecology of juvenile salmon in Georgia Strait, Britsh Columbia. In: McNeil W.J., Himsworth D.C (Eds.) Salmonid ecosystems of the North Pacific. Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, OR. 203-229.

Paper in conference proceedings:
Whittaker A.A., Uang C.M., Bertero V.F., 1990. Experimental seismic response of steel dual systems. Proceedings of the 4th U.S. National Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Palm Springs, Calif., Vol. 2. 655-664.

Institutional publications and pamphlets:
Dzikowski P.A., Kirby G., Read G., Richards W.G., 1984. The climate for agriculture in Atlantic Canada. Available from the Atlantic Advisory Committee on Agrometeorology, Halifax, N.S. Publ. ACA 84-2-500. Agdex No. 070.

Corporate author:
American Public Health Association, American Water Works Association, Water Pollution Control Federation, 1975. Standard methods for the examination of water and wastewater. 14th ed. American Public Health Association, American Water Works Association, Water Pollution Control Federation, Washington, D.C.

Thesis:
Keller C.P., 1987. The role of polysaccharidases in acid wall loosening of epidermal tissue from young Phaseolus vulgaris L. hypocotyls. M.Sc. thesis, Department of Botany, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C.

Electronic citation (World Wide Web page):
Quinion M.B., 1998. Citing online sources: advice on online citation formats. Available from http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/citation.htm [20 August 2007].

Citation including URL or DOI:
Sterling J.T., Ream R.R., 2004. At-sea behavior of juvenile male norther fur seals. Can. J. Zool. 82(10): 1621-1637. doi:10.1139/Z04-136

Translation:
Koike A., Ogura B. 1977. Selectivity of meshes and entrances of shrimp traps and crab traps. J. Tokyo Univ. Fish. 64: 1-11. [Translated from Japanese by Can. Transl. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 4950, 1983.]

Reviewers

Authors are kindly invited to suggest at least two possible reviewers for their manuscript.
Please be aware that it is the Editor's choice to assign the manuscript to the suggested reviewers or not.

Authors may also suggest unpreferred reviewers. This information will be treated as confidential by the Editor.