Conflicts of interest/Competing interests

Frontiers of Biogeography avoids engaging reviewers and editors that have conflicts of interest/competing interests when reviewing and editing submissions, including:

• Co-workers, supervisors, close colleagues
• Anyone whose relationship with the authors would influence the review and/or produce biased judgements of submissions

Authors are asked to identify conflicts of interests/competing interests for reviewers and editors in their cover letter when submitting their article, as well as identifying funding of the study and the role of funder(s) in the Acknowledgements section.

Review Procedures

For articles requiring review (Research Articles, Opinions, Perspectives, Reviews, and Correspondence), the review, revision, and acceptance process for Frontiers of Biogeography generally works in the following way: Following author submission, the article is first checked for plagiarism (assisted by text-matching software) and missing materials and then assigned an Oversight and Handling Editor. Depending on their background/expertise, Editorial Board Members act as the Handling Editors for articles. The Handling Editor obtains a minimum of two reviews from non-conflicted reviewers (this process takes an average of 6 weeks). When reviews are returned, the Handling Editor assesses the reviewer reports and makes a recommendation to the Oversight Editor who communicates the decision to the authors. If revisions are needed, the authors are asked to resubmit their manuscript following any recommended changes.

When authors resubmit revised manuscripts, the Handling Editor and Oversight Editor will examine the re-submission and determine whether it should be reviewed again, or whether a final decision can be made.  If re-review is necessary, the manuscript will either be sent back to the original reviewers, or to new reviewers if the original reviewers are unavailable.

The article goes back through the same process (revision/review/decision) until a final decision is reached. 

For each accepted manuscript, the editors responsible for the review process are listed at the end of the manuscript, together with the date of first submission, date of first decision, and date of final decision.

More information for authors on submission specifics and formatting can be found on the Information for Authors page.

Special Issue Submissions

Occasionally, the journal invites contributions for an upcoming special issue on a defined topic.  All invited articles and submissions go through the same review process as regular submissions (as described) above.

The following principles are followed:

• The journal editor is given and takes full responsibility for the policies, practices, and content of special issues, including complete control of the decision to select authors, peer reviewers, and content for the issue.
• Editing by any independent funding organization is not permitted.
• The journal editor has the right to appoint one or more external editors of the special issue and takes responsibility for the work of those editors.
• The journal editor retains the authority to send special issue manuscripts for external peer review and to reject manuscripts submitted for the special issue with or without external review.
• The source of the idea for the special issue and sources of funding for papers comprising the special issue are clearly stated in the Introduction and/or the Acknowledgement sections of the articles, as may be relevant.
• Special issue articles are clearly marked as part of the special issue on the first page of the article.
• Journal and special issue editors do not accept personal favors or direct remuneration from sponsors of special issues.
• The same principles of authorship and disclosure of relationships and activities discussed elsewhere on this website are applied to special issues.

Online-Early Articles & Corrections to Articles

Articles published in Frontiers of Biogeography in the ‘Online-Early Articles’ section are fully citable versions of record (VOR), identifiable through their doi, awaiting compilation into an issue of the journal. Our policy is to maintain the integrity of the VOR in accordance with STM Guidelines. However, occasionally it may be necessary to issue an erratum, corrigendum, correction notice permanently linked to the article, or in rare circumstances, a retraction or removal. Any such actions will be made only after careful consideration by the journal Editors, in accordance with COPE guidance, to ensure that changes made are permanent and as transparent as necessary to ensure the integrity of the scholarly record.

Any emails regarding corrections to articles should be directed by email to the editorial office.