Statutes of the journal

Foreword

The journal MEDITERRANEAN BOTANY (ISSN-e: 2603-9109) is a scientific periodical edited by the Pharmacology, Pharmacognosy and Botany Department of the Faculty of Pharmacy. Mediterranean Botany is published yearly, with continue periodicity and publishes original research in the field of Botany, including plant systematics, vegetation ecology, biogeography, evolutionary biology, ecophysiology, community ecology, ethnobotany and conservation biology from Mediterranean biomes and nearby regions. Mediterranean Botany is an OPEN ACCESS Journal, free of charges for both authors and readers.

  1. Management bodies

The management bodies responsible for the scientific coordination and publication of the magazine are the Editorial Board and the Advisory Board. All the Board Members undertake to respect the principles of any code of ethics that may be established for the scientific journals of the Complutense University of Madrid.

1.1. Editorial Board: structure and composition

  • The Editorial Board comprises the editor, the assistant editor (secretary) and eight associate editors (board members). The post of editor must be occupied by an active teacher with a contractual relationship with the UCM. At least one third of its members must belong to institutions other than the Complutense University of Madrid.
  • The Editorial Board will assist the editor in all his or her functions, and very specifically, in monitoring the works (their receipt, assessment and acceptance) and in defining the contents and style of the journal (by drafting rules for the submission of original works, creating and informing the sections, etc.). It will be formed by professionals from all the scientific fields included in the journal to ensure the efficient monitoring of the works to be published.
  • The members will be chosen by the board of Pharmacology, Pharmacognosy and Botany Department, at the Faculty of Pharmacy. The whole department, including the director, may propose candidates for board members who will be elected in a departmental meeting. The candidates proposed for each post will undergo two voting processes: one to choose the editor, and another to choose the board members, either from within the institution or from outside. The post of secretary will be directly appointed by the editor.
  • All the members will be elected for a period of four years and their posts can only be renewed for one additional four-year term.

1.1.1. Functions of the Editor

  • The Editor will be responsible for coordinating and representing the journal, for relations with the Editorial and Advisory Boards and with Ediciones Complutense. He or she will also be in charge of relations with other institutions for any issue concerning the Journal.
  • The Editor will appoint the Assistant Editor (Secretary).
  • The Editor will convene the meetings of the Editorial Board.
  • The Editor is obliged to inform the Departmental Board of the operation of the journal, and its needs.
  • The Editor will be responsible for ensuring that the journal maintains the highest scientific standards; that it is recognised and included in national and international databases; and undergoes assessment for the purpose of obtaining certificates of quality. He or she will be assisted in this undertaking by the other members of the Editorial Board.
  • The Editor will have the deciding vote in the case of a draw in the deliberations of the Editorial Board.

1.1.2. Functions of the Assistant Editor (Secretary)

  • The Assistant Editor will be in charge of receiving the original works and for guiding them throughout the process of evaluation and publication.
  • The Assistant Editor will be responsible for communicating with the authors, the members of the Editorial and Advisory Boards and with Ediciones Complutense.
  • The Assistant Editor will send an acknowledgement of receipt of all the works received to the authors.
  • The Assistant Editor will arrange the review process for the originals received by the Editorial Board before deciding which works to submit for assessment and which to return, after it has been verified that they comply with the Journal's requirements.
  • The Assistant Editor will be responsible for sending the originals to the reviewers together with a document with instructions and an evaluation template.
  • Once the decision has been taken to publish the original works, the Assistant Editor will be responsible for notifying the authors.
  • The Assistant Editor will be in charge of monitoring the whole editorial process for the issues of the journal (preparation and submission of the originals –including the first pages and statistics–, the layout process, sending the proofs to the authors, reviewing the version prior to printing, and notifying the authors of the publication).
  • The Assistant Editor will prepare the meetings with the Editor and record the minutes of the Editorial Board meetings. He or she will also be responsible for safeguarding the minutes and for certifying the work of the board members, scientific advisers and reviewers.
  • The Assistant Editor will collaborate with the Editor in disseminating the journal, in institutional relations, exchanges, indexation and in any other tasks that may be instrumental to improving the Journal's quality and reputation.

1.1.3. Functions of the Members of the Editorial Board

  • The Members of the Editorial Board will be obliged to attend all the meetings that are convened, which may be either in person, or by video conference in the case of Editorial Meetings with members of other national or international institutions.
  • The Board Members, under the coordination of the Assistant Editor, will assist in the prior reading of the original works before deciding which should be submitted for assessment and which should be returned to the authors.
  • The Board Members will collaborate in seeking external reviewers for the works, and will in no case act as reviewers themselves.
  • The Board Members will advise and collaborate with the Journal’s management in any tasks that may be considered necessary for the correct operation of the journal, including ensuring compliance with its punctuality and periodicity.

1.2. Advisory Board

  • The Advisory Board will be made up of professionals and researchers of recognised prestige and solvency, without any institutional links with the journal. Apart from conferring rigour on the journal, it will serve to outline editorial policy, to make the journal attractive to both authors and readers, and to disseminate it, to the extent of its abilities, in a wide range of forums. It will also collaborate in the evaluation and auditing processes.
  • The Advisory Board must include professionals and researchers from foreign institutions among its members.
  • Members will be chosen according to the following process: the departmental board members may propose candidates that will be studied by a special departmental commission to determine their suitability.
  • The members of the Advisory Board may take part as external peers in the process of evaluating the original works, taking into account that at least one of the assessments must always be issued by a reviewer who is unconnected to the Advisory Board.
  1. Characteristics and functioning

2.1. Periodicity

  • The journal will be published with a periodicity of one issue a year including continuous periodicity, up to 25 articles, and 5 short notes.  In addition, all manuscripts accepted during the current year but overpassing the maximum number of published articles per year will appear in 'Online first', being published the next year. With an extraordinary nature, the journal may propose to Ediciones Complutense the publication of a special issue.

2.2. Structure

  • The journal will consist of the following sections:
  • This is the main section of the journal and includes the most usual and numerous works to be found therein. It must also include other sections to complement the main one, such as:
  • Botanical checklist, featuring revisions of Mediterranean floras territories.
  • Nomenclatural notes, featuring the publication of new developments in the revision of the names of taxa or syntaxa according to the guidelines of the International Codes of Nomenclature in these specialities.
  • Short notes. The journal will also include the publication of articles, which are shorter in length, or new botanical developments of a floristic type, among others.
  • Other sections. Occasionally, particular sections for special issues and other such items may be included, or short ‘In Memoriam’ notes as a tribute to recently deceased colleagues.

2.3. Rules for publication

Mediterranean Botany accepts for publication reviews and original research articles on botany, including taxonomy and plant systematics, biogeography, ethnobotany, flora, vegetation and ecology. Mediterranean Botany publishes an annual volume consisting of one or several issues. The works that are sent for inclusion in Lazaroa will be reviewed by two specialists in the subject in question, although the final responsibility for their acceptance lies with the Editorial Board.

However, it should be noted that the points of view expressed in the works published in Mediterranean Botany are those of the authors themselves, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the members of the Editorial or Advisory Boards, the Department of Pharmacology, Pharmacognosy and Botany Department or of Edicionesl Complutense.

Any original works that do not strictly comply with the rules of publication below will be returned to the authors.

Sending the manuscripts. The authors must send their articles, written in English, through the portal of the journal, where they must register as readers (default option) and authors http://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/LAZA (‘not a user? register with this site’). They need to upload a Word (.doc, .docx ) or enriched text (.rtf) document that includes the text and all the tables and figures in the same file and in the correct order.

We recommend consulting the most recent volumes for the correct format of the documents. All the pages in the documents submitted must have a margin of 2.54 cm. The text must be written using only Roman type, except for the scientific nomenclature, which must be in italics. The title must be concise but informative, with the complete name of the author/s appearing below. The author’s scientific address must be shown at the bottom of the first page of the manuscript. All the originals must be accompanied by an extensive summary in English (also specifying the title and the authors) and Spanish, indicating the key results and conclusions of the work. The text must be structured into: Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion and/or Conclusions, References. Acknowledgements can also be added before the references, and may include the funding received if the authors consider it necessary. The taxonomic or syntaxonomic terms must strictly follow the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN) or Phytosociological Nomenclature (CPN) respectively, and the reference floras must also be cited.

Citations and References should follow the Council of Sciece Editors (CSE) style guide, is commonly used for scientific paper, journal publications, and book in the life, biological, and other sciences.

Citations. The following formats must be used: (Loidi, 2008) or Loidi (2008), Leps & Smilauer (2003) or (Leps & Smilauer, 2003) or Tutin & al. (1964-1993) or (Tutin & al., 1964-1993). The citations must be chronological according to the year (Gavilán & Fernández-González, 1997; Leps & Smilauer, 2003).

References. All the authors' names must be listed in detail, and the abbreviated name of the journal using the ISI Journal Title Abbreviations. Roman letters must be used, NOT italics even when they contain scientific names. See the examples below:

Pérez-García, F.J., Akhani, H., Parsons, R.F., Silcock, J.L., Kurt, L., Özdeniz, E., Spampinato, G., Musarella, C.M., Salmerón-Sánchez, E., Sola, F., Merlo, M.E., Martínez-Hernández, F., Mendoza-Fernández, A.J., Garrido-Becerra, J.A. & Mota, Juan F. 2018. A first inventory of gypsum flora in the Palearctic and Australia. Mediterr. Bot. 39(1): 35-49.

Gavilán, R.G. & Fernández-González, F. 1997. Climatic discrimination of Mediterranean broad-leaved sclerophyllous and deciduous forests in central Spain. J. Veg. Sci. 8(3): 377-386.

Leps, J. & Smilauer, P. 2003. Multivariate analysis of ecological data using CANOCO. Cambridge Univ. Press, New York.

Tutin, T.G. & al. (Eds.). 1964-1993. Flora Europaea. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge.

Gehu, J.M. & Rivas-Martínez, S. 1981. Notions fondamentaux de Phytosociologie. In: Dierschke, H. (Ed.). Syntaxonomie. Pp. 5-53. J. Cramer, Vaduz.

Romero, M.I. 1993. La vegetación del valle del río Cabe (Terra de Lemos, Lugo). Mem. Doc. (inéd.). Fac. Biología, Univ. Santiago de Compostela.

 Tables and Figures. They must be labelled with a heading or caption that provides sufficient information to understand the content, and must be numbered and referenced in the text (Table 1, Table 2, Figure 1, Figure2, etc.). Mediterranean Botany accepts colour photographs and figures.

Cover image. The authors may send an image referring to their work to be shown on the cover, by contacting R. Gavilán (rgavilan@ucm.es). It must be accompanied by an explanatory description of the location, altitude, landscape type, plant community, species name, etc. Other allusive pictures could be sent to cover Mediterranean Botany social media (twiter, facebook, Instagram).