INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS

Thank you for your interest in the Fisheries & Aquatic Life (formerly Archives of Polish Fisheries) We look forward to handling your submission. The Fisheries & Aquatic Life published continuously since 1992 is an international peer-reviewed journal published 4 times per year. All articles are open access and can be found on PDF format on journal website. Topics cover the entire range of the fish biology, aquatic life, fisheries, and aquaculture. The journal publishes research articles, short  communications, reviews and monographic papers. Occasionally, the proceedings of conferences and symposia are published if they are relevant and timely.

Manuscript Submission: Manuscripts may be rejected without peer review if they do not comply with the instructions to authors or are beyond the scope of the journal. All manuscripts must be accompanied by the Copyright Transfer Statement, which can be found on journal website. This form must be completed and signed by the corresponding author on behalf of all the authors before processing of the manuscript can begin.

Five categories of contributions are published in Fisheries & Aquatic Life, the length of manuscripts including the tables, illustrations and references in standard manuscript pages should be no longer than:
 1. review papers 30 pages,
 2. research articles 20 pages,
 3. short communications 6 pages,
 4. book reviews 2 pages,
 5. monographs 100 pages.
Manuscripts are submitted online at http://www.editorialmanager.com/apf/, where a user ID and password are assigned on the first visit. Authors are expected to suggest potential referees, selected internationally, for their manuscripts in the ‘Suggest Reviewers’ section.

Ethics in publishing: The ethics statements for our journal are based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. For all parties involved in the act of publishing (the journal editor(s), the author, the peer reviewer and the publisher) should become familiar with the standards of ethical behavior used in Fisheries & Aquatic Life.

Editors are responsible for documenting any cases of academic fraud, especially of violating the principles of ethics in research work. The journal uses plagiarism detection software, so in submitting your manuscript you accept that it may be screened against previously published literature. Both ghostwriting and guest authorship are negative phenomena in  the context of scientific standards and as such they will be denounced, including the authors’ institutions, employers, and other public bodies involved. A ghostwriter is a person who significantly contributed to the publication but was not mentioned as a co-author or in the acknowledgments. Guest authorship is given when an author/co-author contributed little or nothing to the paper. The readers should be convinced that authors in a transparent, honest, and solid way present the output of their work, regardless if they are single authors or if they had help by a specialized person. Authorship should be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work.
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract, a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is  approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically  without the written consent of the copyright-holder. To verify originality, your article may be checked by the originality detection service Crossref Similarity Check.

Peer review: Editors evaluates each manuscript to determine if its topic and content is suitable for consideration by the Fisheries & Aquatic Life. Manuscripts that do not meet minimum criteria are returned to the authors within two weeks of receipt. Manuscripts that pass the initial review are assigned to an Associate Editor, who selects several referees based on their expertise in that particular field. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two referees under a double-blind peer review process, where both the referees and the authors are kept anonymous. After collecting the referees’ reports, the Associate Editor makes a recommendation on the acceptability of the manuscript to the Editor-in-Chief. Any manuscript returned by an editor to the corresponding author for revision will be considered as withdrawn if not resubmitted within a period of one month.

Preparation of the manuscript: Manuscripts, written in English, should be submitted in MS Word (97 or higher) either as standard Document (.doc). Use a normal plain 12-point font (e.g. Times New Roman) for text. All sections of the typescript should be double-spaced, with 30 mm margins. A typical manuscript will have the following components: Title page, main document, tables and figures.

Title page: The title should be brief and not laden with too much detail. The first title page should include the title; name(s) of the author(s); name(s) of the department(s) and institution(s) in which the work was done; and e-mail address of the author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Save this title page as a separate file for your submission. A second title page without any author information should begin the full manuscript file. This page will be used for double-blind peer review.

Main document: The first page of the manuscript must include a title page without any author identifiers. The abstract should follow the title page. Abstract must be brief (100-200 words) but give clear information about the objectives, and obtained  results. Below the abstract, authors must provide up to 6 keywords, suitable for indexing or web searches, in alphabetical order and separated by commas.

Introduction: The introduction should provide a context for the work to be reported. In doing so, it should present at least a general overview of previous literature on the subject, guiding the reader to the paper’s purpose and importance.

Scientific names: Complete scientific names, including the author with current taxonomic disposition, should be given when organisms are first mentioned in the text or elsewhere. Scientific (Latin) names referring to the lowest taxonomic units (species and subspecies) should be written in italics. The generic name may then be abbreviated as an initial capital except if intervening references to other genera would cause confusion. Common names of organisms must be accompanied by the correct scientific name at first mention. Latin names should be italicised (or underlined).

Study area: The study area may be described under a separate heading before Material and methods.

Material and methods: Material and methods should be concise but allow confirmation of observations and repetition of the study. Abbreviations (of names, chemicals etc.) should be defined when first mentioned in the text unless they are commonly used and internationally known and accepted. Use SI and metric units. Days = d, hours = h, minutes = min, seconds = s, grams = g, litres = l, metres = m, sample size = n, degrees of freedom = df, standard error of the mean = SE, standard deviation = SD, probability = p, not significant = ns, year(s) = yr, month(s) = mo, figure = Fig., table = Table, versus = vs, species = sp. Always use the form g ml^-1 and not g/ml, or kJ g^-1 h^-1 and not kJ/g/h. In decimals use the decimal point, not the comma. Degree  symbols (°) must be used (from the Symbol list on the Insert menu in Microsoft Word) and not superscript letter “o” or number “0”. Multiplication symbols must be used (×) and not small “x” letters. Spaces must be inserted between numbers and units  (e.g., 3 kg) and between numbers and mathematical symbols (+, –, ×, =, <, >), but not between numbers and percent symbols (e.g., 45%).

Statistical analysis: Fisheries & Aquatic Life requires that descriptions of statistical methods and results be complete and specific. Every paper that contains statistical testing should state the name of the statistical test, the n for each statistical  analysis, and the actual P value for each test.

Results: As a rule, it is preferable to present detailed results in tables and/or figures and to devote the text to summary statements and analysis. Display data in tables if precision is important, in figures if trends are paramount.

Discussion: In this section authors should indicate the significance of their research, how it relates to current knowledge, and any avenues that it suggests for further research. Informed speculation is acceptable as long as it is clearly identified as such. Authors should avoid merely restating their results and/or (re)summarizing the literature.

Acknowledgments: In this section authors may acknowledge anyone who contributed towards the article by making substantial contributions to conception, design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, or who was involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content, but who does not meet the criteria for authorship. Authors are required to include a statement to specify the contributions of each co-author. The statement can be up to  several sentences long, describing the tasks of individual authors referred to by their initials. Please also include the source(s) of funding for each author, and for the manuscript preparation.

References: All published citations mentioned in the text, tables or figures must be listed in the reference list, which includes all key elements of each reference, including the names of journals in full (not abbreviated). Authors are responsible for checking the accuracy of their references. Fisheries & Aquatic Life uses APA style referencing with some minor style changes. Examples of Fisheries & Aquatic Life reference content requirements are shown below.

• Journal article:
Brownscombe, J. W., Danylchuk, A. J., Chapman, J. M., Gutowsky, L. F., Cooke, S. J. (2017). Best practices for catch-and-release recreational fisheries–angling tools and tactics. Fisheries Research, 186, 693-705.

 • Online Article Not Yet Published in an Issue:
Haubrock, P. J., Bernery, C., Cuthbert, R. N., Liu, C., Kourantidou, M., Leroy, B., ... Gozlan, R. E. (2021b). What is the recorded economic cost of alien invasive fishes worldwide? Research Square, http://doi.org/10.212-03/rs.3.rs-381243/v1.

• Conference proceedings:
Rybicki, J. (1988). Microbiological decomposition of phosphoric compounds in surface waters. In: Proc. XV Conf. Inter. Microbiol. Assoc., The Hague 5-10.09.1987, Academic Press, New York: 258-265.

• Book:
Kottelat, M., Freyhof, J. (2007). Handbook of European Freshwater Fishes. Kottelat, Cornol, Switzerland and Freyhof, Berlin, Germany.

 • Book chapter:
Zawisza, J., Backiel, T. (1970). Gonad development, fecundity and egg survival in Coregonus albula L. In: Biology of coregonid fishes (Ed.) C.C. Lindey, C.S. Woods, Univ. Manitoba Press, Winnipeg: 363-397.

Papers published in the Cyrillic alphabet should be transliterated into English. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of their references. References should be cited as “in print” only if they have been accepted for publication. Other papers, materials, manuscripts, unpublished reports etc. should be referred to as “unpublished”. Personal communications can be cited in the text as e.g.: “P. Black – personal communication”.

Tables: All tables must be cited in the text, and given at the end of the manuscript. Tables should be in Word (doc) formats. Each table must be fitted on one or more separate pages, be provided with a concise but clear heading. Captions should be provided for each table, either in a separate Table Captions section at the end of the manuscript file, or in a separate Table Captions file.

Figures: All figures must be numbered consecutively and given at the end of the manuscript. Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (e.g. Fig. 1a). Figures should be in JPEG (jpg), Corel (cdr), Excel (xls), or Statistica (stw) formats. Figures  should be uploaded in separate files and should be clearly labeled with an appropriate number. Captions should be provided for each figure, either in a separate Figure Captions section at the end of the manuscript file, or in a separate Figure Captions file. Photographic images should be in TIFF or JPEG formats. These should be at a resolution of at least 300 dpi at final size.

Short communications: These should differ from full papers on the basis of scope or completeness, rather than quality of research. Their text should not be longer than 6 pages of typescript. When submitting a short communication, the author(s) should make clear that the work is to be treated as such.

Proofs: Proofs will be sent in PDF form to the corresponding author’s e-mail address. Corrected proofs must be returned to the Managing Editor within 3 days of receipt. Please note that only typesetting errors are to be corrected.

Erratum: If any errors are detected in the published material, they should be reported to the Managing Editor. The corresponding authors should send the appropriate corrected material to the Managing Editor via email. This material will be considered for publication as soon as feasible.

Offprints: No offprint and copy of journal are provided free of charge to the authors. However, PDF file of published articles are available from website.

Publication Fees: There are no charges associated with publishing in this journal.

Retraction Policy: Serious errors in a published manuscript and infringements of professional ethical codes will result in an article being retracted. This will occur where the article is clearly defamatory, or infringes others’ legal rights, or where the  article is, or there is good reason to expect it will be, the subject of a court order, or where the article, if acted upon, might pose a serious health risk. In any of these cases all coauthors will be informed about a retraction. A Retraction Note detailing the reason for retraction will be linked to the original article.

Submission proces: A submission to Fisheries & Aquatic Life implies that the content has not been submitted for publication elsewhere or previously published except as either a brief abstract in the proceedings of a scientific meeting/symposium or in a MSc/PhD thesis. Fisheries & Aquatic Life allows for the submission of articles previously available as preprints on servers provided they are non-commercial (such as ArXiv, bioRxiv, etc.). During submission, the manuscript text (with pagination, line numbering and a legible 12-point font size) is uploaded as a text file (not as a .pdf). Separate files for any tables (text files) and figures (image files) are uploaded to the website independently. Authors must identify an appropriate subject area and suggest tree potential referees. Referees are expected to be established experts in the field and be independent of the research under consideration, including the source of funding and the authors’ institutions. We strongly recommend that authors use an ORCID iD to help distinguish your work from that of other researchers.