Submissions

Author Guidelines

THERYA NOTES is an official electronic journal of the Asociación Mexicana de Mastozoología, Asociación Civil (AMMAC). The aims and scope of THERYA NOTES are to be an international journal devoted to the publication of scientific notes and reviews on all mammal aspects (Biology, Ecology, Genetics, Etology, Conservation). Only the sending of research notes whose main objective is mammals is accepted.
The reviews are intended to disseminate compendiums of detailed, updated, and unpublished information on a topic, species, or group of mammalian species, so that said review can be useful to specialists working on the same topic and contribute significantly to the knowledge and understanding of mammals and all their relationships with the species and environment in which they are distributed. Reviews can be free-form or contain the same sections as regular notes.

Tutorial 
You can watch a video with a brief description about the process to "Send a scientific note" (Spanish subtitles available).
HERE we share a tutorial to send a note using the OJS platform.
You can also read a tutorial on the process for responding to a review.

Online Manuscript Submission
THERYA NOTES offers to authors, editors, and reviewers the option of using our fully web-enabled online manuscript submission and review system. All manuscripts should be submitted to THERYA NOTES through the website http://www.mastozoologiamexicana.org/therya_notes. in the "sent" option. If you encounter any difficulties while submitting your manuscript online, please contact the general editor (therya_notes@mastozoologiamexicana.com).
When uploading a note to the platform, the corresponding author must fill in all the corresponding boxes. This includes adding all co-authors and their basic information.
Please, in all cases use upper and lowercase as appropriate.
DO NOT use only capital letters.
We share an EXAMPLE of a note to be submitted to Therya Notes. You can download it HERE.
The metadata captured on the THERYA page must be identical to that of the article; any discrepancy may cause the rejection of the contribution and will be the responsibility of the authors.

Conservation papers
Therya Notes wants, if is possible, to testing conservation actions will improve practice, policy and outcomes. Studies must be informed by the pertinent literature, especially by papers testing the same management actions.

Ethics
THERYA NOTES maintains the highest standards of publication ethics and to supporting ethical research practices. Authors should observe high standards with respect to publication ethics (https://publicationethics.org/) as set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Allegations of misconduct will be investigated in accordance with the COPE Best Practice Guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts). THERYA NOTES takes publication ethics very seriously.
In submitting a manuscript for publication in THERYA NOTES, the authors attest that their research was done ethically and in compliance with relevant local, national, or international regulations regarding the collection, care, and use of animals. Authors must affirm that their research practices followed ASM guidelines by Sikes et al. 2016 (https://academic.oup.com/jmammal/article/97/3/663/2459909?searchresult=1) for the use of wild mammals in research.
Manuscript without ethical use of specimens or practices or errors will be sent to the Editorial Board which will be evaluated and may be retracted from THERYA NOTES. Notifications of the retracted manuscript will be publishing in THERYA NOTES.

Presentation letter
The authors must clearly indicate in a letter of presentation of the manuscript, addressed to the general editor: 1) its importance, 2) that all authors agree on the presentation of the data, analysis and interpretation of the results and on the sending of this manuscript to this journal for consideration, 3) it is an original and unpublished research that has not been submitted partially or totally to another journal, and 4) the data (name, academic degree, institution of affiliation, email) of two potential reviewers.

Evaluation Process
The process consists of three main phases, Pre-screen, Screening and Review.  The prescreen phase is the review of compliance with editorial standards, general style of the Therya Notes journal, and verification that the information requested in the Therya website is complete. In case the manuscript does not match the journal format, the corresponding author will receive an e-mail with editorial comments about the manuscript, which should be corrected accordingly.

The manuscript screening phase is a preliminary academic assessment carried out by the Editor-in-Chief and / or Associate Editors of THERYA NOTES. It is a first content review that will assess the manuscript quality and whether the scope of the research work is consistent with the profile of THERYA NOTES. The number assigned by the platform will be the internal code that will be used to monitor the review process. Please always include it in the "subject" in each email sent.

The review of the manuscript will be conducted by an associate editor with expertise on the subject. The review will be conducted through a double-blind evaluation process, which consists of removing the names, address and e-mail of the authors, as well as the acknowledgments and any letterhead. Through this process, THERYA NOTES ensures that the identity of authors and reviewers remains anonymous, thus strengthening the quality of manuscripts. The associate editor will send the manuscript to at least three reviewers that are highly renowned on the subject at national and international levels. When the associate editor receives two reviews with a consistent opinion, he/she shall send a notice to the authors through mail, or will await the resolution of the third reviewer. The author shall incorporate the recommendations into the manuscript, or is given the right of reply if he/she disagrees with any of them. The corrected manuscript shall be sent again to the associate editor, who has the faculty to send it to the reviewers again, according to the extent of the recommendations made.

The associate editor may return the manuscript to the authors as many times as considered necessary until all its deficiencies are resolved and the manuscript is regarded as suitable for publication. When the associate editor considers that the manuscript is ready for publication, is will be forwarded with the respective recommendation to the General Editor, who will make the final decision and will proceed with the final revision, editing, formatting and printing.

Anti-plagiarism policy
At THERYA NOTES we use specialized software to detect plagiarism (https://www.ithenticate.com/).
Each submission received is reviewed before being assigned to an Associate Editor. In all cases, in the event that the percentage of similarity with a published text is greater than 15% without citing, the note will be rejected and the authors notified.

Language
THERYA NOTES receives notes and reviews submissions in English and Spanish. For the manuscripts writen in Spanish, in case the proposed paper is accepted, we suggest authors to translate the accepted note to English. English spelling must be American. We appreciate any efforts made to ensure that the language is revised and corrected before submission as it will greatly improve the legibility of your paper if English or Spanish is not your first language. This translation can be done by the authors, or Therya Notes offers a low-cost translation service thanks to the support of the AMMAC. In addition, additional support is offered when student participation is evidenced. Please contact the Editor in Chief for details.

Manuscript Presentation
The file sent shall be in Microsoft Word (.docx is prefered). The size of the file submitted through the THERYA NOTES website shall be less than 1.8 MB. Accordingly, it is recommended to avoid including heavy figures in the manuscript; nonetheless, these shall be clearly visible and legible for review. Take into account that once a manuscript is accepted, images of a higher resolution may be requested, as needed.

Margins: Leave adequate margins (2.5 cm each side) on all pages to allow reviewers’ remarks. It is recommended that all articles submitted be sent in Times New Roman font size 12, double space with left alignment. Make sure a new paragraph can be clearly identified with a margin of 1 cm. After each point and following, two spaces should be left.

Numbering of lines: All pages and lines of the manuscript shall be numbered consecutively from page one.

Tables, figure captions and figures shall be included as separate pages at the end of the text. Tables shall appear with no colors and in the original program used (Microsoft), or shall be inserted as an object. Tables shall not be inserted as images. Figures (graphs and images) should be inserted as an object, as an RGB image at 300 dpi, or as a grayscale image at 450 dpi.

Research notes are those research communications not greater than 10 pages, not including the cover, cited literature, tables and figures. The manuscript must include the following sections in order: Cover, Summary, Keywords, Body of the manuscript, Acknowledgments, Literature cited, List of legend of the figures, maximum two tables and two figures. The characteristics of each section are described below.

The first page (cover) must contain the following:
Short title centered (five words maximum).
In a new line place the English title in bold, centered and with no period.
Common names of species in English must be written in lower case, except in certain cases. If the common name contains the proper name of a site (e.g. Winsconsin's longe nosed bat), if the common name contains the proper name of a taxonomic authority (e.g. Wilson's pygmy rabbit), or if the name follows a period and followed (e.g. "Home range and landscape layer. White tailed deer as study case").
A line below the title in Spanish.
In a new line, author or authors, first name (s) and surname of each one in bold, separated by commas and before the last author, place the word “and”.
These data must be identical to those captured on the THERYA NOTES web page. The names that will appear on the website are those used in international indexes. Any errors are the responsibility of the corresponding author and after publication there will be no changes or corrections.
If there are several authors from different institutions, they must be indicated with superscript numbers after the last names of each author. The correspondent author must be indicated with an asterisk in superscript after the number.
On a new line, mention the affiliation (s), full name of the area, department, and institution separated by commas and finish with a period. If there are superscripts, they must appear as such before membership data.
After the period and following provide the address for correspondence; first street and number unsigned #, zip code. City, state and country, "E-mail", such as E-mail: mail@address followed by the author's initials in parentheses. Please include the email of each one of the authors.
The telephone and fax number of the corresponding author is necessary only for contact in the event of an emergency; it will not be published. On a new line, place an asterisk in superscript and then "Corresponding author" without a period.

Abstract in English and Spanish
Two extended summaries shall be submitted, one in English and another in Spanish; both shall be included in all cases. It must necessarily include the following sections. The subtitles will be in the language of the summary (the maximum number of words per summary will be 260 words):
Introduction: (50 to 65 words). Objective (s), hypothesis, and academic question (s) should be noted.
Methods: (50 to 65 words). The analytical tools must be indicated.
Results: (50 to 100 words). Reference should be made to the tables and figures. The original findings should be included and reference to the tables and figures.
Discussion and conclusions: (50 to 65 words). It should highlight the answers or conclusions to the objective (s), hypotheses, and academic question (s) raised.

Abstract and resumen must be on a separate page and should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references. The words "Abstract" and "Resumen" must be in bold and followed by a period.
Note: The final version of the abstract will comprise a single paragraph that includes the sections mentioned above. The requested extended abstract format is a requirement at the time of submission in order to verify that the requested structure and length of the abstract components are followed.

Key words: Please provide 5 to 10 Key words in alphabetical order, separated by a semicolon. They will be located after “Abstract” (Key words:) and “Resumen” (Palabras clave:). It is preferred not to repeat the words used in the title.

Body of the manuscript
Notes should include the following sections (no subtitles all of them): Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion and conclusions. Titles should be centered in the page, as a sentence (using a capital letter for the first letter only) and with no period at the end.

The text should be aligned to the left. The first paragraph of each section should not be indented; from the second paragraph on, each paragraph should be clearly identified by a left hanging indent of 1 centimeter. After each paragraph, a new paragraph shall start in the following line (do not include a line space between individual paragraphs).

The Introduction will consist of a brief review of the state of the art of the subject that is addressed in the manuscript, which serves as a justification to the objective of the study. This section shall include the objective(s), working hypothesis and academic question(s). It is recommended to include in this section the necessary references to support the hypothesis to be discussed.

Under Materials and Methods, please describe all the procedures performed to obtain the results. In this section, the description of the study area shall be included as the first paragraph.

The Results section shall include the data obtained through the procedures described in the previous section; this section shall mention most of the tables and figures included in the manuscript.

In Discussion and Conclusions, the results shall be explained, and the major academic issues shall be addressed. In the Discussion, use the necessary citations to support your argument.

Nomenclature
The correct taxonomical names of organisms in concordance with the international rules of nomenclature must be used in italics (not underlined).

Other nomenclatures used in the text

• Abbreviations from Latin words should be written in italics, for example:
• c., ca. o cca. (short) means "around" or "near".
• e. g. (exempli gratia) is a Latin phrase that literally means "given as an example" (used in the plural).
• i. e. (id est) is a Latin expression meaning "that is to say", is widely used in definitions and theorems of mathematics (used in singular).
• inc. sed. (incertae sedis) taxonomy used to indicate the inability to locate a taxon (for example a species or genus) exactly within the classification.
• n. In reference to number of shows you should always go in italics.
• P. When the probability is mentioned, it should be italicized in all cases.
• s. a. o s. ampl. (sensu amplo) is a Latin expression meaning "broadly".
• s. l. (lato sensu o sensu lato) is a Latin expression meaning "broadly" has the same uses as the expression sensu amplo and opposes expression stricto sensu or sensu stricto.
• s. s. o s. str. (sensu stricto o stricto sensu) is a Latin expression meaning "strictly" or "narrowly".
• sp. (species) it refers to a species.
• spp. (species) refers to more than one species.
• ssp. (subspecies) refers to a subspecies.
• sspp. (subspecies) refers to more than one subspecies.
• v. gr. (verbi gratia) is a Latin phrase in current use which literally means "by the grace of the word." Equivalent to "as such", "for example"; it is widely used for teaching purposes (in singular).

Use the following commonly understood abbreviations: DNA, ITS, CTAB, PCR, cpDNA, nrDNA, USA, fl, hr, min, s (hour, minute, second), yr (year), cm, mm, µm, m, km (centimeter, milimeter, micrometer, meter, kilometer), g, kg (gram, kilogram).

Use of symbols
Symbols as: >, <, =, -, ±, π, and others. Seeding should be separated by a space quantities or other letters. For example "P > 0.05", "50 - 60", "200 ± 0".

Use italic letters for statistical symbols and abbreviations: SD, SE, d. f., R2, t, U, V, W, z, etc. In text use the name of the statistician for narrative use. Numerals shall be used to refer to quantities, even when numbers are lower than <10. The words one, first, second, etc., shall be used solely for narrative purposes, for example: “on the one hand” “the first experiment consisted of...”.

Use 1,000 instead of 1000; 0.13 instead of .13; % instead of percent. Number ranges should be separated by a hyphen (e.g., 3-4). Use a space on both sides of all mathematical symbols (e.g., 4 ± 0.53), including % (30 % not 30%) or degrees (25 °C not 25°C).

Geographic coordinates must appear in sexagesimal format, that is, showing degrees, minutes and seconds (for example: 16º 22' 33" N, 109º 3´1' 12" W).

Additional considerations
When citing a manufacturer (e.g., Qiagen, Oxford, California) spell out the manufacturer’s name, city, and state; if not from a city in the USA or UK, spell out the city and country after the manufacturer’s name (e.g., New England Biolabs, Frankfurt am Main, Germany).
For new or expanded records, the catalog number of the collection and the name of the collection of the voucher(s) specimen(s) must be mentioned.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements of people (initial and surname; titles and academic degrees should be omitted), grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section before the References. Persons in this section should be mentioned using the initials of the first name followed by the last name, for example: S. T. Alvarez-Castañeda.

References in text

In the text, a reference should be written by the author's last name followed by the date of the reference in parentheses. When there are more than two authors, only the last name of the first author should be written, followed by ‘et al.´ in italics, without a comma and then the year.

In the event that a cited author has had two or more works published in that same year, the reference, both in the text and in the Literature cited, must be identified as a lowercase letter 'a' and 'b' after the date to distinguish the works. When citing two or more references, they should be written in chronological order and separated by a semicolon. Examples: López and Arroyo (1986), (Winograd 1986a, b), (Winograd 1986; Flores et al. 1988), (Bullen and Bennett 1990).

In the case of publications made by organizations or institutions, the first reference in text must be given the full name and in brackets its acronyms, in the following references only to the acronyms, for example: International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN 1995).

The citations must be in text format. For no reason macros or plugin citations are accepted. If you use reference managers (Mendeley, Zotero or Endnote) you must edit the document to be written in text format.

Literature cited

Please avoid using thesis,papers presented at a conference and/or technical reports.
Do not add the digital identifier (doi) to Literature cited' section.
Only the most recent and consulted bibliography on the subject should be cited. All references cited in text must be found in cited literature. Works not cited in text should not appear in cited literature.
In references with more than 3 authors, use et al. after the first author's name. Example:

Coronel-Arellano, H., et al.  2021.  Raining feral cats and dogs? Implications for the conservation of medium-sized wild mammals in an urban protected area.  Urban Ecosystems 24:83–94.

Journal articles:
The name of the article must be in sentence format using capital letters only in the first letter of the title and in the first letter of the proper and scientific names. The names of the magazine must be without abbreviations, using capital letters in each word of the name of the magazine.

Baker, R. J, and R. D. Bradley (font type Versales and French sangria).  2006. Speciation in mammals and the genetic species concept.  Journal of Mammalogy 87:643–662.

Book, authored:

Hall, R. E. (font type Versales and French sangria) 1981.  The Mammals of North America. John Wiley and Sons. New York, EE.UU. (NOTE: put the city and country. USA is used for the United States of America).

Books edited:

Wilson, D. E., and D. M. Reeder (eds.).  (font type Versales and French sangria) 2005.  Mammal Species of the World, a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, 3rd ed.  Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, USA.

Book chapter:

Williams, D. F., H. H. Genoways, and J. K. Braun.  (font type Versales and French sangria)1993.  Taxonomy and systematics.  Pp. 38–197 in Biology of the Heteromyidae (H. H. Genoways, and J. H. Brown, eds.).  Special publications No. 10, American Society of Mammalogy, Lawrence, USA.

Mammalian Species:

Best, T. L., and H. H. Thomas.  (font type Versales and French sangria)1991.  Dipodomys insularis.  Mammalian Species 374:1–3.

Computer programs:

Nylander, J. A. A.  (font type Versales and French sangria)2004.  MrModeltest v2.2 Program distributed by the author.  Evolutionary Biology Center. Uppsala University, Uppsala, Suecia.

Web Pages

IUCN

Author (font type Versales and French sangria).  2014.  Name of the species.  In: IUCN 2017.  The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2017.3. www.iucnredlist.org.  Accessed on 8 September 2017.

International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (font type Versales and French sangria).  1995.  IUCN Red List categories. IUCN.

Institutional Publications

Environmental Standards

Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (font type Versales and French sangria). 2001. Norma Oficial Mexicana NOM-126-SEMARNAT-2000, Que establece especificaciones para la realización de actividades de colecta científica de material biológico de especies de flora y fauna silvestres y otros recursos biológicos en el territorio nacional. Secretaría del Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales. México. 31 January, 2001.

Literature cited that is not easily accessed or available for review:

Some old journals are no longer published or have changed their name; articles published in some of them contain relevant historical information. Another case refers to unpublished internal reports that include relevant data. In these cases, please indicate where or with whom these materials can be reviewed, using the following format:

Burt, W.H.  (font type Versales and French sangria) 1932.  Descriptions of heretofore unknown mammals from islands in the Gulf of California, Mexico. Transactions of the San Diego Society of Natural History 16:161- 182. Available at email@address of the corresponding author.

Le Boeuf, B.J.  (font type Versales and French sangria) 1977.  Report of Scripps Institution of Oceanography Expedition to Baja California Islands, February 9-20, 1977. Unpublished expedition report. University of California. Santa Cruz, USA.  Available at email@address of the corresponding author.

Figures

All photographs, charts, and diagrams should be referred to as a 'Figure' (please do not abbreviate) and should be numbered consecutively (1, 2, etc.). Multi-part figures should be labeled with lower case letters (a, b, etc.). Please insert scale bars directly in the figures and avoid including the keys inside the figure; it is better to set them in the figure legend. The text within the chart should be the same as in the rest of the manuscript (Times New Roman). Relatively small text and great variation in text sizes within figures should be avoided as figures are often reduced in size. Provide a detailed legend (without abbreviations) to each figure. All figures should be cited in the text consecutively (Fig. 1, etc.). Place the legends of the graphs in the manuscript in a separate sheet with the title "List of figures" and after the Literature cited.

Consider that the final size of the figures shall be adjusted to the printing box of the journal. It is very important to check the lines and font in the figures considering the final publication size. Charts or graphs could be two sizes (a) full box, obligatory size of 18 cm wide and up to 24 cm long, and (b) half box, obligatory size of 6.6 cm wide and 24 cm long.

All figures must appear at the end of the manuscript. Once the note is accepted for publication, each of the figures must be sent in a separate file, in high quality, and in TIFF or JPG formats.

The maps must have the following elements:
• Scale bar.
• Compass rose indicating the North position.
• Coordinates in GG.MM.SS format (degrees, minutes, and seconds), adding a capital letter at the end for latitude (with a N or S at the end as appropriate), and for longitude (O or E at the end, depending on corresponding, and W or E in the case of notes in English).
• Do not add negative signs to the coordinates.
• The font size must be legible.
• It should not contain blurry or poor-quality elements.
See an example here.

Color graphics

THERYA NOTES offers options for reproducing color illustrations in your note.

Tables

Each table should be numbered consecutively (Table 1, 2, etc.). Vertical lines within the table should be avoided and colors and horizontal lines should only be used as necessary. In tables, footnotes are preferable to long explanatory material in either the heading or body of the table. Such explanatory footnotes, identified by superscript letters, should be placed immediately below the table. Please provide a caption (without abbreviations) to each table. Finally, please place the tables after the figure legends in the manuscript.

Proofs

Proofs will be sent to the corresponding author. One corrected proof, together with the original, edited manuscript, should be returned to the Editor-in-Chief within no more than three days by e-mail.
Please take into account that the proof stage is the last revision phase where only minor changes are accepted. IN CASE OF MAJOR MODIFICATIONS, THE MANUSCRIPT SHALL BE TAKEN BACK TO THE EVALUATION PROCESS. The author is responsible for ensuring that the file to be sent for publication contains no major modifications. In case it is detected that the final file contains non-compliances with the requested format, it will be returned to the authors and will not be sent to the production list until the article is delivered in the correct format as requested by THERYA NOTES. The authors are also responsible for reviewing in detail the proofs and communicate to both the Editor in Chief and the Assistant Editor the accurate and detailed request of proof correction. ONCE THE ARTICLE HAS BEEN FORMALLY PUBLISHED, IT IS NO LONGER POSSIBLE TO MAKE ANY CHANGES TO IT.

Offprints

THERYA NOTES as an electronic journal will not have offprints.

Costs

THERYA NOTES provides free, and immediate access to its content. At THERYA NOTES, we work on the principle that making unrestricted knowledge available encourages global dialogue. For this reason, we also do not charge for the submission of items (submission charges) or charges for processing (APC). THERYA NOTES has no printing costs per page and color graphics.

Copyright

Authors will be asked, upon acceptance of an article, to transfer copyright of the article to the Asociation (AMMAC). This will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information under copyright laws. It is the author's responsibility to inform the co-authors about the submission of the manuscript and have written rights to use the material, data, sequences or specimen that does not belong directly to the author by correspondence.

Permissions

It is the responsibility of the author to obtain written permission for a quotation from unpublished material (even if it is in thesis and internal reports).