Tropical and Subtropical Agroecosystems

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Author Guidelines

Only original manuscripts are accepted, which has not been previously published and which is NOT in the process of being evaluated by another journal.

 All manuscript must be uploaded using the journal submission facilities. When uploading the manuscript the manuscript title must be in CAPITAL LETTERS.

When submitting the manuscript provide the information requested for all authors. Upon publication, biographical information data requested by the journal platform will be displayed in the website next to the manuscript summary.

 The original must include tables and/or graphics presented in the position intended to appear in the final version, the items must be included (pasted) in the paper. Please ensure that figures can be viewed in any PC where the program from which the figure was created is not installed.

 Use the computer program default page settings, and use as less format as possible. Use italics only for scientific names and Latinized words. i.e. in vitro, in situ, et al. etc.

 Use the table tools to create tables. Whenever possible tables should be presented in vertical (not landscape) page format. Table data/information can be in font size 10.

 Program for Word processing. Word Windows version should be used. Figures are recommended in GIF or JPG format. Please ensure that figures can be viewed in any PC where the program from which the figure was created is not installed

RESEARCH PAPER Manuscript structure

Single spaced text,

Font Times New Roman size 10,

page size = letter,

margin = upper, lower and right margin size = 2 cm, left margin = 3 cm.

 For all items, authors from non-spanish speaking countries might request a translation for title, summary and key words.

TITLE in English and Spanish, use capital letters.  

Authors, Use bold lower case font except for the initial letter of each name which should be capital. Please write in order = name(s) surname(s).  examples:

Marcos Santos-Brown, Peter Jones

M. Santos-Brown, P. Jones

Addresses of authors 

 Full postal address is required for each affilliation (e-mail included)Indicate corresponding author.

Affiliation refers only to the institutional address. Do not include author position in the affiliation data (for example, researcher, student)

SUMMARY and RESUMEN, followed by Keywords and Palabras clave respectively.

A structured summary is required. It should clearly indicate

Background: context, originality or value of the work performed

Objective/hypothesis:

Methodology: briefly described,

Results: describe main findings (either positive or negative in relation to the objective or hypothesis)

Implications: limitation or possible implications of the work.

Conclusion: Short and clear statement. Make sure have relation with objective or hypothesis.

INTRODUCTION (summarizing the present situation of the subject and presenting the paper's objective).

 MATERIALS AND METHODS should be summarized but including all the information for reproducing the experiment.

 RESULTS, although a brief description of all results is expected, this section should remark the main results of the experimental work.

 DISCUSSION, must help to understand the causes and implications of the results obtained

 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION can be presented as a single section using this heading.

 CONCLUSIONS obtained from the experimental work (basic, applied or both).

 Acknowledgements When necessary must be included before the reference section.

The following author statements are required in all manuscript submitted

-       Funding a statement is needed even to declare that authors did not receive funding

-       Conflict of interest a statemen is needed even if authors have no competing interest to declare.

-       Compliance with ethical standards provide the authorization by an ethical or bioethical committee or equivalent declaration. If the work involved human subject a statement about informed consent is also required. When the nature of the work does not require approval by a (bio)ethical committe, the statement must indicate it.

-       Data availability: Author should declare any of the following: 1) Data are available with <author name, email> upon reasonable request. 2) Data is freely available at :  <repository ID and DOI>, 3) Data is presented in the companion “Supporting data paper” <title of the paper submitted to TSAES >, 4) All data is presented in the present paper.

Author contribution statement (CRedit)

The Contributor Roles Taxonomy (https://credit.niso.org/) must be used to assign at least one specific author contribution to the work/manuscript submitted. The contribution description should aim to properly describe the contribution of each author. Although the corresponding author is responsible for description accuracy, it must be agreed with all co-authors.

Use only the roles described by CRediT. Use the following format as example (Authors may have contributed to single or multiple roles).

C.A. Santos-Perez – Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology., T. Kumar – Data curation, Supervision.

The journal do not use nor endorse the use of CRediT as a tool to qualify authorship.

  REFERENCES

The bibliographical references within text will be as follows: Ku-Vera (1990), Lee and Storey (1998), Herrera et al. (1970) (Torres-Acosta et al., 2016, Ventura and Gonzalez, 2014). The bibliographical references will be presented alphabetically by authors, by chronological order, adding a letter (1990a, 1990b, 1990c...) if there exists more than one reference of the same year.

Please note that in the references list section, year of publication is without brackets.

Reference List

Use Harvard - Anglia reference style. An example can be located at, https://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm

Please download and use the Style files for  Zotero or Mendeley 

Journals:

Authors, initials., year, title of the article, full title of the journal, volume, page numbers if available or article ID.

i.g. Smith, C.S., Perez, J. and Morris, A., 2000. The agroecosystems in the tropics. Journal of Agroecosystems, 29, pp. 24-56. https://Doi.org/xxxxxxxxx.xxxx

Note: Journals names should be provided in full and not in abbreviated form.

 Book

Author surname, initials., year, title of book, No. of edition (from 2nd edition onwards), place of publication (must be a ctiy not a country): editorial or publisher.

 Book chapter

Authors surname, initial., year, title of chapter. In: book editor initial, surname, ed. title of book, place of publication: editorial or publisher, first and last page of chapter.

e.g. Norton, B.W., 1994. The Nutritive Value of Tree Legumes. In: R.C. Gutteridge and H.M. Shelton, eds. Forage Tree Legumes in Tropical Agriculture. Wallinford: CAB International. pp. 177-191.

Proceedings

Authors, year, title, name of event, editor(s) (if appropriate), place and date of event, place of publication and editorial (if available), first and last page.

 WWW

When using a valid web reference please provide: Author, year, title and in addition of the above include the www address (URL) and date when consulted.

ORCID

Authors are encouraged to share their ORCID identifier (https://orcid.org/) when submitting a manuscript.

ORCID information can be captured directly in the journal editorial platform (OJS) which will automatically display the information to readers when a published article is accessed (summary or pdf).

In addition, authors can provide ORCID information after the reference section using the following format.

C.A. Sandoval-Castro: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2778-8240

J.F.J. Torres-Acosta: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3724-3391

ORCID information will be incorporated in the front page of each article.

JOURNAL SECTIONS

In addition to RESEARCH PAPERS (described above) the following are accepted:

REVIEWS are welcomed; the paper must be structured to allow maximum understanding of the topic exposed. However, it must include;

TITLE (English and Spanish),

Authors, Use bold lower case font except for the initial letter of each name which should be capital. Please write in order = name(s) surname(s).  examples:

Marcos Santos-Brown and Peter Jones

M. Santos-Brown and P. Jones

 Addresses of authors, use italic font, lower case, capital letter where appropriate. 

Full postal address is required for each affilliation (e-mail included)

Affiliation refers only to the institutional address. Do not include author position in the affiliation data (for example, researcher, student)

Indicate the corresponding author with a "*" 

SUMMARY (English and Spanish),

A structured summary is required. It should clearly indicate

Background: context, originality or value of the review

Methodology: briefly describing information acquisition and data processing strategies (authors must describe their strategy to retrieve the information used in the review),

Main findings: supported by the literature and data

Implications: limitation or possible implications of the work.

Conclusion: Short and clear statement. Make sure have relation with objective or hypothesis.

Keywords (English and Spanish),

INTRODUCTION,

METHODOLOGY

It should include information acquisition and data processing strategies.

The manuscript must contain a "Methodology" section
In general, the reviews that are submitted must be carried out in accordance with a methodological reference (for example, some variant of PRISMA) or describe in as much detail as possible the procedure/strategy for searching and processing the information.

The methodology must clearly describe the information search and processing process.
.- Research question(s) addressed by the review or objectives of the review
.- Type of review (systematic, meta-analysis, focus, etc.)
. Consulted databases
. keywords or combinations and languages considered in the construction of the search/keywords (for example English and Spanish)
. Years considered in the search
. Languages of retrieved articles
. Inclusion and exclusion criteria of articles
. Total items obtained
. Total number of articles considered when applying the criteria.
. Information processing strategy
.- It is desirable to include the scope and limitations of the review

The purpose of presenting the search and processing strategy is for readers to verify that the potential for bias in the search was limited and to allow replication, if applicable.

It is suggested to adhere to some guide (provide reference) and make sure to adequately report the methodology used to carry out the review.

MAIN TEXT CONTAINING THE THEME UNDER REVIEW,  

CONCLUSION(S)

Acknowledgements When necessary must be included before the reference section.

The following author statements are required in all manuscript submitted

-       Funding a statemen is needed even if authors have no competing interest to declare.

-       Conflict of interest a statemen is needed even if authors have no competing interest to declare.

-       Compliance with ethical standards provide the authorization by an ethical or bioethical committee or equivalent declaration. If the work involved human subject a statement about informed consent is also required. When the nature of the work does not require approval by a (bio)ethical committe, the statement must indicate it.

-       Data availability (for meta-analysis): Author should declare any of the following: 1) Data are available with <author name, email> upon reasonable request. 2) Data is freely available at :  <repository ID and DOI>, 3) Data is presented in the companion “Supporting data paper” <title of the paper submitted to TSAES >, 4) All data is presented in the present paper. 

Author contribution statement (CRedit)

The Contributor Roles Taxonomy (https://credit.niso.org/) must be used to assign at least one specific author contribution to the work/manuscript submitted. The contribution description should aim to properly describe the contribution of each author. Although the corresponding author is responsible for description accuracy, it must be agreed with all co-authors.

Use only the roles described by CRediT. Use the following format as example (Authors may have contributed to single or multiple roles).

C.A. Santos-Perez – Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology., T. Kumar – Data curation, Supervision.

The journal do not use nor endorse the use of CRediT as a tool to qualify authorship.

ORCID

Authors are encouraged to share their ORCID identifier (https://orcid.org/) when submitting a manuscript.

ORCID information can be captured directly in the journal editorial platform (OJS) which will automatically display the information to readers when a published article is accessed (summary or pdf).

In addition, authors can provide ORCID information after the reference section using the following format.

C.A. Sandoval-Castro: 0000-0003-2778-8240

J.F.J. Torres-Acosta: 0000-0003-3724-3391

ORCID information will be incorporated in the front page of each article.

 AGROECOSYSTEMS STUDIES -this is a multidisciplinary section, includes multitrophic research in agriculture, forestry, aquaculture and livestock production systems. Agroecosystems studies which not solely describe de current situation but suggest methodological approaches, compare scenarios (SWOT, Ishikawa, etc.), develop models and projections, analyze historical context while giving value to current situation. Local knowledge with new applications or traditional applications with management or technological improvements. Interdisciplinary work to find solutions for natural resources and agroecosystems management. Review of policies, law, etc., novel processes or new perspectives of topics leading to the understanding and development of tropical and subtropical agroecosystems with a proper methodological or scientific support. It must be structured as a research paper. If a different format is required, please contact the editor. Acknowledgements When necessary must be included before the reference section.

The following author statements are required in all manuscript submitted

-       Funding a statemen is needed even if authors have no competing interest to declare.

-       Conflict of interest a statemen is needed even if authors have no competing interest to declare.

-       Compliance with ethical standards provide the authorization by an ethical or bioethical committee or equivalent declaration. If the work involved human subject a statement about informed consent is also required. When the nature of the work does not require approval by a (bio)ethical committe, the statement must indicate it.

-       Data availability: Author should declare any of the following: 1) Data are available with <author name, email> upon reasonable request. 2) Data is freely available at :  <repository ID and DOI>, 3) Data is presented in the companion “Supporting data paper” <title of the paper submitted to TSAES >, 4) All data is presented in the present paper. 

Author contribution statement (CRedit)

The Contributor Roles Taxonomy (https://credit.niso.org/) must be used to assign at least one specific author contribution to the work/manuscript submitted. The contribution description should aim to properly describe the contribution of each author. Although the corresponding author is responsible for description accuracy, it must be agreed with all co-authors.

Use only the roles described by CRediT. Use the following format as example (Authors may have contributed to single or multiple roles).

C.A. Santos-Perez – Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology., T. Kumar – Data curation, Supervision.

The journal do not use nor endorse the use of CRediT as a tool to qualify authorship.

SHORT NOTES when presenting information based on limited datasets but still considered valuable and worth to be published: It must contain the same section as a research paper. Regular papers can be move to this section based on reviewers and editorial assessment. Acknowledgements When necessary must be included before the reference section.

The following author statements are required in all manuscript submitted

-       Funding a statemen is needed even if authors have no competing interest to declare.

-       Conflict of interest a statemen is needed even if authors have no competing interest to declare.

-       Compliance with ethical standards provide the authorization by an ethical or bioethical committee or equivalent declaration. If the work involved human subject a statement about informed consent is also required. When the nature of the work does not require approval by a (bio)ethical committe, the statement must indicate it.

-       Data availability: Author should declare any of the following: 1) Data are available with <author name, email> upon reasonable request. 2) Data is freely available at :  <repository ID and DOI>, 3) Data is presented in the companion “Supporting data paper” <title of the paper submitted to TSAES >, 4) All data is presented in the present paper. 

Author contribution statement (CRedit)

The Contributor Roles Taxonomy (https://credit.niso.org/) must be used to assign at least one specific author contribution to the work/manuscript submitted. The contribution description should aim to properly describe the contribution of each author. Although the corresponding author is responsible for description accuracy, it must be agreed with all co-authors.

Use only the roles described by CRediT. Use the following format as example (Authors may have contributed to single or multiple roles).

C.A. Santos-Perez – Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology., T. Kumar – Data curation, Supervision.

The journal do not use nor endorse the use of CRediT as a tool to qualify authorship.

SUPPORTING DATA PAPERS. Its primary purpose is to present and describe the full data set /information originated in an experiment which results are reported in TSAES journal. Its title must start with “Supporting data …”. It might contain additional data not presented in the paper. It will contain the following section.

TITLE (English and Spanish), authors and affiliation, as a research paper

SUMMARY, (English and Spanish) a structured summary containing-

context: description of origin and type of data set,

methods of data collection: refer to the parent paper by title and provide additional info is needed

results: describe main characteristics of data.

value of data set: explain why the supporting data is worth to be published, for example who will use such data, other potential uses of data

key words, (English and Spanish)

INTRODUCTION. Focused on the source of data (reference to parent paper) and potential uses of data

METHODOLOGY OF DATA COLLECTION. Brief description and provide reference to parent paper. Detailed description to methodologies not described in parent paper.

It should provide as many as possible of the following meta data descriptors (according to the type of study). It can be arranged in a 2 x 2 table with headings “Data descriptor” and “Data details”

.- Site of collection

.- Geographical data (location)

.- Climate

.- Soil information

.- period of time

.- data collection strategy (information to understand the data set, can be referred to parent paper)

.- name of files associated (include a brief description of their content

.- file attributes (if possible use a non-proprietary file, for example; TXT, CSV, ASCII)

.- coding use in the data file (how data, treatments, groups, etc, can be identify in the file)

.- units of measurement (for data/variables contained in the files)

.- restrictions on data usage (if any, and contact details for additional information)

RESULTS AND DATA Brief description of data arrangement in files, include table with descriptive statistics. Do not include discussion as it is not a regular paper. Do not replicate tables which have been already presented in the parent paper.

REPOSITORY INFORMATION: provide name of file and address of repository including DOI. Files must be freely available on-line under a suitable license allowing their reuse and redistribution (i.e. CC licenses).

Acknowledgements When necessary must be included before the reference section.

The following author statements are required in all manuscript submitted

-       Funding a statemen is needed even if authors have no competing interest to declare.

-       Conflict of interest a statemen is needed even if authors have no competing interest to declare.

-       Compliance with ethical standards provide the authorization by an ethical or bioethical committee or equivalent declaration. If the work involved human subject a statement about informed consent is also required. When the nature of the work does not require approval by a (bio)ethical committe, the statement must indicate it.

Author contribution statement (CRedit)

The Contributor Roles Taxonomy (https://credit.niso.org/) must be used to assign at least one specific author contribution to the work/manuscript submitted. The contribution description should aim to properly describe the contribution of each author. Although the corresponding author is responsible for description accuracy, it must be agreed with all co-authors.

Use only the roles described by CRediT. Use the following format as example (Authors may have contributed to single or multiple roles).

C.A. Santos-Perez – Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology., T. Kumar – Data curation, Supervision.

The journal do not use nor endorse the use of CRediT as a tool to qualify authorship.

Note: To increase usefulness of data, this journal section (SUPPORTING DATA PAPERS) does not accept manuscript in Spanish. However, Summary and key words in Spanish are required (Resumen y palabras clave).

ORCID

Authors are encouraged to share their ORCID identifier (https://orcid.org/) when submitting a manuscript.

ORCID information can be captured directly in the journal editorial platform (OJS) which will automatically display the information to readers when a published article is accessed (summary or pdf).

In addition, authors can provide ORCID information after the reference section using the following format.

C.A. Sandoval-Castro: 0000-0003-2778-8240

J.F.J. Torres-Acosta: 0000-0003-3724-3391

ORCID information will be incorporated in the front page of each article.

FORUM Editorial promoting discussion of research topics in agroecosystems. Letters to the editor will be included in this section. It should include:

TITLE (English and Spanish), authors and affiliation, as a research paper

SUMMARY, (English and Spanish) a structured summary containing-

context:

Objective: author(s) should clearly indicate the issue raised

Conclusion: short and brief declaration

key words, (English and Spanish)

INTRODUCTION a brief summary and key words and references. Author should clearly state the point raised/discussed.

MAIN TEXT

CONCLUSION

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The following author statements are required in all manuscript submitted

-       Funding a statemen is needed even if authors have no competing interest to declare.

-       Conflict of interest a statemen is needed even if authors have no competing interest to declare.

-       Compliance with ethical standards provide the authorization by an ethical or bioethical committee or equivalent declaration. If the work involved human subject a statement about informed consent is also required. When the nature of the work does not require approval by a (bio)ethical committe, the statement must indicate it.

-       Data availability: Author should declare any of the following: 1) Data are available with <author name, email> upon reasonable request. 2) Data is freely available at:  <repository ID and DOI>, 3) Data is presented in the companion “Supporting data paper” <title of the paper submitted to TSAES >, 4) All data is presented in the present paper. 

ORCID

Authors are encouraged to share their ORCID identifier (https://orcid.org/) when submitting a manuscript.

ORCID information can be captured directly in the journal editorial platform (OJS) which will automatically display the information to readers when a published article is accessed (summary or pdf).

In addition, authors can provide ORCID information after the reference section using the following format.

C.A. Sandoval-Castro: 0000-0003-2778-8240

J.F.J. Torres-Acosta: 0000-0003-3724-3391

ORCID information will be incorporated in the front page of each article.

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All manuscripts will be evaluated by a peer review process (at least two reviewers).

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ARTICLE PROCESSING FEE (APC)

The journal will charge $3000.oo Mexican pesos (MXN) as APC

The exact APC in USD would vary according to the exchange rate at the moment of payment. In the last few months, the APC in USD has fluctuated between $ 150 to 175 USD.

This is payable once the manuscript has been accepted and a PDF file is sent to the corresponding author for proofreading. Details for payment will be sent together with the PDF file.

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A NOTE ON PEER REVIEW (FOR AUTHORS)

 The rejected manuscripts will be returned to the corresponding author quoting the reasons for rejection.

Given that there is an increasing number of submitted papers and an apparent lower number of researchers willing to perform peer reviews the potential backlogs and delays in providing an editorial decision are a frequent and worrying issue for both editors and authors.

Thus, we have set the following editorial policies.

a)     If after 3 months an editor is unable to obtain researchers accepting to perform peer review they will return (reject) the manuscript to author explaining the fact

b)    If after 6 months an editor is unable to obtain the required feedback from reviewers who had previously accepted to perform peer review will return (reject) the manuscript to authors explaining the fact.

 The rejection of a manuscript under such circumstances does not involve a judgment on its merit or quality.

 It is not an easy measure, but we believe it is in the best interest of the author to obtain a response of this type rather than wait longer periods of time with uncertainty.

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

1. The manuscript is original and has not been previously published or it has not been sent for consideration elsewhere simultaneosly with the submission to this journal
2. The file is in Microsoft Word(R)

3. The manuscript follow the guidelines/instructions for authors

   Either Zotero or Mendeley have been used to prepare the reference section. 

    

4. Details of at least two potential reviewers (name, institution, e-mail, expertize area) is provided in the presentation letter.

   (upload as supplementary file)

Copyright Notice

1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

1. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

Privacy Statement

The names and e-mail addresses provided to the journal will be used exclusively for the editorial purposes of the journal, including correspondence with the authors, reviewers, editors, notifications, notices or journal news and occasionally from the publishing institution.

They will not be available for any other purpose or person and will not be used for commercial purposes.