General
Marine Life Science & Technology (MLST) provides a platform that introduces new discoveries and theories associated with marine organisms, bioresources, and biotechnology. It has an international authorship and a broad scope in the following topics: Basic Biology, Fisheries Science, Marine Drugs and Bioproducts, Food Science, and Biological Oceanography. Detailed subjects are outlined in the Aims and Scope.
MLST is published quarterly. Generally, the manuscript processing time from submitting to decision-making is within two months, with the editorial office informing authors of the decision once the review process is completed.
To facilitate the single-blind review process, please carefully follow the journal’s guidelines when preparing your manuscript. If these instructions are unclear, you may contact us (mlst@ouc.edu.cn). Furthermore, prior to peer reviewing, the editors will work with you to address any obvious issues associated with presentation, content, formatting of tables and figures, data availability, and English.
Types of Papers
Original research articles, invited reviews, among others.
Manuscript Submission
Manuscript submission
Submission of a manuscript implies: that the work described has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication anywhere else; that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – at the institute where the work has been carried out. The publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.
Permissions
Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.
Online submissionPlease upload all of your manuscript files to ScholarOne Manuscripts System (https://mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/mlst) and follow the instructions.
Note: New users should first register before uploading files. Our journal encourages authors to provide their ORCID ID before proceeding with submission. An informative cover letter or a comment on your work is required. Authors who are not invited but intend to submit either reviews or forum papers are advised to contact the editors prior to submission.
Please note that appendices are not included in the printed version of MLST but appeared as supplementary materials of online version.
Manuscripts for review must consist of a single text file with figure and table legends included at the end of the file, starting on a separate page. Figure files must be uploaded separately. The Editors reserve the right to modify accepted manuscripts that do not conform to scientific, technical, stylistic, or grammatical standards. These minor alterations may not be seen by the authors until the proof stage.
Title Page
The title page should include:
The name(s) of the author(s);
A concise and informative title;
The affiliation(s) and address(es) of the author(s);
The correct e-mail address and telephone number(s) of the corresponding author;
If available, provide the 16-digit ORCID of the author(s).
A running title (maximum 60 characters including spaces) is needed, it should be placed at the upper left corner of the title page;
If there are equal contributors or co-corresponding authors, please clearly indicate this.
Abstract
Please provide an abstract of 150 to 250 words. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references.
Keywords
Please provide 4 to 6 keywords which can be used for indexing purposes.
Text
Text formatting
Manuscripts should be submitted in Word.
Use a normal, plain font (e.g., 10-point Times Roman) for text.
Use italics for emphasis.
Use the automatic page numbering function to number the pages.
Do not use field functions.
Use tab stops or other commands for indents, not the space bar.
Use the table function, not spreadsheets, to make tables.
Use the equation editor or MathType for equations.
Save your file in docx format (Word 2007 or higher) or doc format (older Word versions).
The text of a research paper should be organized in the following order: Introduction, Results, Discussion (or Results and Discussion), Materials and Methods, Acknowledgements, Authors’ Contributions, Compliance with Ethical Standards, Conflicts of Interest, and References.
Reviews should have an abstract highlighting the main conclusions from the reviewed material.
Do not insert more than two figures and/or tables in the manuscripts of views and comments.
All the pages should be numbered consecutively.
Continuous line numbers should be used.
Typescripts must be line spaced in 1.5 times.
Paragraphs must consist of two or more sentences.
Words should not be hyphenated at the ends of lines.
Whole numbers one to nine must be spelled out and number 10 onwards given in Arabic numerals.
Manuscripts with mathematical content can also be submitted in LaTeX.
LaTeX macro package(zip, 182KB)
Headings
Please use no more than three levels of displayed headings.
Abbreviations
Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.
Footnotes
Footnotes can be used to give additional information, which may include the citation of a reference included in the reference list. They should not consist solely of a reference citation, and they should never include the bibliographic details of a reference. They should also not contain any figures or tables.
Footnotes to the text are numbered consecutively; those to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data). Footnotes to the title or the authors of the article are not given reference symbols.
Always use footnotes instead of endnotes.
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section on the title page. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.
Authors’ contributions
Provide details for the contributions made by each author, and declare that the final manuscript was approved by all the authors.
Scientific style
Genus and species names should be in italics.
References
Citation
Cite references in the text by name and year in parentheses. Some examples:
Negotiation research spans many disciplines (Thompson 1990).
This result was later contradicted by Becker and Seligman (1996).
This effect has been widely studied (Abbott 1991; Barakat et al. 1995a, b; Kelso and Smith 1998; Medvec et al. 1999, 2000).
Reference list
The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text. Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list.
Reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last names of the first author of each work.
Journal article
Gamelin FX, Baquet G, Berthoin S, Thevenet D, Nourry C, Nottin S, Bosquet L (2009) Effect of high intensity intermittent training on heart rate variability in prepubescent children. Eur J Appl Physiol 105:731-738. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-008-0955-8
Article by DOI
Slifka MK, Whitton JL (2000) Clinical implications of dysregulated cytokine production. J Mol Med. https://doi.org/10.1007/s001090000086
Book
South J, Blass B (2001) The future of modern genomics. Blackwell, London
Book chapter
Brown B, Aaron M (2001) The politics of nature. In: Smith J (ed) The rise of modern genomics, 3rd edn. Wiley, New York, pp 230-257
Online document
Cartwright J (2007) Big stars have weather too. IOP Publishing PhysicsWeb. http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/11/6/16/1. Accessed 26 June 2007
Dissertation
Trent JW (1975) Experimental acute renal failure. Dissertation, University of California
Always use the standard abbreviation of a journal’s name according to the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations, see
http://www.issn.org/services/online-services/access-to-the-ltwa/. If you are unsure, please use the full journal title.
For authors using EndNote, Springer provides an output style that supports the formatting of in-text citations and reference list.
Endnote style
Important Notes:
Accuracy of references is the responsibility of the author(s). Please ensure that each reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa) and that the spelling of authors' names and the dates given are consistent.
For the in-text citation, joint authors must be referred to by the family name of the first author plus et al. if there are more than two authors. Please use a, b, etc. after the year to distinguish papers published by the same author(s) in the same year.
For the reference list, references must be arranged first alphabetically under family name(s) of the author(s) and then in chronological order if several papers by the same author(s) are cited. For each citation, all the author names should be listed in this References section.
Tables
All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
Tables should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
For each table, please supply a table caption (title) explaining the components of the table.
Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table caption.
Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body.
Important Notes:
Tables should be kept simple where possible, with few horizontal and, preferably, no vertical rules. When assembling complex tables and data matrices, bear the dimensions of the printed page (225 x 168 mm) in mind; reducing typesize to accommodate a multiplicity of columns will affect legibility.
For initial submissions please embed tables in the manuscript; for any revised versions please submit separate table files. If there are appendix tables, please refer to the rules mentioned in Electronic supplementary material.
Artwork
Electronic figure submission
Supply all figures electronically.
Indicate what graphics program was used to create the artwork.
For vector graphics, the preferred format is EPS; for halftones, please use TIFF format. MS Office files are also acceptable.
Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.
Name your figure files with Fig and the figure number, e.g., Fig1.eps.
Line art
Definition: Black and white graphic with no shading.
Do not use faint lines and/or lettering and check that all lines and lettering within the figures are legible at final size.
All lines should be at least 0.1 mm (0.3 pt) wide.
Scanned line drawings and line drawings in bitmap format should have a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi.
Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.
Halftone art
Definition: Photographs, drawings, or paintings with fine shading, etc.
If any magnification is used in the photographs, indicate this by using scale bars within the figures themselves.
Halftones should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.
Combination art
Definition: a combination of halftone and line art, e.g., halftones containing line drawing, extensive lettering, color diagrams, etc.
Combination artwork should have a minimum resolution of 600 dpi.
Color art
Color art is free of charge for online and print publications.
If black and white will be shown in the print version, make sure that the main information will still be visible. Many colors are not distinguishable from one another when converted to black and white. A simple way to check this is to make a xerographic copy to see if the necessary distinctions between the different colors are still apparent.
If the figures will be printed in black and white, do not refer to color in the captions.
Color illustrations should be submitted as RGB (8 bits per channel).
Figure lettering
To add lettering, it is best to use Helvetica or Arial (sans serif fonts).
Keep lettering consistently sized throughout your final-sized artwork, usually about 2–3 mm (8–12 pt).
Variance of type size within an illustration should be minimal, e.g., do not use 8-pt type on an axis and 20-pt type for the axis label.
Avoid effects such as shading, outline letters, etc.
Do not include titles or captions into your illustrations.
Figure numbering
All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
Figures should always be cited in the text in consecutive numerical order.
Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).
If an appendix appears in your article/chapter and it contains one or more figures, continue the consecutive numbering of the main text. Do not number the appendix figures, “A1, A2, A3, etc.” Figures in online appendices (Electronic supplementary Material) should, however, be numbered separately.
Figure captions
Each figure should have a concise caption describing accurately what the figure depicts. Include the captions in the text file of the manuscript, not in the figure file.
Figure captions begin with the term Fig. in bold type, followed by the figure number, also in bold type.
No punctuation is to be included after the number, nor is any punctuation to be placed at the end of the caption.
Identify all elements found in the figure in the figure caption; and use boxes, circles, etc., as coordinate points in graphs.
Identify previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference citation at the end of the figure caption.
Figure placement and size
Figures should be submitted separately from the text, if possible.
When preparing your figures, size figures to fit in the column width.
The figures should be 84 mm (for double-column text areas), or 174 mm (for single-column text areas) wide and not higher than 234 mm.
When designing figures, please keep in mind that the aspect ratio for each figure should not exceed 1.2:1.
Permissions
If you include figures that have already been published elsewhere, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format. Please be aware that some publishers do not grant electronic rights for free and that Springer/MLST will not be able to refund any costs that may have occurred to receive these permissions. In such cases, material from other sources should be used.
Accessibility
In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your figures, please make sure that
All figures have descriptive captions (blind users could then use a text-to-speech software or a text-to-Braille hardware)
Patterns are used instead or in addition to colors for conveying information (color-blind users would then be able to distinguish the visual elements)
Any figure lettering has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1.
Electronic Supplementary Material
Electronic supplementary material will be published in the online version only.
It may consist of
Information that cannot be printed: animations, video clips, sound recordings
Information that is more convenient in electronic form: sequences, spectral data, etc.
Large original data, e.g. additional tables, illustrations, etc.
Before submitting research datasets as electronic supplementary material, authors should read the journal’s research data policy. We encourage research data to be archived in data repositories wherever possible.
Submission
Supply all supplementary material in standard file formats.
Please include in each file the following information: article title, journal name, author names; affiliation and e-mail address of the corresponding author.
To accommodate user downloads, please keep in mind that larger-sized files may require very long download times and that some users may experience other problems during downloading.
Text and presentations
Submit your material in PDF format; .doc or .ppt files are not suitable for long-term viability.
A collection of figures may also be combined in a PDF file.
Spreadsheets
Spreadsheets should be submitted as .csv or .xlsx files (MS Excel).
Specialized formats
Specialized format such as .pdb (chemical), .wrl (VRML), .nb (Mathematica notebook), and .tex can also be supplied.
Collecting multiple files
It is possible to collect multiple files in a .zip or .gz file.
Numbering
If supplying any supplementary material, the text must make specific mention of the material as a citation, similar to that of figures and tables.
Refer to the supplementary files as “Online Resource”, e.g., “... as shown in the animation (Online Resource 3)”, “... additional data are given in Online Resource 4”.
Name the files consecutively, e.g. “ESM_3.mpg”, “ESM_4.pdf”.
Captions
For each supplementary material, please supply a concise caption describing the content of the file.
Processing of supplementary files
Electronic supplementary material will be published as received from the author without any conversion, editing, or reformatting.
Accessibility
In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your supplementary files, please make sure that
The manuscript contain a descriptive caption for each supplementary material
Video files do not contain anything that flashes more than three times per second (so that users prone to seizures caused by such effects are not put at risk)
Pre-Submission English Polishing
For editors and reviewers to accurately assess the work presented in your manuscript you need to ensure the English language is of sufficient quality to be understood. Authors whose first language is not English are strongly encouraged to have their manuscript assessed and improved by a native English speaker (with appropriate knowledge of the relevant subject) prior to submission. Authors can also consider using a professional language editing service, such as the following:
Nature Research Editing Service
[https://secure.authorservices.springernature.com/c/10springer/]
American Journal Experts [http://www.aje.com/c/springer]
Please note that the use of a language editing service is not a requirement for publication in this journal and does not imply or guarantee that the article will be selected for peer review or accepted.
If the manuscript is accepted, our journal will provide an additional service for improving the language, free of charge.
Ethical Responsibilities of Authors
This journal is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) the journal will follow the COPE guidelines on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct.
Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal, the professionalism of scientific authorship, and ultimately the entire scientific endeavour. Maintaining integrity of the research and its presentation can be achieved by following the rules of good scientific practice, which include*:
The manuscript has not been submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.
The submitted work should be original and should not have been published elsewhere in any form or language (partially or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work (please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the hint of text-recycling (‘self-plagiarism’)).
A single study is not split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time (e.g. ‘salami-slicing/publishing’).
Concurrent or secondary publication is sometimes justifiable, provided certain conditions are met. Examples include: translations or a manuscript that is intended for a different group of readers.
Results should be presented clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation (including image based manipulation). Authors should adhere to discipline-specific rules for acquiring, selecting and processing data.
No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own (“plagiarism”). Proper acknowledgements to other works must be given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized and/or paraphrased), quotation marks are used for verbatim copying of material, and permissions are secured for material that is copyrighted.
Important note: the journal may use software to screen for plagiarism.
Authors should make sure they have permissions for the use of software, questionnaires/(web) surveys and scales in their studies (if appropriate).
Authors should avoid untrue statements about an entity (who can be an individual person or a company) or descriptions of their behavior or actions that could potentially be seen as personal attacks or allegations about that person.
Research that may be misapplied to pose a threat to public health or national security should be clearly identified in the manuscript (e.g. dual use of research). Examples include creation of harmful consequences of biological agents or toxins, disruption of immunity of vaccines, unusual hazards in the use of chemicals, weaponization of research/technology (amongst others).
Authors are strongly advised to ensure the author group, the corresponding author, and the order of authors are all correct at submission. Adding and/or deleting authors during the revision stages is generally not permitted, but in some cases may be warranted. Reasons for changes in authorship should be explained in detail. Please note that changes to authorship cannot be made after acceptance of a manuscript.
*All of the above are guidelines and authors need to make sure to respect third parties rights such as copyright and/or moral rights.
Upon request authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results presented. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc. Sensitive information in the form of confidential or proprietary data is excluded.
If there is suspicion of misbehavior or alleged fraud, the Journal and/or Publisher will carry out an investigation following COPE guidelines. If, after investigation, there are valid concerns, the author(s) concerned will be contacted under their given e-mail address and given an opportunity to address the issue. Depending on the situation, this may result in the Journal’s and/or Publisher’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:
If the manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.
If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction:
- an erratum/correction may be placed with the article
- an expression of concern may be placed with the article
- or in severe cases retraction of the article may occur.
The reason will be given in the published erratum/correction, expression of concern or retraction note. Please note that retraction means that the paper is maintained on the platform, watermarked "retracted" and explanation for the retraction is provided in a note linked to the watermarked article.
The author’s institution may be informed.
A notice of suspected transgression of ethical standards in the peer review system may be included as part of the author’s and article’s bibliographic record.
Fundamental errors
Authors have an obligation to correct mistakes once they discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their published article. The author(s) is/are requested to contact the journal and explain in what sense the error is impacting the article. A decision on how to correct the literature will depend on the nature of the error. This may be a correction or retraction. The retraction note should provide transparency which parts of the article are impacted by the error.
Suggesting/excluding reviewers
Authors are welcome to suggest suitable reviewers and/or request the exclusion of certain individuals when they submit their manuscripts. When suggesting reviewers, authors should make sure they are totally independent and not connected to the work in any way. It is strongly recommended to suggest a mix of reviewers from different countries and different institutions. When suggesting reviewers, the Corresponding Author must provide an institutional email address for each suggested reviewer, or, if this is not possible to include other means of verifying the identity such as a link to a personal homepage, a link to the publication record or a researcher or author ID in the submission letter. Please note that the Journal may not use the suggestions, but suggestions are appreciated and may help facilitate the peer review process.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
To ensure objectivity and transparency in research and to ensure that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct have been followed, authors should include information regarding sources of funding, potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial), informed consent if the research involved human participants, and a statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals.
Authors should include the following statements (if applicable) in a separate section entitled “Compliance with Ethical Standards” when submitting a paper:
Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest
Research involving Human Participants and/or Animals
Informed consent
Before submitting your article check the instructions following this section carefully.
The corresponding author should be prepared to collect documentation of compliance with ethical standards and send if requested during peer review or after publication.
The Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned guidelines. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned guidelines.
Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest
Authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could have direct or potential influence or impart bias on the work. Although an author may not feel there is any conflict, disclosure of relationships and interests provides a more complete and transparent process, leading to an accurate and objective assessment of the work. Awareness of a real or perceived conflicts of interest is a perspective to which the readers are entitled. This is not meant to imply that a financial relationship with an organization that sponsored the research or compensation received for consultancy work is inappropriate. Examples of potential conflicts of interests that are directly or indirectly related to the research may include but are not limited to the following:
Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number)
Honoraria for speaking at symposia
Financial support for attending symposia
Financial support for educational programs
Employment or consultation
Support from a project sponsor
Position on advisory board or board of directors or other type of management relationships
Multiple affiliations
Financial relationships, for example equity ownership or investment interest
Intellectual property rights (e.g. patents, copyrights and royalties from such rights)
Holdings of spouse and/or children that may have financial interest in the work
In addition, interests that go beyond financial interests and compensation (non-financial interests) that may be important to readers should be disclosed. These may include but are not limited to personal relationships or competing interests directly or indirectly tied to this research, or professional interests or personal beliefs that may influence your research.
The corresponding author collects the conflict of interest disclosure forms from all authors. In author collaborations where formal agreements for representation allow it, it is sufficient for the corresponding author to sign the disclosure form on behalf of all authors. Examples of forms can be found here:
https://www.springer.com/gp/authors-editors/journal-author/journal-author-helpdesk/publishing-ethics/14214
The corresponding author will include a summary statement in the text of the manuscript in a separate section before the reference list. The statement reflects what is recorded in the potential conflict of interest disclosure form(s).
See below examples of disclosures:
Funding: This study was funded by X (grant number X).
Conflict of Interest: Author A has received research grants from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stock in Company Y. Author C is a member of committee Z.
If no conflict exists, the authors should state:
Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Research Involving Human Participants and/or Animals
1) Statement of human rights
When reporting studies that involve human participants, authors should include a statement that the studies have been approved by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee and have been performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration or comparable standards, the authors must explain the reasons for their approach, and demonstrate that the independent ethics committee or institutional review board explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study.
If a study was granted exemption from requiring ethics approval, this should also be detailed in the manuscript (including the name of the ethics committee that granted the exemption and the reasons for the exemption).
Authors must - in all situations as described above - include the name of the ethics committee and the reference number where appropriate.
The following statements should be included in the text before the References section:
Ethical approval: “All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee (include name of committee + reference number) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.”
For retrospective studies, please add the following sentence:
“For this type of study formal consent is not required.”
2) Statement on the welfare of animals
The welfare of animals used for research must be respected. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals have been followed, and that the studies have been approved by a research ethics committee at the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted (where such a committee exists). Please provide the name of ethics committee and relevant permit number.
For studies with animals, the following statement should be in the text before the References section:
Ethical approval: “All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.”
If applicable (where such a committee exists): “All procedures performed in studies involving animals were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted (include name of committee + permit number).”
If articles do not contain studies with human participants or animals by any of the authors, please select one of the following statements:
“This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.”
“This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.”
“This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.”
After Acceptance
Upon acceptance of your article you will receive a link to the special Author Query Application at Springer’s web page where you can sign the Copyright Transfer Statement online and indicate whether you wish to order OpenChoice and offprints. Once the Author Query Application has been completed, your article will be processed and you will receive the proofs.
Offprints
Offprints can be ordered by the corresponding author.
Copyright transfer
Authors will be asked to transfer copyright of the article to the Publisher (or grant the Publisher exclusive publication and dissemination rights). This will ensure the widest possible protection and dissemination of information under copyright laws.
Color illustrations
Publication of color illustrations is free of charge.
Proof reading
The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting or conversion errors and the completeness and accuracy of the text, tables and figures. Substantial changes in content, e.g., new results, corrected values, title and authorship, are not allowed without the approval of the Editor.
After online publication, further changes can only be made in the form of an Erratum, which will be hyperlinked to the article.
Online first
The article will be published online after receipt of the corrected proofs. This is the official first publication citable with the DOI. After release of the printed version, the paper can also be cited by issue and page numbers.
Research Data Policy
The data supporting your results and scientific claims must be freely available to readers wishing to use them for non-commercial purposes. We encourage authors to ensure that their datasets are either deposited in appropriate public repositories, presented in the main manuscript, or provided in additional supporting files whenever possible. When such avenues do not exist, the information must be made available to referees at submission and to readers promptly upon request. Authors who do not have a preferred repository should consult Springer Nature’s information on recommended repositories (http://www.springernature.com/gp/group/data-policy/repositories) and research data policy (http://www.springernature.com/gp/group/data-policy/faq).
Datasets that are assigned digital object identifiers (DOIs) by a data repository may be cited in the reference list. Data citations should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite: authors, title, publisher (repository name) and identifier. For more information, please visit the DataCite (https://www.datacite.org/).
Springer Nature provides a research data policy support service for authors and editors, which can be contacted at researchdata@springernature.com.
This service provides advice on research data policy compliance and on finding research data repositories. It is independent of journal, book and conference proceedings editorial offices and does not advise on specific manuscripts. You can visit:
http://www.springernature.com/gp/group/data-policy/helpdesk
Open Choice
Open Choice allows you to publish open access in more than 1850 Springer Nature journals, making your research more visible and accessible immediately on publication.
Benefits:
Increased researcher engagement: Open Choice enables access by anyone with an internet connection, immediately on publication.
Higher visibility and impact: In Springer hybrid journals, OA articles are accessed 4 times more often on average, and cited 1.7 more times on average*.
Easy compliance with funder and institutional mandates: Many funders require open access publishing, and some take compliance into account when assessing future grant applications.
It is easy to find funding to support open access – please see our funding and support pages for more information.
*) Within the first three years of publication. Springer Nature hybrid journal OA impact analysis, 2018.
Open choice:
Funding and support pages:
Important Notes:
Marine Life Science & Technology charges Article Page Fee ($1000 per accepted article). We may modify this policy later. Refer to our notice at our website please.
Copyright and license term – CC BY
Open Choice articles do not require transfer of copyright as the copyright remains with the author. In opting for open access, the author(s) agree to publish the article under the Creative Commons Attribution License.
Find more about the license agreement: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
