Author Guidelines

GENERAL

Free submission and publishing

Ornis Svecica charges no submission fee and charges no publishing (article processing) fee for accepted contributions. The journal constitutes an option for authors who have no means to pay publishing charges, and will remain free.

Manuscript preparation

Your manuscript should be submitted as a Word, OpenOffice, or RTF file. Include line numbers, and insert figures and tables together with their captions at appropriate places in the manuscript (i.e. do not place these last). If your contribution is accepted, you may be asked to submit figure files separately, as well as the underlying data for charts.

Language

Ornis Svecica accepts contributions with English or Swedish as primary language (the language of the main text), rendering the other language secondary language. Note that the following items must be provided in both the primary and secondary language:

• article title
• keywords
• tables
• figure text components
• table/figure captions

Abstracts are always written in English (irrespective of primary language) and at the end of the article, an extensive summary in the secondary language must be provided. If you or your author group are not proficient in the secondary language, this should not deter you from submitting your contribution for consideration. Simply make a note in the manuscript that secondary language components cannot be provided and that you require assistance from your editor, should your contribution be accepted for publication.

Types of articles

These are the types of articles accepted by Ornis Svecica: research paper; short communication; review article; book review; forum; erratum; corrigendum; essay; dissertation report. Most contributions belong to one of the first three categories. If you are unsure of where your contribution fits contact the Managing Editor. For the common types, you may have a look at recent content of the journal to get an idea.

Research papers

These full-length accounts of primary research should start with an Abstract in English, preferably not exceeding 175 words, and no longer than 200 words. The text should be divided by no more than three levels of subheadings. The following primary subheadings are recommended: Introduction, (Study areas,) Materials and methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, and References. See further general specifications below.

Review articles

Review articles synthesizing published research follow the same specifications as Research papers. See further general specifications below.

Short communications

Short contributions should not exceed 2,000 words, typically include no more than two Figures/Tables, and should aim for less than 30 references. Short communications should start with an Abstract in English, preferably not exceeding 125 words. Subheadings, if present, should be restricted to one level. See further general specifications below.

Taxonomy and nomenclature

For birds

• Vernacular names in English shall follow the latest version of IOC (https://www.worldbirdnames.org/) in terms of preferred name, spelling, and capitalization (e.g. Feline Owlet-nightjar Aegotheles insignis, Grey-rumped Treeswift Hemiprocne longipennis, Great Dusky Swift Cypseloides senex).
• Vernacular names in Swedish shall follow the latest version of BirdLife Sweden’s official list of Swedish names of the bird of the world (https://birdlife.se/tk/svenska-namn-pa-varldens-faglar/; page in Swedish, downloads available in Excel/PDF format), never capitalized (e.g. större ugglenattskärra Aegotheles insignis, grön trädseglare Hemiprocne longipennis, vattenfallsseglare Cypseloides senex).
• Scientific names at species and subspecies level are given in italics, without parentheses, immediately after the vernacular names—in the title, abstract, tables, figures, captions, and at their first mention in the main text.
• Scientific names at higher taxonomic level are not italicized: “finches (Fringillidae) are no doubt passerines (Passeriformes)”
• Scientific names must be provided following the first mention of any taxon in:
  • Title
  • Abstract
  • Main text in the primary language
  • Every figure/table caption, in the primary and secondary language
  • The summary in the secondary language

For other organisms

• Vernacular names (in English or Swedish) are not capitalized and are followed by scientific names (italicized at species and subspecies level) immediately after the first mention of vernacular names, without parentheses.

Author citation

As a general rule, Ornis Svecica does not cite the author of a taxon name (i.e. European Robin Erithacus rubecula (Linnaeus, 1758); Feline Owlet-nightjar Aegotheles insignis Salvadori, 1876. The only exception is for articles dealing directly with taxonomy and nomenclature, where the inclusion of author citation is essential, in which case this shall strictly follow the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.

TITLE PAGE

Title in primary language

Titles should be concise and informative and contain words that are useful for indexing and information retrieval. If a particular taxon is featured in the paper, it is good to include it also in the title; if so using both its vernacular and scientific name.

• Titles are written in sentence case (i.e. only the first letter is capitalized).
• Do not include a full stop at the end of the title. A question mark is acceptable if the title is phrased as a question.
• Avoid unnecessary punctuation. If the title is divided in two phrases, preferably use a colon: “Subdivision of titles: preferred punctuation”.
• Titles should contain ≤20 words or ≤125 characters including spaces.
• For sources, spelling and capitalization of vernacular names in English and Swedish, see Taxonomy and nomenclature (above).
• Scientific names at species and subspecies level are given in italics immediately after the vernacular names without parentheses. Scientific names at higher taxonomic level are not capitalized; see further under Taxonomy and nomenclature (above).

Title in secondary language

The title in the secondary language (Swedish if the primary language is English or vice versa) should correspond to the title in the primary language, though the translation does not need to be word for word.

• Titles are written in sentence case (i.e. only the first letter is capitalized).
• Do not include a full stop at the end of the title. A question mark is acceptable if the title is phrased as a question.
• Avoid unnecessary punctuation. If the title is divided in two phrases, preferably use a colon: “Subdivision of titles: preferred punctuation”.
• Title length should correspond to the title in the primary language.
• For sources, spelling and capitalization of vernacular names in English and Swedish, see Taxonomy and nomenclature (above).
• Scientific names at species and subspecies level are given in italics immediately after the vernacular names without parentheses. Scientific names at higher taxonomic level are not capitalized; see further under Taxonomy and nomenclature (above).

Authors

• Use full names, i.e. first name followed by surname, of author: “Jonas Waldenström”.
• If additional initials are included, list these separated by spaces and without punctuation: “Mats O G Eriksson”.
• List authors, separated by comma, with an ampersand (&) separating the last two authors. Single author: “Jonas Waldenström”. Two authors: “Jonas Waldenström & Mats O G Eriksson”. Three or more authors: “Mariëlle van Toor, Jonas Waldenström & Mats O G Eriksson”.
• Always list all authors (no shortened author list).
• Provide ORCID id (https://orcid.org/), for those authors who have such, in the manuscript submission system OJS. In the final manuscript version, ORCID ids can be listed along with names or initials after the author list: “JW: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1152-4235; MvT: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2254-5779”. If no authors have ORCID ids, please state this.
• If equal contribution or shared first authorship needs to be indicated, include an asterisk and specify this.
• Ornis Svecica traditionally and typically does not indicate a specific corresponding author and provides email addresses to all authors.

Affiliation/address/email address

Ornis Svecica provides postal and email contact detail for all authors. For the sake of clarity, rather than indicating affiliations/contact details with superscript numbers, provide them together with authors names or initials as a list following the author (and ORCID id) block.

• For researchers with affiliation(s) to a university or organization, provide the full name (starting with finer-level units, e.g. department listed before university) and the full postal address (omitting any country prefix to the zip/postal code) including country, separating components corresponding to address lines on an envelope with comma.
• If multiple affiliations (typically no more than three): list these separated by “ | ” (space–pipe–space).
• If you have no professional affiliation, list your full postal address (omitting any country prefix to the zip/postal code), separating components corresponding to address lines on an envelope with comma.
• Add email address after the affiliation(s)/postal address, separated by “ | ” (space–pipe–space).
  
  

Example

Mariëlle van Toor: Center for Ecology and Evolution in Microbial Model Systems (EEMiS), Linnaeus University, 391 82 Kalmar, Sweden | not.marielle.vantoor@lnu.se

Martin Stervander: National Museums Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh EH1 1JF, UK | Bird Group, Natural History Museum, Akeman St, Tring, Hertfordshire HP23 6AP, UK | not.m.stervander@nms.ac.uk

Carl von Linné: Svartbäcksgatan 27, 753 32 Uppsala, Sweden | systema.naturae@gmail.com

Keywords

In the final manuscript, for both the primary and secondary language, provide 3–8 keywords that do not occur in the title.

Abstract

For Research papers, Short communications, and Review articles, an Abstract in English (irrespective of primary language) must be included.

• For Research papers and Review articles, the Abstract should preferably not exceed 175 words, and cannot be longer than 200 words.
• For Short communications, the Abstract should not exceed 125 words.
• Include scientific names of any taxa included.
• Do not include any citations or references to tables or figures.
• The Abstract should provide brief background and context, potentially set out your objective(s), summarize your findings (main part), and put these into context.

FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure/table captions in primary and secondary language

Captions must be provided for all tables and figures in both the primary and secondary language. Start the caption in the primary language with the item and number, followed by a full stop, e.g. “Figure 1.” Thereafter provide a caption that renders the figure/table interpretable as a stand-alone component, even if the reader has not read the main text. In particular, this means that each caption should specify what taxon/taxa the figure/table regard(s), unless this is stated in the figure/table itself. In each caption, vernacular names should also be followed by scientific names (see above). Write the caption in the secondary language starting on a new line, following a dash (preferably an EM dash: —).

Figures

Figures are accepted in the following formats: jpg, tif/tiff, png, pdf. If the figure includes text(s) use a sans-serif font; preferably Open Sans, but others (e.g. Arial) are acceptable. Figures should have no borders (i.e. no line around the edges). If the figure is a chart/diagram with axes, include the axes and tickmarks on the outside, but no gridlines within the chart. For scatterplots, do not connect points with lines. Do not include a title; any such information should be given in the caption. Axis titles and any other information must be given in both the primary language and (in italics) the secondary language. If species names are included, it may be acceptable to instead only provide the scientific name. In case a figure is produced using Microsoft Excel, in case of acceptance, please also provide the .xlsx file containing the figure(s). 

Tables

Preferably create your tables in your word processor used to compose the manuscript, e.g. Microsoft Word, rather than in spreadsheet softwares such as Microsoft Excel. Enable interpretability in primary and secondary language by providing any term that is not a proper name, or has the same meaning and spelling in both languages, first in the primary language (regular font), followed by the secondary language in italics. For tables including many species names, preferably instead provide these (primary, secondary, scientific) in three columns. If sex is listed, it is encouraged to use the symbols ♂,♀, ⚥ to signify male(s), females(s), and pair(s)/mixed.

REFERENCES

References are ordered after (1) surname of the first author and (2) year of publication.

• Author names are always written as the full surname followed by initial(s) of the first name(s), never including any commas or periods.
• Author lists are always included in full, i.e. there is no shortening using al., and are closed with a period.
• Author delimitation is with a single comma, except between the next last and last author (or both authors in a two-author work), where an & sign is placed (with no comma).
• Year is provided after the author/author list, not using parentheses, closing with a period.
• Title of the work is given in full. For books, reports, theses and similar—but not journal articles—the title is italicized (and any words that would otherwise have been italicized, such as scientific names, are reversed to regular font).
• Journal names are written in full, using the journal’s capitalization, except that any initial definite article “The” is removed. No punctuation follows the journal name.
• Volume (but not issue) and page(s) or article number is provided immediately after the journal name as volume number, colon, article number/page range (ranges specified with EN dash –). Any issuenumber is omitted.
• Publishers are provided for books, theses, and reports, followed by their geographic location defined as city and country/state.
• DOI links (or any other link that provides direct access, should a DOI be missing) shall be given in full after the full reference.

Formats for various types of references

Andersson B. 1985. Populationsförändringar hos tranan Grus grus under 100 år. Vår Fågelvärld 50: 211–221. 

Bond AP. 1913a. A new theory on competitive exclusion. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 67: 12–16. https://doi.org/1016/j.ecolind.2019.01.083

Bond AP. 1913b. Breeding biology of the Pied Flycatcher. Pp 123–156 in Ecology and Adaptions in Birds (French J, ed). Whinchat Publishers, Nairobi, Kenya.

Carlsson T & Dennis WA. 1956. Blåmesens liv. Tower University Press, Trosa, Sweden.

Darwin C & Stervander M (eds). 2024. On the view of bird speciation across centuries. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Itaca, NY.

French J (ed). 1913. Ecology and Adaptions in Birds. Whinchat Publishers, Nairobi, Kenya.

Ottvall R, Green M, Lindström Å, Svensson S, Esseen P-A & Marklund L. 2008. Ortolansparvens Emberiza hortulana förekomst och habitatval i Sverige. [Distribution and habitat choice of the Ortolan Bunting Emberiza hortulana in Sweden]. Ornis Svecica 18: 3–16. https://doi.org/10.34080/os.v18.19596

Partridge L. 1974. Behavioural aspects of the ecology of some Paridae. PhD thesis, University of Oxford, UK.

MAIN TEXT

Headings and typical sections

The main text can have up to three levels of headings. Typical sections and first level headings are Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, and References, but this is flexible and up to the author. First level headings must be short and fit on one line. Additional lower-level headings must also be short.

In-text citations

In-text citations should be given using name and year, and if there is more than one reference to the same author(s) and year, also letters (a, b, and so on). Please note that the in-text citations should be ordered according to ascending publication year (not alphabetically according to the author name) and separated by comma. Two-author papers are cited Author & Author YYYY whereas papers with three or more authors are cited as Author et al. YYYY. Italics is applied automatically for “et al.” during typesetting so does not have to be italicized by the author. The period after “et al” must, however, be included. In-text citations can be written in either of these two formats:

• Birds fly (Bond 1913a, 1913b, Andersson 1985), sometimes above the clouds (Carlsson & Dennis 1956) and sometimes not (Eriksson et al. 1989, Ottvall et al. 2008).
• Bond (1913a, 1913b) and Andersson (1985) discovered that birds fly. While Carlsson & Dennis (1956) argue that they fly above the clouds, Eriksson et al. (1989) and Ottvall et al. (2008) suggest they sometimes do not.

Reference to figures and tables

Please refer to your figures and tables in by spelling out the whole word: Figure/Table (with initial capital letter in English) or figure/tabell (all lower case, unless starting a sentence, in Swedish). Like paper citations, these can be specified at the end of a statement within parentheses or directly within the text:

• We discovered several bird species that can fly (Table 1), some even above the clouds (Figures 2–3, 5).
• In Table 1, we list several bird species that can fly, with examples of those that can fly above the clouds in Figures 2–3 and Figure 5.

Numbering of tables and figures must strictly adhere to the order in which they are first mentioned in the paper.

Language

For contributions in English, use either American or British English, but use it consistently. Ornis Svecicastrongly encourages authors to use active voice (“We observed that…” rather than “It was observed that…”).

Dates and time

Date should be written as 4 July 2018 (i.e. day month year), not July 4 or 4^th of July. Ornis Svecica routinely avoids abbreviations of months, thus write the full month name. Decades are written as the 1960s, not the 60s. Time should be given in 24-hour format with colon as divider, i.e. 13:15, not 1.15 pm.

Numbers and units

In English, group digits by groups of three, if numbers contain ≥4 digits, by including a comma delimiter:1,000–9,999; 100,000; 1,022,500 etc. Exceptions are years (e.g. 1996) and page ranges in the reference list. In Swedish, the thousand-divider is instead a space: 1 000; 9 999; 1 022 500 etc. Decimals are indicated with period (.) in English and comma (,) in Swedish. Use Arabic numerals for numbers from 10 up, unless they are provided along with SI units (5 m, 7 h, 30 min). Numbers 1–9 are set as words if they describe physical objects or phenomenons. Hence five dogs and seven experiments.

Dashes and symbols

We encourage our authors to write ranges from–to using the EN dash (–) rather than hyphens (-): 103–110 mm. If you cannot produce EN dashes, you may use double dashes that will be converted to EN dashes. Coordinates should be written with prime for minutes and double-prime for seconds: e.g. 35°45'65"N, 28°65'76"W or 35°45'N, 28°65'W (not using single and double quotes: 35°45’65’’N, 28°65’76’’W or 35°45’N, 28°65’W). For decimal degrees, state degrees (using period for decimal point in English and comma in Swedish), e.g. 59.1049, –15.4328, and note that positive/negative values denote N/S and E/W.

Statistics

P-values and sample sizes are given with lower case: n = 15, p < 0.001. For chi-square, use the symbol lower case Greek letter chi: χ². Similarly, for e.g. alpha, beta, and sigma, use lower case Greek letters ɑ, β, σ.

Lists

For in-text lists, use Arabic numerals within parentheses: This list style is (1) common, (2) consistent, and (3) how we do it.

Repetition and abbreviation of scientific names

Scientific names at species and subspecies level are presented (without parentheses) immediately after the vernacular names—in the title, abstract, tables, figures, captions, and at their first mention in the main text. In each of those first mentions, spell out scientific genus and species names in full. If a genus name is repeated for another species, soon after its first mention, abbreviate genus names thereafter, is there is no risk for ambiguity: We studied Mallard Anas platyrhynchos, Gadwall A. strepera, and Wigeon Mareca penelope. Ornis Svecica does not list author names of taxa (see under Taxonomy and nomenclature).

Terminology for bird age

In the main body text, use the full words. In tables and figure components, abbreviation as per below may be used:

• Adult = ad.
• Juvenile = juv.
• Pullus/pulli = pull.
• Immature = imm.
• Calendar year = cy, following a number indicating which calendar year, and + indicating that calendar year or older. Thus, 2cy indicates a bird in its second calendar year; 3cy+ a bird in its second calendar year or older.

SUMMARY IN THE SECONDARY LANGUAGE

Every contribution in Ornis Svecica must have a summary in the secondary language upon publication, but—while welcome—this is not necessary upon initial submission. The summary is intended to be considerably more extensive than an abstract, and should cover the main aspects of the study, referring to any figures and tables. Authors who are not proficient in the secondary language (e.g. non-Swedish authors writing in English) are asked to provide a generous summary in the primary language, which can be translated and edited by an editor.

SUPPLEMENTARY DATA

Ornis Svecica is generally happy to include additional data in table format as appendices, which are included in the paper pdf file. Prepare these as tables per above and refer to them in the main text as Appendix 1 and so on. We encourage case larger datasets, code for analyses etc. to be shared, in which case we suggest this is done through an upload to Zenodo, which is free of charge, and referring to the deposition with a DOI link in a Data Availability section.