ISSN 2346-9641
online version
ISSN 2346-9641
printed version

Instructions to authors

• Scope and policy
• Form and preparation of manuscripts
• Sending of manuscripts

Lilloa is a biannual scientific journal of the Miguel Lillo Foundation (Tucumán, Argentina), its online version publishes in  June and December.

The journal, that was first published in 1937, has the aim of disseminating original scientific papers  and review articles (not simultaneously sent to another journal) on botany, mycology and phycology, including ecological, anatomical, physiological, cytological, genetic, palynological, phytogeographical, paleobotanical and applied botany issues.

The journal is open to papers that contribute to the knowledge of national and international scientific research.

It is intended for researchers, professionals and students of the biological sciences and related disciplines.

Accepted contributions will be in the form of articles, reviews, communication or note in Spanish, English or Portuguese.

Manuscripts are evaluated by external referees following the “double-blind” process.

The articles and volumes have individual DOI (Digital Object Identifier) provided by CROSSREF.

The full content of the journal is available in the Institutional Repository of the Fundación Miguel Lillo (http://www.lillo.org.ar).

Persistent identifiers

The journal uses digital object identifiers (DOI) for its articles by the membership that the Miguel Lillo Foundation has (Publishers International Linking Association, Inc.), through which the Crossref service is provided.

Peer review process

Articles are initially reviewed by our Editorial Committee, which verifies the compliance with the formal requirements of the editorial policy: verify their originality and relevance to the scope of the journal and adequacy to the instructions for authors.

The date when the fulfilment of the required conditions has been verified will be recorded as the date of receipt of the manuscript and an Editor specialized in the subject matter of the article will be assigned.

All works received will be submitted to a double-blind review process, that is to say, the reviewers do not know the identity of the authors, and authors do not know the identity of the reviewers.

The reviewers are specialists with expertise in the subject matter of the research work, external to the editorial board, who have a maximum of 4 weeks to return corrections and suggestions.

When there is a divergence of views, a third reviewer will be consulted, and the final decision will always be made by the Editorial board.

The final decision about the publication of articles and reviews is made on the basis of the expert opinions expressed by the external referees, for which two positive recommendations are required. The possible decisions are:

• Accept submission.

• Publishable with minor modifications.

• Publishable with major modifications.

• Non-publishable.

The observations and criticisms of the referees are evaluated by the Editor, who informs the corresponding author of the result of the evaluation, together with editorial observations.

If the manuscript is evaluated as "Publishable with minor changes" the authors must submit a modified version to the journal in a maximum period of 4 (four) weeks, so that the Editorial Committee together with the reviewers can analyze the manuscript again. In addition, a note will be sent to the editor detailing the changes made.

The final acceptance of the papers depends on strict compliance with the journal's requirements, on the authors' responses to the reviewers' commentaries, and on compliance with ethical standards and good practices.

The first editorial decision will be communicated within 45-60 days after receipt of the manuscript.

The online version will be published within a maximum period of six months.

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The present statement of Publication Ethics and Malpractices involves all those who participate in Lilloa: Director, Editorial Committee, author/s, reviewers and production team.

This journal follows the guidelines of good practices suggested by the COPE Committee on Publication Ethics

Members’ full names, affiliations and contact information are provided in the journal’s website.

Lilloa Editorial Board

In Lilloa, the Director, in the first instance and then, the members of the editorial committee are responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published, and which not. The decision to publish is made exclusively on the basis of author’s academic merit and reviewers’ decisions. Peer review helps the editor in making decisions and it may also assist the author in improving the paper. Members of the editorial committee should follow these ethical guidelines, reflecting the current editorial policies of the journal.

Ethical guidelines for the Director and Editorial Committee Members

Editors will evaluate the scientific content and merits of the manuscripts based solely on the intellectual rigor of the content regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnicity, citizenship or political philosophy of the authors. Furthermore, they will ensure that the peer review process is fair and impartial by selecting suitable reviewers.

Conflicts of Interest and Confidentiality/Non-Disclosure Agreement

Upon receiving the manuscripts to be considered for publication, the members of the editorial team are committed to maintaining confidentiality, as well as not to disclose information on the content of the manuscripts, which will be discussed with the author, reviewers and other editorial members, as appropriate.

Manuscripts that present a conflict of interest will not be accepted, either due to problems resulting from competitive and collaborative relationships, or connections with any of the authors or institutions related to the documents. If this situation arises, the director must declare a conflict of interest.

The director takes ethical misconduct seriously, especially when there are complaints of breach of confidentiality, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, failure to declare interests, inappropriate use of confidential material, or in the event of a delay in peer-review process to achieve a competitive advantage.

The director and the entire team involved in the editorial process guarantee the confidentiality of the data of the authors and reviewers, as well as any information about the manuscripts submitted to Lilloa. The editor will inform and apologize to the authors for the existence of a conflict of interest. To avoid conflicts of interest, funding sources and affiliations of the authors must be taken into account, to select reviewers who do not belong to the same academic and/or scientific affiliations that the authors.

The director and editors should not use unpublished information for his/her own benefit without the authors’ consent or approval.

For Authors

• Authorship Criteria: Authorship should be limited to those who participate by making a substantial contribution to the manuscript either in the design, data acquisition, analysis, writing or interpretation of the reported information. All authors agree to be responsible for the content, its accuracy and integrity, even in those parts of the study in which the author has not personally participated. When appropriate, the participation of other people in certain substantive aspects of the research project should be included in the acknowledgements section. The authorship order must be based on the contribution made to the study and the preparation of the manuscript, which cannot be modified without the written consent of all the collaborators. In addition, authors should provide the list of contributors, information about their access to the data, conflicts of interest, including financial interests and relationships, sources of financing and support.

  The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all parts of the work are accurate and that all authors agree to the submission for consideration for publication. He/she is also responsible for sharing the suggestions of reviewers and editors with all authors.

• Originality: the authors must submitted original and unpublished articles, written by those who declare their authorship, and prepared according to the instructions for authors of Lilloa, The submitted articles must not have been published in the same or another language in any printed or electronic medium and must not be found in any other editorial process. It should be noted that it is forbidden to publish the same research in more than one journal, if a situation like that is detected, the director will decide to withdraw the manuscript and its future publication will not be considered. It will not be taken into account the publication of abstracts of congresses or doctoral theses. A research paper should have sufficient details, references and citations to allow the reproducibility of the study. The taxa involved in the study must be deposited in a Herbarium and their data mentioned in the Materials and Methods section.

  The Editorial Committee will check the manuscript with anti-plagiarism software to verify content similarity, the originality of the manuscript, and the presence of serious infringements of intellectual property (inadequate and altered citation, or self-plagiarism).

• Plagiarism: Authors should avoid extensive verbatim copying of others’ works or books, if strictly necessary; it is advisable the use of quotation marks and italics along with the corresponding citation. Self-plagiarism is considered as the use of phrases from works previously published by the same author, which could even constitute a violation of copyright laws. If copyrighted material (texts, images, photographs), or unpublished data belonging to other authors is reproduced, the text must be indicated in the text and the corresponding proof of permission must be sent to the Editorial Committee, before the acceptance of the work, being the sole responsibility of the authors.

• Conflicts of interest and funding: authors are obliged to recognize and indicate conflicts of interest that could be perceived as bias in their work, which must be explicitly stated at the end of the manuscript before publication. Authors should include the financial support obtained in the acknowledgements section.

Fundamental errors in works that have already been published: In the event that an author finds any error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is his/her obligation to immediately notify the editor of the journal and cooperate with him/her to publish a retraction or correction (errata).

Publication Ethics

Authors should only submit documents if the work was done ethically and responsibly.

Ethics for Reviewers

Reviewers collaborate with the editor on editorial decisions and undertake to evaluate the manuscript honestly, objectively, and critically in order to help and/or empower the author to improve the article.

Reviewers should carefully evaluate the intellectual content of the manuscript received, including the research methodology and procedures, taking into account the same ethical and confidentiality recommendations stated in the section "for editors". Reviewers should notify the editor of any conflict of interest, about their difficulty in providing a quick review, and even indicate their lack of suitability or experience to review the manuscript. Reviewers will avoid suggesting citations of their own articles in order to expand citations beyond themselves and their research group. Reviewers should report suspected plagiarism or ethical breach.

Interoperability protocols

Lilloa has interoperability protocols, OAI and Dublin Core:

http://www.lillo.org.ar/journals/index.php/lilloa/oai?verb=ListMetadataFormats

Note: Dublin Core metadata is embedded in the <head> header of the HTML code for the harvester.

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.

• The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).

• The submission file is in Microsoft Word format (.doc).

• Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.

• The text is double-spaced; uses a 12-point font size; employs italics rather than underlining (except in URLs); and all illustrations, figures and tables are placed at the end of the manuscript.

• The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in About the Journal. You can also download Author Guidelines (Lilloa) in PDF.

• In Comments for the Editor, I have suggested at least four potentials reviewers, indicating your e-mail address.

Author Guidelines

General information

Lilloa is a biannual scientific journal of the Miguel Lillo Foundation (Tucumán, Argentina), its online version publishes in June and December. The journal, that was first published in 1937, has the aim of disseminating original scientific work (not simultaneously submitted to another journal) on botany, mycology and phycology, including ecological, anatomical, physiological, cytological, genetic, palynological, phytogeographical, paleobotanical and applied botany issues. The journal is open to papers that contribute to the knowledge of national and international scientific research. It is intended for researchers, professionals and students of the biological sciences and related disciplines.  Accepted contributions will be in the form of articles, reviews, communication or notes in Spanish, Portuguese or English. Manuscripts are evaluated by external referees following the “double-blind” process. Lilloa provides open access to all its content with no publication fees for authors.

Manuscripts must be submitted electronically through our editorial platform (http://www.lillo.org.ar/journals/index.php/lilloa). 

In Comments to the Editor, you must suggest the names of four potentials reviewers indicating their updated mail addresses.

The email revistalilloa@lillo.org.ar can only be used to communicate other matters, but not for submitting manuscripts.

The editorial process involves different stages, from a preliminary evaluation of the manuscript (originality, topicality, quality and presentation) managed by associate editors and the Director. The refereeing process is double-blind, in which two external referees evaluate online the content. After receiving the report from the referees, the Editor informs the author about the decision and is also in charge of formatting the text according to the journal’s style guide. The author and journal’s editors are responsible for checking the galley proofs. It should be clarified that although referees make decisions on their peers’ work, the final decision is made by the Director.

• The manuscript must be submitted in Word format (.doc).

• The font must be Arial 12 point size, double-spaced and aligned to the left.

• Use uppercase letters, boldface, and italics where appropriate.

• Use italics for Latin names, which designate genus, species, subspecies, and intraspecific categories.

• Genus names must be written in full when they start a paragraph and abbreviated when they are in the middle of a paragraph.

• Latin abbreviations and phrases such as et al., in vitro, sensu lato must be italicized.

• Units of measurement, abbreviations and cardinal points do not use full stops. For example: m, mm, μm, N, S, E, W, and NWA.

• To express metres above sea level, use the abbreviation masl.

• Abbreviations should be defined at first mention.

• Use the units of measure and symbols of the Metric System for descriptions, separating decimals with a comma (0,5) when the text is in Spanish, or with a decimal point (0.5) when it is in English.

• For the revision process, it is recommended to submit a single file including all the figures in low resolution, and tables (a file in word format is advisable). Once the work is accepted, images will be required in .TIFF or .JPG format with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi for the final publication. It is also convenient to submit the original files which will be used to edit the previous images with .CDR (Corel Draw) or .XLS (Excel) extensión. The .PPT (PowerPoint) files will not be accepted.

In the organizational structure of the text, it is advisable to maintain the following order: Title, Abbreviated Title, Author(s), Abstracts and Keywords (in the three languages that the journal publishes), Introduction, Material(s) and Method(s), Results, Discussions, Conclusions, Acknowledgements, Conflicts of interest and References.

If the topic requires it, the proposed structure may vary but always respecting the order.

Style guidelines are summarized below for every single part of this structure. If you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact us at revistalilloa@lillo.org.ar

Title 

The title of the article must be written in title-case letters and bold.

Names of species and genera must be in italics without identifying the author(s).

Names of vascular plants must be followed by the family name in brackets (including subfamilies or tribes, if applicable) separated by commas.

Names of the taxa of non-vascular plants, fungi and lichens are followed by the name of division and order, or family, in brackets and separated by a comma.

If a specific geographical region is mentioned, the name of the country should be added in brackets, if it is necessary add the corresponding political subdivision.

When the work is written in Spanish or Portuguese will also include the title in English; in the same way, in case of writing in English will include the title in Spanish or Portuguese.

Abbreviated Title

Include an abbreviated title “running title” in the header of odd pages.

Abstract and keywords 

Articles must preserve the order: Abstract and Keywords.

The abstract should consist of a single paragraph (without full stops) with a maximum of 300 words; it must be a brief explanation of the purpose and relevance of the study, materials and methods, main results and conclusions.

Works containing nomenclatural novelties must be indicated in this section.

Keywords must be arranged alphabetically, separated by a semicolon; their number may vary from three to five, compound words will not be considered.

It is also recommended to avoid the use of words included in the title.

GENERAL TEXT

The manuscript must follow the structure specified in the “Manuscript Preparation and Text Formatting”.

Use only two levels of headings: first-level headings (INTRODUCTION, MATERIAL AND METHODS, RESULTS AND DISCUSSION, CONCLUSION, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, REFERENCES) and second-level headings.

First-level headings must be centred, all-capitalized, and without full stop.

Second-level headings must be in a separated line, left-aligned, written in lower-case, and in bold.

In the case of needing more levels of headings, number them hierarchically (e.g. 1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1., and so on).

Latin names of genera, species and intraspecific categories must be written in italics except for abbreviations such as sp. nov., comb. nov., var., s. l., s. str., ex.

Diacritical marks of the different languages must be respected (umlaut, acute, accent), even for upper case letters.

Sentences should not begin with abbreviations.

Numbers must be written in Arabic numerals, except for numbers up to 10 or when they are used at the beginning of a sentence, in which case it is necessary to spell them out, for example, three, seven.

TAXONOMIC TREATMENTS

Nomenclature shall be governed by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.

The bibliographic citation and synonymy of the taxa should be made as indicated in www.tropicos.org.

Use a paragraph per basionym.

If the author proposes a lectotypification, a new synonym or a new combination must be specified by saying “lectotype here designated” “syn. nov.”, or “comb. nov.”, respectively.

Keys must be strictly dichotomous and left-justified with no indentation.

Remember that dilemmas are not descriptions.

Keys must be coincident with every taxonomic description and the characters of those dilemmas must be properly opposed.
Example:

1 Leaf primordia large, apical to subapical ............................................ P. pseudobarbula
1' Leaf primordia small, always apical ............................................................................... 2
2 Propagula red to orange, leaf primordial, uncinate apex .......................... P. apolensis
2' Propagula yellowish-brown, leaf primordia 4–9 with erect apex .............. P. australis

Studied Material

To mention sample data, the following order must be maintained: Country (in full uppercase), province, locality, geographic coordinates, altitude, date (the month in Roman numerals), collector and number (in italics), an acronym that identifies the collection where the material is deposited (in uppercase and enclosed in brackets).

Example: ARGENTINA. Prov. Tucuman, Dpto. Tafí del Valle, 26º46'33.1''S 65º43'45.3''W, 2798 m asl, 07-VI-2009, Campero 234 (LIL).

If the number of specimens is high, the citing of only one specimen per location is recommended.

FIGURES 

Figures (graphics, drawings, and photographs) should be sequentially numbered with Arabic numerals. In the case of a figure composed of multiple images, number them consecutively, e.g., Figs. 1A, 1B and so on.

Size: the figures must fit the printing area of the journal page: maximum width of 15 cm, maximum height of 20 cm.

Do not add black borders to photographs or drawings.

The photographs or drawings must be sent arranged in figures, which must be grouped leaving a vertical of horizontal spacing margin of 2 mm between them.

Figures should include a scale.

In order to characterize the elements of each figure, capital letters will be used in the lower right corner, and in order to indicate particular details of each photo or graphic, letters or abbreviations in lower case will be used.

Use only Arial font. The size of letters is 2-4 mm (8-12 pt) size, keeping the same font sizes in the different figures and graphics of the article.

The typography will be in white or black depending on the background color. If there is not a good contrast between the letters and the photos,  you should place the capital letters on a white square that highlights it and the lower case letters of minor references on a circle with rounded edges.

Photographs should have sharp focus and high contrast.

Each figure, with all the elements arranged on sheets, must be attached as complementary files (separate/individual photographs are nor accepted).

Image files must be in TIFF or JPG format, with 300 dpi resolution.

Place  the figure captions on a separate page at the end of the text, they must be preceded by the name of the species (without authors), at the end of it indicate collector name, number and herbarium where it is deposited. As shown in the example:

Fig. 1. Zinnia peruviana. General appearance. A) Inflorescence of orange ligules. Opposite decussate phyllotaxy. B) Inflorescence of red ligules. C) Inflorescence of yellow ligules. Ponessa and Mercado S/N (LIL).

TABLES

Table width and height must respected espect the journal’s margins, which are 15 cm × 21.5 cm, or the width of a column 7.2 cm.

Each table must be submitted as an Excel file.

Tables will be numbered with Arabic numerals.

The title should be located at the top of the table. Lowercase letters will be used for table footnotes.

Tables can be done with Excel or with the Word Table tool for Windows.

The captions of the Figures and Tables must be in Spanish (or in the original language of the authors) and English.

Conflicts of interest
Explicitly declare whether or not there are conflicts of interest between authors of with third parties.

REFERENCES AND CITATIONS

Citations and bibliographic references, should follow APA Style guidelines (http://www.apastyle.org/).

In-Text citations

Include the last name of the author and year of publication.

If there are two authors, include both last names and the year (e.g., de la Rosa & Messuti, 2014).

For more than three authors, cite the last name of the first author followed by "et al." (e.g., Silva Araújo et al., 2010).

In the case of corporate authorship (institutions, ministries, agencies, civil society organizations, companies), cite the full name of the organization the first time it appears with the abbreviation indicated in square brackets [e.g., World Bank [BM] (1991)]. Thereafter, use the abbreviation only (e.g., BM, 1991).

In the case of multiple sources, cite them in a chronological order, and separate each source with a semicolon (e.g., Domínguez, 1928; Toursarkissian, 1980; for the Lahitte & Hurrell, 1996; Alonso & Desmarchelier, 2005; Barboza et al., 2006, 2009).

In the case of multiple citations of the same author in the same year, indicate the year accompanied by a letter (e.g., 2011a, 2011b).

For unpublished personal communications, include the full name of the referent followed by the abbreviation "pers. comm." and the year (e.g., Albornoz, "pers. comm.", 2007).

Bibliographic references

The bibliography will include all works cited in the text, alphabetically ordered, and using indentation.

Each citation begins with the last name of the first author.

If there are several citations of the same author, cite them chronologically.

In the case of co-authors, follow this order: first, publications of the author only; second, publications of the author and a co-author; then publications of the author with two or more co-authors, and so on.

When sources share the same author(s) and year of publication sort by location and sequence in the text by adding a letter after the year (e.g., 2011a, 2011b).

Use the following APA style formats:

Format for citing periodicals

Giudice, G. E. (1999). Synopsis of the Argentinean species of the genus Adiantum (Pteridaceae, Pteridophyta). Darwiniana 37: 279-300.

de la Rosa, I. N. & Sampedro Arrubla, M. I. (2014). The species of the genus Lecanora (Ascomycota, Lecanoraceae) in the province of Tucumán (Argentina). Lilloa 51 (1): 33-45.

Cibils L., Prince, R., Márquez, J., Gari, N. & Albariño, R. (2015). Functional diversity of algal communities from headwater grassland streams: How does it change following afforestation? Aquatic Ecology 49: 453-466. doi: 10.1007/s10452-015-9538-z.

Format for citing Books

Lee, R. E. (2008). Phycology. (5° Ed). Cambridge University Press.

Format for citing chapters of books

Sirombra, M. G. (2007). Aspectos ecológicos de humedales. A functional approach. In: D. Cicerone, M. V. Hidalgo (Eds.), Los Humedales de la Cuenca del Río Salí. Argentina (pp. 67-83). Buenos Aires: Jorge Baudino Editions.

Format for citing electronic sources

Thiers, B. (2015) Index Herbariorum: a global directory of public herbal and The associated staff. New York Botanical Garden's Virtual Herbarium. Retrieved from http://sweetgum.nybg.org/ih

Zuloaga, F. O., Morrone, O., Belgrano, M. J. (2006). Dioscorea (Dioscoreaceae) Catálogo de las plantas vasculares de Argentina. Instituto de Botánica Darwinion. Retrieved from http://www.floraargentina.edu.ar.

Personal communications should be cited within the text, but not included in the list of references.

Theses and Dissertations

Suárez, G. M. (2008). Sistematica y Filogenia de las especies neotropicales del género Pohlia (Musci). (Doctoral dissertation), National University of Tucumán, Argentina.

GRAPHIC SUMMARY

Once the final work is accepted, you must send the following information for the preparation of the graphic summary in order to promote your article on social networks.

• Abstract, with a maximum of 60 words.

• Resumen, with a maximum of 60 words (in Spanish).

• Image for the graphic summary of 15 x 9 cm (height x width).

That only figure may result from the integration of one or more figures of the article. Image file must be in JPG format, 300 dpi resolution. The figure does not have a legend, so it must be interpreted by itself.

Submit this content by mail to revistalilloa@lillo.org.ar

View an example about graphic summary publish in Lilloa.

ACCEPTANCE AND PUBLICATION

Submissions that do not meet these guidelines will not be accepted by the journal.

Once the evaluation is done by the external referees, manuscripts requiring corrections will be returned to the authors for revision.

If the manuscript is evaluated as accepted with revisions or modifications, the authors must submit a modified version to the journal in a maximum period of 3 (three) weeks, so that the Editorial together with the reviewers can analyze the manuscript again. In addition, a note will be sent to the editor detailing the changes made.

When the final work is accepted, other corrections or amendments will not be admitted, except in the case that an important contribution on the subject appears in the time between submission and acceptance, it will be included as an addendum.

The page proofs will be sent by email in PDF format. Authors can indicate corrections in the same PDF.

The revision of the page proofs is under the sole responsibility of the author.

Editors shall not be responsible for any loss of works, neither the Miguel Lillo Foundation nor any of its members

ELECTRONIC OFFPRINT

The author will receive an electronic copy of his or her article published in Lilloa, in PDF format. This measure replaces the distribution of printed copies.

Login or Register to make a submission.