International Journal of Ecosystem

The International Journal of Ecosystem (IJE) is a peer-reviewed journal publishes papers from original research in all areas of ecosystem structure and function as impacted by the changes in climate and land and water use and management practices in a given environment. In the aforementioned context the characterization of ecosystem structural components as community of plants, animals and smaller organisms that live, feed, reproduce and how they interact with each other in the same area or environment, their interdependency are essential for the improved understanding of the functioning of the structural components. The modifications in the structural components as impacted by human imposed changes and/or linked to climate changes are poorly understood and/or are not recorded after rigorous review. In aforementioned context the IJE provides a forum for discussion in the modifications in ecosystem structural components and the associated functions around the world, particularly from developing countries, aimed at the sustainable use of natural resources. Critical review articles are also welcome.


ICV 2015: 75.75; ICV 2016: 82.70
Editor-in-chief: Velu Rasiah
p-ISSN: 2165-8889
e-ISSN: 2165-8919
Website: http://journal.sapub.org/ije




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Author Guidelines
1 General Information
Language  All manuscripts should be written in English -- British or American as long as consistency is observed.
 
Acknowledgements  All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an acknowledgments section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, writing assistance, or a department chairperson who provided only general support. Financial and material support should also be acknowledged.
 
Conflict of interest and funding  Authors are responsible for disclosing financial support from the industry or other conflicts of interest that might bias the interpretation of results.
 
Statistic validity  If complicated statistical data are provided, the authors may be requested to submit a statement issued by a certified statistician regarding the validity of methods used.
 
 
2 Manuscript template and preparation
 
  Please click here to download the template.
Article structure

The manuscript should be structured to include an abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion, conclusion, acknowledgment, and reference sections. Except the abstract and reference sections the other sections may be divided into sub-sections. Pagination and line numbering throughout the manuscript is recommended.

The first page of the manuscript should include a title (not exceeding 18-20 words). It should be concise and informative as they are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations, formulae, and scientific names.

Underneath the title list the surnames of all the authors with the corresponding first and middle name initials. Underneath the author names the affiliations for all the authors with the full addresses should also be provided. One author should be designated as the corresponding author with his/her full corresponding address, email, telephone and fax numbers.


Abstract

The abstract is a stand alone section, so it should begin with the broader ecosystem issue that is going to be addressed followed by explicitly defined objectives to address the issue. This is followed by the information on where the study was conducted, the location, state/province/region, and the country and the procedures followed to address the objectives. Highlight of the results should be directly linked to the stated objectives and where applicable supported by means, ranges, CVs, or other statistics to justify the validity of the results. The last sentence should provide the major conclusion drawn from the study. The abstract section should not exceed not more than 250-260 words. If abbreviations are used they should be defined first and avoid any formulae, graphs, and references.

Underneath abstract provide 5-6 keywords for indexing purposes. These words should have appeared frequently in the body of the text and widely found in the literature.


.Introduction

The first sentence in the first paragraph of this section should provide the major ecosystem issue that you are proposing to address and whether this issue had been addressed globally and provide a maximum of 5 latest references. The last sentence in the paragraph should justify the need for addressing the issue by you for your location providing a statement as to why this issue has not been addressed in your region until now and why it is important now.

Thereafter state how and where the issue had been addressed globally and locally and the success/failures of the results. However, do not provide detail results while highlighting the successes/failures. The last paragraph should provide the information on what other ecosystem issues had been addressed in your region and the outstanding issues needed to be addressed. The last sentence in the introduction should explicitly and clearly state the specific issue being addressed in this paper to illustrate whether your findings are new or not and will improve the understanding of what is already known.

It is suggested to provide only the latest references not exceeding 3-5 for any given issue/finding. The references should have published in refereed journals and books with valid ISBN. Please do not cite departmental reports that are not readily available, without an ISBN, and that had not undergone rigorous internal/external review.


Material and methods

This section could be subdivided into several sections with brief heading for each sub-section. For example section 2.1 to provide sufficient information about the locality with longitude-latitude, followed by the region/zone, state/province, and the country. Provide brief description of the typical current vegetation and land and water use activities, the native vegetation that existed before the development and the approximate extent of the original landmass that has undergone development and used for other purposes. Brief description about the water resources in the region, its uses and the linkage between its quality and land use activities. Climate of the region, providing long- term annual means for temperature, precipitation, and sunshine days and monthly variations. Provide information on the geology of the regolith, the parent material of the soils, soil groups, and important soil physical and chemical properties. If region is predominantly agriculture provide information on total fertilizer and pesticide inputs and the linkage of the inputs to water quality issues and aquatic ecosystem health. Provide a map of the region with the associated state/province/country boundaries.

The second section may provide information on the experimental design and the sampling procedures undertaken and the justifications for doing so. If work did not involve any typical experimental design and at large scale clearly define how replications were addressed for each sampling location, the assumptions invoked and state whether each sampling location was considered as a stand alone treatment for the locality. For such situation provide sufficient information for each sampling location, the aerial separation distances between the locations and this could be included in a table format.

If theories, mathematics, and computer modeling approaches are employed provide sufficient information with relevant references but not repeating what has already reported. If these are new, justify why the existing ones or their modifications are not appropriate.

Provide sufficient information on laboratory analytical procedures undertaken with appropriate references and whether the laboratory is an accredited one. The last but not the least provide sufficient information on the statistical methods used and why the particular method was used and software packages used.


Results and Discussion

A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate and preferred. First, report the results from your tables and figures but avoid repeating what is already in them. State the statistical differences, significances, and the proportion of the variability accounted for by the independent variables and if the unaccounted variability is high suggest what other possible variables might have been responsible for the un-accounting. Link these to the existing information in literature (citing 2-3 latest references) and discuss the similarity or dissimilarity. This is another advantage of combining results and discussion thereby avoiding repetitions. Highlight any new findings or anything that contradicts with the existing results in the literature and explain the reasons for the contradictions.

This section could be subdivided into sub-sections that deal with different subject matters with a brief heading and this may also help to avoid repetitions.


Conclusions

This is a stand alone section, so do not repeat what is already in the abstract. This section provides information only on the main conclusions that has been already highlighted in the results and discussion section. If there are any new findings or contradictory findings high light them explicitly. Verify whether the conclusions match the objectives and are drawn from the results.


Acknowledgment

Provide information on funding and/or grant bodies, people who provided field/ lab and/or other technical support, statistical advice obtained (if any), the people who internally or externally reviewed the paper.


Math formulae

Follow the standard mathematical approach for reporting equations. If there are several equations, number them consecutively and if any equation(s) that that has to be reported separately from the text, list them in an appendix section.


Tables and figures

Create the tables in a word-processor avoiding not more than 6-8 columns and 8-10 rows. List the dependent variables in the first column and the independent variables thereafter. Provide SI units. The tables should be numbered consecutively in the order they appear in the text with a title for each that should be self explanatory. Foot notes for the tables should be placed below the table body and indicating them with superscript lowercase letters. Hide the vertical and horizontal lines.

Each figure should have a title and these should be listed in a separate sheet and the title for each figure could also be placed underneath it. Name the axis with units in parenthesis. Do not include more than 4-5 lines in a figure and if necessary provide the standard deviation or error for each data point and each line should explicitly different from the other.

3 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) I, the corresponding author, am authorized by all of my co-authors to submit this manuscript.
(2) Gather the information about the manuscript: (a) For all authors: first name, last name, postal address, e-mail address, affiliation, etc; (b) Manuscript title; (c) Manuscript abstract. (d) Contact information (name, e-mail address and affiliation) of suggested and/or excluded reviewers (if any).
(3) 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).
(4) The manuscript, or any part thereof, is in no way a violation of any existing original or derivative copyright.
(5) The manuscript contains nothing obscene, indecent, objectionable or libelous.
(6) The submission file is in Microsoft Word document format only.
(7) When available, the URLs to access references online are provided, including those for open access versions of the reference. The URLs are ready to click (e.g., http:www.sapub.org/journal)
(8) Supplemental files are submitted in accordance with instructions and information is given on a separate page at the end of the main manuscript.
 
4 Submission Steps
 

The manuscript submission process consists of 5 primary steps that gather detailed information about your manuscript: 1. Journal information, 2. Manuscript general information, 3 Authors' information, 4 Reviewers' information, 5.Validation and Submission. You will need to complete the primary tasks in the correct order. You will have the opportunity to make changes to your submission until your manuscript is reviewed. The sequence of screens is as follows:
Step1 Journal Information
Select the journal to which you would like to submit your manuscript.
You could not change the selected journal after submitting the manuscript in the step5, so be sure you select the appropriate journal.
Step2 Manuscript General Information
The 'Manuscript General Information' primary step asks you to submit the manuscript type, title, abstract, keywords, pages and file.
You must select the actual file location (via an open file dialogue) on your computer. Acceptable formats for the manuscript file include Micorsoft Word and Adobe PDF format. Acceptable formats for figures include JPEG (.jpg or .jpeg), GIF (.gif), PostScript (.ps or .prn) and TIFF (.tif or .tiff). The file or figure could not exceed 6MB in the online system.
Step3 Authors' Information
Please provide the names, running titles, Email addresses, and affiliations of all the authors (including current affiliation and affiliation where the work was primarily carried out) of this manuscript, in the order that they appear on the manuscript. In order to submit a manuscript, you must be one of the authors of the manuscript.
Please note, if you are the corresponding author please submit your details correctly, especially the email and telephone number.
Step4 Reviewers' Information
You may suggest information of some particularly qualified reviewers who have had experience in the subject of the submitted manuscript, but who are not affiliated with the same institutes as the contributor.
You may also submit a list of reviewers to be excluded.
Step5 Validation and Submission
The Validation and Submission step is the last step in the manuscript submission process, which gives you the opportunity to check and verify the manuscript information and manuscript file uploaded. You may update and/or change manuscript information and manuscript file by clicking on the 'Previous' button respectively.
Once your manuscript has been finalised, click on the 'Approve Submission' button to submit your manuscript.
After submission you will receive an acknowledgement email. You can check the status of your manuscript at any time by accessing the system with your username and password or link sent to you in the acknowledgement email.
Please note that the submission process is not complete and your manuscript will not be received by the editors until you have approved the above 5 steps.
 
5 Peer Review Process
 

Manuscripts submitted for publication in SAPUB will be reviewed anonymously by at least two independent experts in the particular area, the author will receive evaluation results within a month to decide the manuscript would be accepted or rejected.