Aims and Scope | Policy on Prior Publication| Preparing your article for submission | References| Graphical Abstracts |How to prepare your materials for blind peer review | English language editing services | Seeking permissions for copyrighted material |Conflicts of interest | Authorship and contributorship |Author affiliations |ORCID |Supplementary materials | Artificial Intelligence Policy
Aims and Scope
Papers are accepted in all areas of lichen biology including taxonomy and systematics, phylogenetics, biogeography, community and population ecology, lichen physiology and anatomy. Published papers can be in the form of a Monograph, Review or Perspective piece, a Standard Paper for research, or a Short Communication. Book reviews can be solicited (see below). As well as its standard issues, The Lichenologist publishes special issues in complex, impactful and/or emerging areas of research, and anyone wishing to be guest editor(s) of a special issue is invited to contact the Senior Editors to discuss their ideas.
Falling outside the scope of The Lichenologist are: (i) descriptions of new species unaccompanied by additional information placing these in wider context (e.g. detailed comparisons with similar species, phylogenetic analysis, key to the genus or group, biogeographic analysis etc.), (ii) species lists or new records (unless of exceptional interest), and (iii) descriptions of new chemical entities or reports of biological activity of lichen extracts or specific metabolites that lack a lichen biology context.
Submissions to The Lichenologist benefit from the constructive expertise of a world class Editorial Board, a high-quality peer review process and short review time, and we offer to authors traditional (printed) and full colour on-line publishing (html and pdf) as standard. We also provide wider outreach of published papers via social media and through our ‘Inside Lichenology’ blog posts.
Policy on prior publication
When authors submit manuscripts to this journal, these manuscripts should not be under consideration, accepted for publication or in press within a different journal, book or similar entity, unless explicit permission or agreement has been sought from all entities involved. However, deposition of a preprint on the author’s personal website, in an institutional repository, or in a preprint archive shall not be viewed as prior or duplicate publication. Authors should follow the Cambridge University Press Preprint Policy regarding preprint archives and maintaining the version of record.
Preparing your article for submission
Key words. Supply 3–6 key words or phrases in addition to those in the title.
Competing interests. All authors must include a competing interest declaration in their manuscript. This declaration will be subject to editorial review and may be published in the article. Competing interests are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on the content or publication of an author’s work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations. If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting must include competing interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors.
Example wording for a declaration is as follows: “Competing interests: Author A is employed at company B. Author C owns shares in company D, is on the Board of company E and is a member of organisation F. Author G has received grants from company H.” If no competing interests exist, the declaration should state “Competing interests: The author(s) declare none”.
Text. This must be word processed on A4 (210 x 297 mm) or letter (8.5 × 11 inch) in double spacing with 2.5 cm margins all round. Please use Times Roman font for body text and sans-serif for headings, tables and figures. Authors’ ORCID iD should be listed in the text before the References. For style and order of headings please see examples ###a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-file-manager/file/5ece43f9480f4632aebd207d/New-Format-Headings-Guidelines.pdf" target="_blank">here. On all other points of style concerning text, tables and references consult recent copies (from 2020 onwards) of the journal.
Complete scientific names (genus, species and authority) must be cited at first mention. Thereafter the generic name may be abbreviated to the initial except at the beginning of a sentence or where the abbreviation might result in confusion with other genera. Recent issues should be consulted for layout of new species, new combinations, synonymy and lists of specimens examined. Examples of style are given below. All nomenclatural novelties must be deposited in a designated data repository (e.g. MycoBank <www.mycobank.org>, Index Fungorum <http://www.indexfungorum.org>, Fungal Names <http://fungalinfo.im.ac.cn>) and the accession number included after the taxon name; this is intended to minimize future confusion and make taxonomic data more widely available. For new taxa a short diagnosis, in either Latin or English, should follow the repository number. This should be a statement of that which in the opinion of the author distinguishes the new taxon from other taxa. A full and accurate description of the species should follow the diagnosis. The spelling of locality names in the British Isles and abroad should preferably follow the most recent editions of maps published by the Ordnance Survey and The Times Atlas of the World, respectively.
Please see examples below regarding description and citation of species/specimens:
(a) description of new species:
Ramalina fleigiae Gumboski, Eliasaro & R. M. Silveira sp.nov.
MycoBank No.: MB 824641
Differing from Ramalina exiguella Stirt. by the thallus with branches originating from a single holdfast, most densely branched in the upper half of the thallus, and further distinguished by numerous irregular ellipsoid to short linear pseudocyphellae on the surface and margin of its branches.
Type: Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul State, municipality of São José dos Ausentes, locality of ‘Cachoeirão dos Rodrigues’, on a rock in the middle of Silveira River, c. 1150 m alt., 28°35'59.85''S, 49°59'19.89''W, 20 January 2015, E. Gumboski 5050 (ICN—holotype; UPCB, SP, H, F—isotypes). GenBank Accession no.: KY171855.
(b) citation of described species or new combinations:
Pyrenopsis furfurea (Nyl.) Th. Fr.
Bot. Notiser 1866, 58 (1866).—Collema furfureum Nyl., J. Bot., Lond. 3, 286 (1865); type: Scotland, Ben Lawers, 1864, T. Jones (H-NYL 42916 = H9511527—lectotype; BM—isolectotype).
Pyrenopsis haematopsis (Sommerf.) β. terrigena Th. Fr. in Hellbom, Ӧfvers. K. Vetens. Akad. Förh. 22(6), 478 (1865).—Pyrenopsidium terrigenum (Th. Fr.) Forss., Nova Acta R. Soc. Scient. Upsal. ser. 3, 13(6), 81 (1885); type: Sweden, Lule Lappmark, Skarfi, 1864, P. J. Hellbom (UPS—holotype).
(c) citation of specimens examined:
Long lists of citations are discouraged. Data should be reproduced as either maps or lists containing only data essential for locating specimens and collecting sites. Complete lists, with the below format, can be deposited with appropriate Institutions, and their location noted in the text, or could be provided in Supplementary Material.
Selected specimens examined. British Isles: Scotland: V.C.96, Easterness: Abernethy Forest, near Forest Lodge, 38/01.16, on Pinus lignum, 1975, Coppins [2199] & Rose (BM, E).—Germany: Bayern: Allgäuer Alpen, 1957, Schoppel & Poelt [Poelt, Lichenes Alpium no. 56] (H).—Australia: Tasmania: Weindorfers Forest, 41° 38`S, 145°56`E, 920 m, 1988, Kantvilas 41°38`S, 145°56`E; Cox Bight, behind west beach, sea-level,1985, J. A. Elix 20945 (ANUC). Victoria: Bellel Creek, c. 1800 m, 5 vi 1983, M. E. Hale (HO).
Tables. These must be self-explanatory and each presented on separate pages outside the main text. A short title should be provided with any additional information contained in footnotes. Text for Tables should be Sans serif.
Figures. Refer to all drawings, diagrams, graphs and photographs as figures. These should be of the highest quality and suitable for direct reproduction after reduction where appropriate. Each figure should be presented as a separate file. Plan figures to appear within a single column (84 mm) or for reproduction across two columns (170 mm). Text for Figures, including labels etc., should be Sans serif.
Drawings, diagrams and graphs. Graphs should ideally be prepared using specialist graphics packages. Graphs can either have x and y axes only or can have both top and bottom and left and right hand axes (i.e. boxed), but should be consistent throughout. Axes and tick marks should be clear at the scale of reproduction. Preferred symbols for graphs are ○; ●; □; ■; Δ;▲; keys to symbols, etc, should be given in figure captions. Where multiple graphs are grouped into a single figure, any axes with common labelling (including tick labels where relevant) need only be labelled once (e.g. the lowermost x axis if those of all graphs in a column have the same units and descriptions) and the figure should be consolidated by positioning the individual graphs closer together; consult a recent copy of The Lichenologist for examples. Colour should not be used in graphics unless the figure is intended to be printed in colour.
Photographs (colour or black and white) should be submitted at the size they will appear. Please note that there is a charge for colour printing in the print format of the journal (see Colour Printing below). Images are published online in colour free of charge.
Subdivisions of figures should be labelled with black capital letters in sans serif font , e.g. A, B, C, etc, in the upper left corner on a white circular background, and should make optimum use of space. Scale bars should be in the lower right hand corner and must be contrasting. Scale bar length values should be given in figure legends. All legends for figures should be provided on a separate page to be included with the text of the paper after the references.
Format for supplying electronic artwork.
To ensure that your figures are reproduced to the highest possible standards and your article is published as quickly and efficiently as possible, we recommend the following formats and resolutions for supplying electronic figures.
Line artwork (e.g. graphs, drawings histograms, diagrams)
Format: tif or eps
Colour mode: black and white (also known as 1-bit). Where images cannot be provided in vectorial format, these should be provided at a resolution of 600dpi
Size: please size to final publication size
Combination artwork (line/tone)
Format: tif or eps
Colour mode: greyscale (also known as 8-bit). Where images cannot be provided in vectorial format, these should be provided at a resolution of 800dpi
Size: please size to final publication size
Black and white halftone artwork (e.g. photographs) Format: tif
Colour mode: greyscale (also known as 8-bit). Resolution: 300 dpi
Size: please size to final publication size
Colour halftone artwork (e.g. photographs)
Format: tif
Colour mode: CMYK colour. Resolution: 300 dpi
Size: please size to final publication size
References. Citations in the text should take the form: Green & White (2014) or (Brown 1999a, b, 2009; Smith & Jones 2015). Multiple citations should be ordered chronologically. When papers are by three or more authors, give only the name of the first author followed by et al. (e.g. Halonen et al. 1998) throughout the text. At the end of the text, list the references alphabetically using the following standard forms:
Gauslaa Y, Coxson D and Solhaug KA (2012) The paradox of higher light tolerance during desiccation in rare old forest cyanolichens than in more widespread co-occurring chloro- and cephalolichens. New Phytologist 195, 812–822.
Øvstedal DO and Smith RIL (2001) Lichens of Antarctica and South Georgia. A Guide to their Identification and Ecology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wetmore CM (2007) Caloplaca. In: Nash TH, III, Gries C and Bungartz F (eds), Lichen Flora of the Greater Sonoran Desert Region Vol. III. Tempe, Arizona: Lichens Unlimited, Arizona state University, pp. 179–220.
Sohrabi M and Leavitt S (2012) Current status of the phylogeny of the family Megasporaceae, Abstracts of the 7th International Association for Lichenology Symposium, 9-13 January 2012, Bangkok, Thailand, p. 151.
Nimis PL and Martellos S (2017) ITALIC: the information system on Italian lichens. Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste. Available at http://dryades.units.it/italic. (accessed 1 September 2018).
Hogan EJ (2009) Nitrogen-phosphorus relationships in lichens. Ph.D. thesis, University of Nottingham.
References should be listed in alphabetic sequence with: single authors, by date; two authors, alphabetically, then by date; three or more authors by date only. When papers are by more than ten authors, give the names of only the first ten followed by ‘‘et al.’’.
For authors that use Endnote, you can find the style guide for LIC here.
Abbreviations, etc. For guidance on units, symbols, chemical nomenclature and abbreviations consult author guidelines for The New Phytologist <https://nph.onlinelibrary.wile... (Appendix 2) >.
Graphical Abstracts
We invite authors to submit a Graphical Abstract that can help communicate their work to a wider readership.
A graphical abstract is a single image that summarises the main findings of a paper, allowing readers to gain quickly an overview and understanding of your work. Well-designed and prepared graphical abstracts are an important way to publicise your research, attracting readers, and helping to disseminate your work to a wider audience. Ideally, the graphical abstract should be created independently of the figures already in the paper but it could include a (simplified version of) an existing figure. Graphical abstracts are displayed at article level, and on the article landing page online.
The graphical abstract should be submitted separately from the main paper using the ‘Graphical Abstract’ file designation on ScholarOne at revised submission stage. Graphical abstracts should be clear and easy for the viewer to read, and should illustrate one main point only. Permission to reuse images should be sought by the authors before submitting a graphical abstract.
We recommend that only TIFF or EPS formats are used for the electronic artwork in graphical abstracts. Other non-preferred but usable formats are JPG, PPT and GIF files and images created in Microsoft Word. For further information about how to prepare your figures, including sizing and resolution requirements, please see our artwork guide. The image will be scaled to fit the appropriate space on Cambridge Core, so please ensure that any font used is clear to read, and that any text is included as part of the image file (although text should ideally be kept to a minimum). There is also no need to include the title ‘Graphical Abstract’ in your image.
How to prepare your materials for blind peer review
Please see here for further details.
English language editing services
Authors, particularly those whose first language is not English, may wish to have their English-language manuscripts checked by a native speaker before submission. This step is optional, but may help to ensure that the academic content of the paper is fully understood by the Editor and any reviewers.
In order to help prospective authors to prepare for submission and to reach their publication goals, Cambridge University Press offers a range of high-quality manuscript preparation services – including language editing – delivered in partnership with American Journal Experts. You can find out more on our Language Services page.
Please note that the use of any of these services is voluntary, and at the author's own expense. Use of these services does not guarantee that the manuscript will be accepted for publication, nor does it restrict the author to submitting to a Cambridge-published journal.
Seeking permissions for copyrighted material
Please see further guidance here.
Competing Interests
All authors must include a competing interest declaration in their main manuscript file. This declaration will be subject to editorial review and may be published in the article.
Competing interests are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on the content or publication of an author’s work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations.
If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting must include competing interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors.
Example wording for a declaration is as follows: “Competing interests: Author 1 is employed at organisation A, Author 2 is on the Board of company B and is a member of organisation C. Author 3 has received grants from company D.” If no competing interests exist, the declaration should state “Competing interests: The author(s) declare none”.
Authorship and contributorship
All authors listed on any papers submitted to this journal must be in agreement that the authors listed would all be considered authors according to disciplinary norms, and that no authors who would reasonably be considered an author have been excluded. For further details on this journal’s authorship policy, please see this journal's publishing ethics policies.
Author affiliations
Author affiliations should represent the institution(s) at which the research presented was conducted and/or supported and/or approved. For non-research content, any affiliations should represent the institution(s) with which each author is currently affiliated.
For more information, please see our author affiliation policy and author affiliation FAQs.
ORCID
We require all corresponding authors to identify themselves using ORCID when submitting a manuscript to this journal. ORCID provides a unique identifier for researchers and, through integration with key research workflows such as manuscript submission and grant applications, provides the following benefits:
- Discoverability: ORCID increases the discoverability of your publications, by enabling smarter publisher systems and by helping readers to reliably find work that you have authored.
- Convenience: As more organisations use ORCID, providing your iD or using it to register for services will automatically link activities to your ORCID record, and will enable you to share this information with other systems and platforms you use, saving you re-keying information multiple times.
- Keeping track: Your ORCID record is a neat place to store and (if you choose) share validated information about your research activities and affiliations.
See our ORCID FAQs for more information.
If you don’t already have an iD, you will need to create one if you decide to submit a manuscript to this journal. You can register for one directly from your user account on ScholarOne, or alternatively via https://ORCID.org/register.
If you already have an iD, please use this when submitting your manuscript, either by linking it to your ScholarOne account, or by supplying it during submission using the "Associate your existing ORCID iD" button.
ORCIDs can also be used if authors wish to communicate to readers up-to-date information about how they wish to be addressed or referred to (for example, they wish to include pronouns, additional titles, honorifics, name variations, etc.) alongside their published articles. We encourage authors to make use of the ORCID profile’s “Published Name” field for this purpose. This is entirely optional for authors who wish to communicate such information in connection with their article. Please note that this method is not currently recommended for author name changes: see Cambridge’s author name change policy if you want to change your name on an already published article. See our ORCID FAQs for more information.
Supplementary materials
Material that is not essential to understanding or supporting a manuscript, but which may nonetheless be relevant or interesting to readers, may be submitted as supplementary material. Supplementary material will be published online alongside your article, but will not be published in the pages of the journal. Types of supplementary material may include, but are not limited to, appendices, additional tables or figures, datasets, videos, and sound files.
Supplementary materials will not be typeset or copyedited, so should be supplied exactly as they are to appear online. Please see our general guidance on supplementary materials for further information.
Where relevant we encourage authors to publish additional qualitative or quantitative research outputs in an appropriate repository, and cite these in manuscripts.
Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools
We acknowledge the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the research and writing processes. To ensure transparency, we expect any such use to be declared and described fully to readers, and to comply with our plagiarism policy and best practices regarding citation and acknowledgements. We do not consider artificial intelligence (AI) tools to meet the accountability requirements of authorship, and therefore generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and similar should not be listed as an author on any submitted content.
In particular, any use of an AI tool:
- to generate images within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, and declared clearly in the image caption(s)
- to generate text within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, include appropriate and valid references and citations, and be declared in the manuscript’s Acknowledgements.
- to analyse or extract insights from data or other materials, for example through the use of text and data mining, should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, including details and appropriate citation of any dataset(s) or other material analysed in all relevant and appropriate areas of the manuscript
- must not present ideas, words, data, or other material produced by third parties without appropriate acknowledgement or permission
Descriptions of AI processes used should include at minimum the version of the tool/algorithm used, where it can be accessed, any proprietary information relevant to the use of the tool/algorithm, any modifications of the tool made by the researchers (such as the addition of data to a tool’s public corpus), and the date(s) it was used for the purpose(s) described. Any relevant competing interests or potential bias arising as a consequence of the tool/algorithm’s use should be transparently declared and may be discussed in the article.