Article review

Australasian Plant Conservation is not a ‘peer-reviewed’ journal, but it is edited to a high scientific and technical standard, in liaison with authors as necessary. We seek to operate at the interface of the science and management of plant conservation, publishing information which can be applied to improve plant conservation.

Upcoming APC issues

Author guidelines

Please read through the information below to ensure your submission meets the required guidelines. Please include all required files in your submission to the Editor. Submissions with missing files or incorrect formatting may result in a delayed publication.

Article presentation

Authors are asked to keep our broad readership in mind – we seek articles that are as far as possible ‘plain-English’, without being dumbed down. Please take space in your draft to briefly explain (rather than assume) technical terms or concepts, or local situations, that may be unfamiliar to other sections of the readership. Please discuss with the editor if in doubt.

Article categories

Australasian Plant Conservation publishes the following article types. All submissions go through the same editing workflow as mentioned above.

Articles

The main submission for the bulletin and are complete reports on a topic in plant conservation. The text structure of these is broad but the use of sub-headings, figures and images is strongly encouraged. They are typically up to 1200 words (the word limit refers to the main text body and headings and does not include references or figure and table captions).

Short Communications

Smaller submissions and are best suited concise disseminations of information that do not fit a complete report style as per the Article type but provide important updates, insights or outcomes relevant to plant conservation. These generally should not exceed 500 words in length (not including references) and be accompanied by one or two key figures, images, or tables.

Translocation Case Study

Plant translocations are important intervention actions in plant conservation, but their motivation, outcomes and learnings are oftentimes not communicated for various reasons. To support the communication and publication of plant translocations, APC has a specific translocation case study template with required headings here. Please use this proforma for submitting translocation articles. These should still follow the correct text and reference formatting and figure presentation that are outlined below.

Correspondences

Similar to Short Communications but their purpose is for providing a forum for short comments on topical issues, anecdotal material and reactions to material published in APC. They should be no longer than 300 words and three or fewer references. We suggest that authors try to make one or two clear points and include relevant context to ensure their correspondence is ‘durable’ (time to publication may be up to 3 months). Tables and figures are not usually included in correspondence. Please note: selection of Correspondence for publication in APC will be based first on relevance and interest to the readership of APC, and according to the principles of balance and fairness where necessary (e.g. right of reply). While authors are encouraged to express their opinion, the Editor will check for factual errors. Furthermore, publication of correspondence will be at the discretion of the Editor, in consultation with the President of ANPC (where necessary) and will be reviewed by members of the ANPC committee. Correspondence may be edited for publication (the author will be advised).

Photos from…

A new inclusion in APC from 2023 encouraging submissions of images that highlight current work in plant conservation. Each submission requires a single high-resolution image and accompanying extended description providing context to the image and identifying its importance and relevance to plant conservation. Examples include an image of a rare plant species found in the field, a recruitment event post-fire, a new technology in the laboratory, nursery or field, or a recent inclusion in a living collection. The written component should be at least 100 words and not exceed 300 words. References are not required for this submission.

Other submission types

We also welcome submissions for book reviews, titles of interesting recent publications or resources, and where they can be found, conference, workshop, course and fieldwork announcements, and details of relevant publications, information resources and websites. Such submissions are incorporated into regular features of APC (e.g., ‘Research Round up’).

Article submission

Title page

This should include the following information:

1. Concise title for the article
2. Names and affiliations (organisations) of all contributing authors
3. Email address and phone number of the corresponding author

Text

Submissions must made using an electronic filetype such as Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) or Rich Text Format such as WordPad (.rtf). Further information regarding APC styling can be viewed by downloading the Article Template All submissions should be in a style readily accessible to the diverse readership. Ensure all technical terminology is explained at their first usage.

Headings and sub-headings: the text should be divided into sections with headings and sub-headings for Article submissions. Headings and sub-headings can also be used for Short Communication and Correspondence where required. Please only use a capital letter for the first word and proper nouns.

Spelling and formatting: use Australian English, for example, ‘colour’ not ‘color’, and use ‘s’ not ‘z’ in words such as ‘organisation’, ‘recognise’ etc. (unless, for example, in titles of already published documents in reference list). When referring to the species by its common name, please provide its scientific name in brackets (after the common name) the first time the species is mentioned. Common names should be capitalised, as in: Red Box, Grand Spider-orchid, Rainbow Plant. When referring to the species by its scientific name only, it is at the authors’ discretion whether the common name is given, or not. Currently accepted scientific name should be used as agreed by the Council of Heads of Australasian 8 Herbaria (CHAH) in the Australian Plant Census (http://www.anbg.gov.au/chah/apc/). APCensus usage is preferred, unless there is a case for variant usage to suit a State-specific or international context – in this case please make the nomenclatural equivalences explicit. Use ‘subsp.’ rather than ‘ssp.’ for subspecies. Formal species listing status should be capitalised (e.g., Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable) and relevant jurisdiction or government act (e.g., IUCN Red List, NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act) given at first mention. Spell out all numbers less than 10. For example, “three” rather than “3”, unless it is followed by a unit, for example, 3 km. When reporting numbers 1,000 and up, please use a thousand separator (i.e., place a comma between each group of three digits). Place a space between number and unit (i.e., 3 km), use en-dashes to separate numbers (e.g., 10–15 cm), and year ranges should be written in full (e.g., ‘1995–1996’ rather than ‘1995–96’). There should be no spaces beside symbols +, – and ~ when they are followed by a number. There should also be no spaces beside forward and back slashes (e.g., and/or), or between a number and a per cent symbol (e.g., 20%) or between a number and degree symbol (e.g., 15°C). No full stop is required after abbreviated titles (i.e., use ‘Dr’ rather than ‘Dr.’). Seasons should not be capitalised (e.g., summer, autumn). North, east, south and west should not be capitalised when they are used to indicate a direction or general location; however, they should be capitalised when they form part of a specific region or proper noun. Similarly, words such as ‘national park’ and ‘state forest’ should be capitalised when referring to specific national parks or state forests, and not when writing about national parks and state forests in general.

Abbreviations: spell out abbreviations when first used followed by the abbreviation in parentheses, for example, “Australian Network for Plant Conservation (ANPC)”. Do not use full stops in abbreviations comprising capital letters, for example, “ACT”. Italicise Latin abbreviations (use italic font), for example, “et al.”, “ex situ”, “in situ”.

Paragraphs and lists: separate paragraphs by a blank line and do not indent the start of a paragraph. Use single ‘quotes’ in text. Information lists are a useful method to present key points or information. In these instances, use bulleted entries.

Images, figures and tables

All images, graphs, charts or other illustrative figures must be submitted to the Editor as separate files. Images embedded into the text file will not be accepted. Tables can be created and embedded into the text file using Microsoft Word or similar program. Please include in the text submission file an approximate indication of where each image, figure or table should be placed. Each figure and table must be referred to in the text. Each image, figure and table file should be named separately and logically, including the manuscript author’s name and figure number (e.g. “Smith_Fig1.tif”)

Photographs should be 300 dpi resolution and be submitted with at least 1500px on the longest size for publication. Accepted filetypes are: .tif, .jpg, .png or .gif. Each image should be submitted separately even if they form a collage or multi-panel figure. In these instances, the images may need to be re-arranged to meet formatting restrictions and design requirements. Do not use add letters, for example, ‘a’, ‘b’ and ‘c’ into an image if it is part of a multi-panel figure, but include the letter in the file name instead.

Graphs or line drawings can be submitted similarly to photographs; however if Microsoft Excel was used to create graphs then please supply the original excel file separately, naming the file as per above. The following symbols should be avoided: ‘+’, “x” or “*” as they do not reproduce well. Any symbol should be explained in a figure legend or caption. Any lettering should use a sans-serif font such as Arial or Calibri.

Tables should include horizontal lines only (no vertical lines). Each table should have a brief title or caption that should make sense without the need to read the text.

References

In the text, references should be in chronological order. Multiple references should be separated by semi colons. Use “and” where there are two co-authors and “et al.” where there are more than two co-authors. Do not use a comma between author name and year. Government Acts should be italicised (e.g., Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999). Referencing should be kept to a minimum and restricted to key references. All items in the reference list should be readily available. Where necessary, further detail can be given on methods of access (in brackets after the record). Please pay particular attention to formatting of author list (i.e., abbreviation of first names, spacing within abbreviations), presentation of year (in brackets, followed by full stop), italicisation of some fields (varying with reference type) and the use of “and” rather than “&”. Incorrectly formatted references will be returned to the author for re-formatting. If websites or email addresses are cited in the main body of the text they should be bold formatted. Please note: the referencing of articles differs to that within the APC section “Research Round up”. ·

Journal article Constanza, R., D’Arge, R., De Groots, R., Farber, S., Grasso, M., Hannon, B., Limburg, K., Naeem, S., O’Neil, R.V., Paruelo, J., Raskin, R.G., Sutton, P. and Van Den Belt, M. (1997). The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387: 253-260. ·

Online journal article Kriticos, D. J., Morin, L., Leriche, A., Anderson, R.C., and Caley, P. (2013). Combining a climatic niche model of an invasive fungus with its host species distributions to identify risks to natural assets: Puccinia psidii Sensu Lato in Australia. PLoS ONE 8(5): e64479. https://doi.org/10.1371/ journal.pone.0064479 ·        

Book Briggs, J.D., and Leigh, J. H. (1996). Rare or threatened Australian plants. CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne. Section or chapter within a book: Erickson, T.E. and Merritt, D. J. (2016). Seed collection, cleaning and storage procedures. In: Erickson, T.E., Barrett, R.L., Merritt, D.L. and Dixon, K.W. (Eds.) Pilbara seed atlas and field guide: plant restoration in Australia’s arid northwest. pp. 7-116. CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne.        

Report (available online) Hancock, N., Harris, R., Broadhurst, L. and Hughes, L. (2016). Climate-ready revegetation. A guide for natural resource managers. Macquarie University, Sydney. Available at: https://anpc.asn.au/resources/climate_ready_revegetation 12 ·

Report (not available online) Sattler, P. and Williams, R. (1999). The conservation status of Queensland’s bioregional ecosystems. Environmental Protection Agency, Queensland Government, Brisbane. ·        

Thesis Hall, K.B. (2015). Modeling the actual productivity of Eucalyptus benthamii in the Southeastern United States. Thesis for degree of Master of Science, Forestry and Environmental Resources, Raleigh, North Carolina. ·

Website Australian Government (2016). ‘EPBC Act List of Threatened Flora’ (Australian Government Department of the Environment: Canberra). Available at: http://www.environment.gov.au/cgibin/sprat/publicthreatenedlist.pl?wanted-flora

Acknowledgements and conflicts of interest

Sources of funding should be declared within the acknowledgements section. Contributions of colleagues who are not listed as an author should be acknowledged. Please ensure the permission for everyone acknowledged has been granted. A conflicts of interest section can also be included after the acknowledgements section, identifying any financial, political, personal or professional relationships that may be understood to have influenced the manuscript.

APC Editor – Alyssa Weinstein

Alyssa Weinstein with Button wrinklewort flowers

Alyssa has great enthusiasm for plants, science communication, and bringing science, government, industry, and community together to effectively conserve biodiversity. These interests have led her to roles with United Nations Environment Programme, the Australian federal government, as well as in academia. Alyssa is currently working as a consultant for UNEP, bringing her experience to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem services. She previously worked at the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment, and Water, ensuring effective environmental regulation under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, as well as working in the international policy space. Alyssa’s love for plants flourished growing up in the southwestern Australian biodiversity hotspot, where she completed her Honours at Kings Park and Botanic Garden, before moving to Canberra to pursue a PhD at ANU. In her thesis she investigated the pollination ecology of sexually-deceptive orchids, focussing on the genera Cryptosylis and Drakaea. Fortuitously, her work with Drakaea led Alyssa to a role assisting in the production of the hammer orchid sequence in David Attenborough’s Green Planet, a true highlight of her experiences as a science communicator.

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