GENERAL INFORMATION, POLICY AND SCOPE

Revista Chilena de Historia Natural (RChHN) is a bilingual (Spanish and English) open access journal, published by the Sociedad de Biología de Chile (Biology Society of Chile) in printed and electronic versions. RChHN publishes one volume per year and four quarterly issues per volume (March, June, September and December). Publication in RChHN is open to any person, regardless of membership status or any other distinction.

RChHN welcomes contributions presenting original results as well as essays/reviews stimulating criticism and synthesis, which may be submitted under different manuscript formats. Reception of manuscripts is continuous, and authors are allowed to choose between single- and double-blind review processes.

Submitted manuscripts will be subject to a preliminary evaluation by the Editorial Committee, which may decide to reject a manuscript without refereeing if it does not comply with the scope or standards of RChHN. After preliminary approval of a manuscript, its editorial and peer-review processes are managed by an Associate Editor, who considers the advice of at least two referees, and then provides a recommendation of acceptance or rejection to the Chief Editor, who is responsible for the final decision. Contributions are published in order of acceptance and/or reception of corrected page proofs. The name of the Associate Editor, along with the dates of receipt and final acceptance of a manuscript, are provided for each published work.

RChHN publishes original research dealing with past and present phenomena from organismic to higher levels of biological organization, considering both empirical and theoretical studies on all kinds of taxa and environments. The major areas covered by RChHN are: physiological and behavioral ecology; population biology; community and ecosystem ecology; systematics, biogeography and evolution. Taxonomic works in particular must be submitted in English to facilitate the peer review process. RChHN gives priority to basic science, although applied contributions may be considered if they provide important or novel scientific approaches. Purely descriptive studies may be acceptable only if they are directly related to key biological issues or more comprehensive theoretical frames.

Publication fees are US$ 50.00 per printed page, and must be paid before publication.

TYPES OF CONTRIBUTIONS

RChHN offers seven categories of contributions.

1. Research Articles are largely the main output of RChHN, and they are expected to provide explicit tests of hypotheses or novel explanations. Research Articles should not exceed 35 manuscript pages.

2. Review Articles summarize conceptual advances in the fields of natural history, ecology or evolution, or provide an overview of a subfield. Reviews should not simply describe the works of others; rather they should include critical discussion of new directions or new syntheses. Review Articles have no page limits.

3. Commentaries discuss, re-examine or debate on central issues of broad interest to scientists in natural history, ecology and evolution. Discussions on current or hot topics dealing with recent advances in the above areas are also welcome. Commentaries should not exceed 30 manuscript pages.

4. Forum and Replies are intended to point out errors regarding facts or interpretations of, or to otherwise comment on, papers previously published in RChHN. These papers should not exceed eight manuscript pages. The Editor will offer authors of the paper being commented upon the opportunity to submit a signed review, which will be supplemental to the regular peer reviews.

5. Letters to the Editor call the attention of a broad audience about specific topics or concepts, dealing with either basic or applied issues in direct regard with the disciplinary scope of RChHN. Letters should not exceed five manuscript pages. Tables or figures should be avoided unless strictly necessary.

6. Book Reviews are short, scholarly evaluations of recently published books and monographs directly related to the disciplinary areas covered by RChHN. Book Reviews should not include figures or tables, and should not exceed four manuscript pages.

7. Special Features is a thematic section aimed at publishing groups of papers dealing with key, novel or relevant topics in natural history, ecology or evolution. Contributions in this section are published by invitation or upon authors’ request, considering three categories: symposia, mini-reviews, and selected papers, giving comprehensive coverage to some specific concept, theme or issue. Authors willing to contribute to the Special Features section should contact and obtain sponsorship from a member of the Associate Editor’s board, who will submit an official request subject to approval by the Chief Editor. After approval, the sponsoring Associate Editor will be appointed to coordinate and manage the simultaneous submission of the contributed manuscripts (in particular cases, the sponsoring editor may be assisted by other Associate Editors or Guest Editors to facilitate the review process). Each manuscript will be subject to independent peer review, and the final editorial decision will be informed to authors on an individual basis. The accepted papers will be scheduled for publication in a quarterly issue of RChHN (upon availability), preceded by a summary introduction of the objectives and contents of the Special Feature (authored by designated contributors). Special Features should be published in the English language, although Spanish or English/Spanish contributions could be considered in justified cases. Whatever the case, groups of thematic papers will not be published as special issues.

ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION

The corresponding author should submit her/his work electronically by e-mailing the manuscript and a cover letter (as separate files) to:

Chief Editor
rchn@ucsc.cl

The manuscript may be sent as a PDF file (preferable) or as a Word file saved in doc format (do not use docx format). The file must include all parts of the article in the following order: full text, tables, figure legends, and figures (embedded in separate pages indicating their corresponding number).

The cover letter (PDF or doc file) must include a brief description of the relevance/novelty of the work, along with:

(a) an indication of the preferred type of peer review process, between single-blind review (referees are anonymous) or double-blind review (both authors and referees are anonymous). Authors choosing double-anonymity should note that the process diminishes, but does not necessarily prevents identifiability (which may also depend on factors such as patterns of auto- vs. allo-citation, distinctiveness of research lines, or background knowledge of the reviewers).

(b) explicit statements regarding the following cases (when relevant): (i) for all works: indication that the manuscript has not been published, accepted, or concurrently submitted elsewhere; (ii) for multi-authored works: declaration that all authors know of and approve the submitted manuscript; (iii) for works that have been previously peer reviewed in RChHN or in other journals: a statement that the current manuscript has been improved by incorporating previous comments.

(c) if relevant, an explicit statement indicating the inclusion of text or illustrations from previously published works. In such a case, the authors are responsible for obtaining the corresponding copyright clearances.

When pertinent, Supplementary material should be submitted in electronic format along with the manuscript and cover letter files, included as a separate file (see below).

The manuscript should be written in upper and lower cases (excepting main headings), using “Times New Roman” 12 point sized font, double spacing (including Tables and Figure legends), and letter page size with 2.5 cm margins all around. All pages must be numbered consecutively (in Arabics), from the Title page to the last Table or Figure. Lines must also be numbered consecutively from the first to the last page (do not restart numbering on each page).

Contributed manuscripts should include the following sections: (1) Title page, (2) ABSTRACT, (3) RESUMEN, (4) Main text, (5) LITERATURE CITED, (6) FOOTNOTES (only if necessary), (7) APPENDICES (optional), (8) FIGURE LEGENDS, (9) TABLES, (10) Figures, (11) Supplementary material.

Begin each of the above sections on a separate page, inserting page breaks between sections. Manuscripts in non-regular categories (Forum and Replies, Book Reviews and Letters to the Editor) should follow the section guidelines below when applicable.

1. Title page

This page must contain the main title, running headline, and author’s names and affiliations, as follows:

(a) The main title should be informative and precise in relation to the contents of the paper (use upper case only if necessary). If the manuscript is written in English, the English title must be followed by its Spanish translation, and vice versa. Binomial names in the title should be given in full, omitting the author, italicized, and accompanied by their corresponding higher taxa. Example: Lessonia nigrescens (Phaeophyta: Laminariales).

(b) Below the title, provide a shortened title (running headline, only in uppercase letters) up to 50 characters including blank spaces.

(c) Name of authors (in upper case letters). Use the surname and given name, excluding academic degrees or others. You may use the initial of the second given name, or your mother’s or spouse’s name linked to the surname by a dash. If there are two or more authors, the name of the second or the last author, respectively, should be separated by “&”. Examples:

JOHN P. SMITH
JUAN A. PÉREZ & JANE SMITH-JONES
PETER T.C. JONES, JUAN PÉREZ-ROJAS, KURT W. VON HUMBOLDT & JUANA DEL RÍO

(c) Affiliation. In single-authored works, include the institution and postal address where the work was conducted (and new institutional affiliation if appropriate), and an e-mail address.

In multi-authored works involving different affiliations, refer to each affiliation by correlative superscript numbers at the end of each author’s name. The corresponding addresses should be indicated below the names, on separate lines, and each preceded by its corresponding superscript number.

Mark the author for correspondence with an asterisk (*) placed after her/his respective superscript number, and below the authors' affiliations include the following line:

" *Corresponding author "

Provide an e-mail address for each author (all authors will receive copies of any official communication sent to the corresponding author).

2-3. Abstract-Resumen

Manuscripts contributed to Forum and Replies, Book Reviews, and Letters to the Editor, should not include Abstract or Resumen.
Research Articles, Commentaries and Reviews, all must have both an Abstract and a Resumen (Spanish summary) with equivalent contents, appearing first that which corresponds to the language of the manuscript. Neither summary should exceed 350 words for Research Articles and Reviews, or 250 words for Commentaries (do not indent lines, and do not insert blank lines or periods at the end of paragraphs). Both headings should be in upper case letters, bold, and centered.

The Abstract and Resumen must be understandable without reference to the main text, starting with a brief introductory paragraph for then describing the key aspects of the methods, results and discussion of the work. At the end of the Abstract and Resumen, include a separate line providing up to five Key words and Palabras clave, respectively, in alphabetic order. Both headings are two words (only the first starting with a capital letter), left justified, and in bold.

The Key words/Palabras clave should describe the essential contents of the work. Do not include words used in the main title. Prefer single words or short expressions, and avoid plurals, terms which are too general or abbreviations (unless they are established in the field). Examples (note formatting and punctuation marks):

Key words: desert, guild, omnivorous, prey, stable isotopes.

Palabras clave: desierto, gremio, isótopos estables, omnívoro, presa.

4. Main text

4.1. Sections of the main text according to the type of contribution

Research Articles:

All articles must include the following main headings (all in upper case letters and centered, no bold or italics): (a) INTRODUCTION, (b) METHODS, (c) RESULTS, and (d) DISCUSSION. When relevant, a final section of (e) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS should be included. Results and Discussion should not be merged into a single section.

(a) Introduction: should state the problem to be addressed and its place within a general context. It must not be an exhaustive review of the subject unless the article itself is a Review.

(b) Methods: must be brief but detailed enough for a reader to obtain an adequate understanding of what was done. Whenever the location of study or sampling sites is directly or indirectly important for a proper interpretation of the obtained results, a location map should be included as a Figure. When the results and their interpretation do not depend on the location of study localities or sampling sites, it suffices to provide their corresponding coordinates (latitude and/or longitude depending on the case).

(c) Results: should be described in detail in the text. Whenever possible, quantitative and statistic results (unless they are too few or particular) should be presented in Tables or Figures, and should not be repeated in the text. Instead, authors should base their description on the respective Tables or Figures. Every Table and Figure included in the manuscript must be properly described and referred to in the text. Results presented in Tables should not be duplicated in Figures and vice versa. There is no restriction to the number of Tables and Figures.

(d) Discussion: should be concise and refer to the interpretation of the obtained results and to their relation with similar findings or topics documented in the literature.

(e) Acknowledgements: should be brief, including people and institutions that provided help or support for the work (e.g., funds, field assistance) or the manuscript (e.g., writing, reading).

Reviews and Commentaries:

Both must start with an INTRODUCTION section, and include ACKNOWLEDGMENTS if approriate. The remaining headings and subheadings may be defined and organized by the authors according to the objectives and contents of the work. Reviews based on particular analyses or methodologies which may condition the scope of their conclusions, may need to include at least a METHODS section.

Forum and Replies, Book Reviews and Letters to the Editor:

These categories have no default sections and may be organized in accordance with their objectives and contents.

4.2. General guidelines for all types of contributions

(a) Headings, paragraphs and style:

Insert one blank line between each heading/subheading and the following text, and immediately after the end of a section/subsection. Indent all paragraphs excepting those following each heading or subheading, and do not insert blank lines between paragraphs of a same section.

Secondary headings should be left justified, in italics, and begin with a capital letter (for the first word only) followed by lower case letters (except for justified cases). Tertiary headings follow the same format but they should not be italicized.

Words in the text, as well as Latin and Greek expressions or similar terms (et al., a posteriori, e.g., i.e., sensu, etc.) should be given in Roman script (do not use bold, italics, or underlined). Binomial names are the only exception (italicized; see below).

(b) Use of numerals, units of measure, and statistical conventions:

Give years in full. Units and abbreviations must conform to the International System of Units. Write numbers one to nine in words, unless they precede units of measure or are used as designators. Write numbers equal to or greater than 10 as numerals, except at the beginning of a sentence or for literary and conventional uses. Non-integer numbers should be expressed up to three decimal places, without naked points (e.g., “0.82” instead of “.82”). Express numbers smaller than 0.001 in exponential notation.

Mean values must be accompanied by dispersion statistics (and their identification), associated units, and sample sizes (symbolized by “n”). Dispersion measures should be identified with their abbreviations (e.g., standard deviation amd standard error should be given as SD and SE, or DE and EE, in English and Spanish, respectively).

Examples (note the use of punctuation marks and spaces):

“.. from two to six colonies up to 3.5 m ..”
“.. Nearly twenty years ago, between 1992 and 1998 ..”
“.. reached 34 m s-1 during the 2001-2002 El Niño event ..”
“.. a mean density (± EE) of 3.5 ± 1.2 trees m-2 (n = 9) ..”
“.. an estimated value ± SD of 0.72 ± 0.14 g (n = 16) ..”
“.. mean ± SD (1.5 10-5 ± 0.2 10-5 mg, n = 3 ..”

Describe the results of any statistical test indicating its name (accepted acronyms may be used; e.g., ANOVA or ANDEVA), symmetry (one- or two-tailed), the test statistic and its value, the degrees of freedom (as the test statistic’s subscript) and/or the sample size (depending on the convention of the test), and the P value. Provide exact P values (up to four decimal places) for both significant and non-significant results, except for P values smaller than 0.0001, which should be described as “P < 0.0001”.

Examples (note the use of spaces and punctuation marks):

“.. Spearman correlation (rS = 0.80; n = 13; P = 0.135) “
“.. Student t-test (t12 = 3.05; P = 0.004) ..”
“.. Kruskal-Wallis test (H11 = 287.8; P < 0.0001) ..”
“.. one-way ANOVA (F1,17 = 0.97; P = 0.485) ..”

(c) Citation of Figures and Tables:

Any diagram, graph, map or photograph should be referred to as a Figure. Figures and Tables must be numbered independently and consecutively in Arabics, and cited in correlative order throughout the text. Figures should be cited in abbreviated form, and subfigures should be referred to by upper case letters. Examples:

“.. as shown in Fig. 1 and Table 1 ..”
“.. suggested by our results (Fig. 2, Tables 2 and 4) ..”
“.. summarized in Figs. 5 and 6C (see also Figs. 3 and 4, Table 3) ..”

(d) Citation of works:

All cited works (articles, books, and book chapters) should already be published or in press (accepted works may also be cited as “in press”). RChHN encourages authors to provide accurate information on the publication stage of the works cited in their manuscripts.

Do not cite unpublished material referred to as “in preparation”, “submitted”, “in review” or similar categories, and avoid references to unpublished results or personal communications. When strictly necessary (under the author’s responsibility), such materials should be cited in the text only, in parentheses. Examples (note the use of initials and years when relevant: “(JP Smith, personal communication, 2007)”, “(RH Díaz, unpublished data).

Regular citations must indicate the name of the author(s), followed by the year of publication. For two-authored works, separate the names by an ampersand (&). For three- or multi-authored works, use the first author’s name followed by “et al.”. Multiple citations with different years must be ordered chronologically, and those with a same year must be ordered alphabetically. For several works with the same author(s) and year, cite authors’ names once, and then cite each work using the year followed by a lower case letter, ordered alphabetically (these letters must also be included in LITERATURE CITED). Examples (note the use of punctuation marks and ampersands):

“.. as suggested before (Lee 1989, Martin 2002a, 2002b, Lee & Martin 2008) ..”
“.. stated by Smith (1989), Jones (1991a, 1991b) and Martin (2003) ..“
“.. unlike earlier works (Martin 1992, Peters 1992, González et al. 1994), Smith & Martin (2009) disagreed with Atkinson et al. (1982, 1983a, 1983b) .. “

(e) Citation of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs):

Those URLs referring to articles in electronic journals or documents/information from official sources (e.g., data bases, CONAMA, CONICYT, NSF, NOAA, IUCN) must not be included in the text; instead, they should be cited as a normal article (author and year), including the corresponding full reference in LITERATURE CITED (see below).

Citations of URLs referring to unpublished or non-publishable materials (e.g., research reports, authors’ or research groups’ sites, discussion forums) are not acceptable, except when they are essential for understanding the contents of the manuscript; in such a case, the full URL may be cited in the text starting with “http://”. Do not include these URLs in LITERATURE CITED.

(f) Citation of works presented at scientific meetings (should be avoided when possible):

If strictly necessary, abstracts presented at national or international scientific meetings (even if published in journals) should be cited within the main text as footnotes and referred to by correlative superscript numbers. Do not use footnotes to make comments or to cite unpublished material. Example: “Recently, crucial findings in Africa (Smith 20091) and Asia (Jones 20092)”. Do not cite abstracts available on temporary URLs, or not published in proceedings or journals.

(g) Binomial names (genus and species):

Binomial names should always be italicized. When first mentioned in the text, binomial names must be given in full (including authority; year optional). When used subsequently, the authority may be omitted and the genus name may be abbreviated to its first capital letter followed by a period. A standard or established common name is acceptable, providing its full binomial name when first mentioned. If several binomial names are included, their authorities may be referred to by one or more accepted bibliographic sources, which must be included in the LITERATURE CITED section. Whenever corresponds, the nomenclature for different kinds of taxa should follow the conventions provided by international codes and standardized data bases. Examples:

“.. such as Sepia polaris (Jones, 1942). Thus, S. polaris is ..”
“.. the common blue cat (Felis australis Smith) in Chile ..”
“.. nomenclature follows Li (1976) for birds and Lee (1980) for bats ...”
“.. study species (for full binomial names see Smith & Jones 2004) ..”

5. Literature Cited

The LITERATURE CITED section must list the full reference of all works cited in the text. Do not include unpublished works, or abstracts presented at scientific meetings (the latter may be cited in the text using footnotes; see below). Do not use bullets and do not insert blank lines between references.

References must be in Roman script, left justified, and listed in alphabetical order according to the first author’s surname. Secondarily, references should be ordered by year, number of coauthors, and coauthors’ surnames. In the case of multi-authored works with nine or more authors, list only the first five authors followed by “et al.”. Authors’ initials and names must be in capital letters (carrying accents where corresponds), and the last author must be separated by an ampersand (&). Examples of reference sequencing:

SMITH R (2009)
SMITH R & M JONES (2002)
SMITH R & M JONES (2003)
SMITH R, M JONES & M CONTRERAS (1994)
SMITH R, M JONES & H PÉREZ (1994)
SMITH R, P GÓMEZ, J WHITE & F BLACK (1975)
WHITE J (1999)
WHITE J, P WU, M LEE, M DÍAZ, F BLACK et al. (1999)

Please follow the examples provided below for different citation formats, including URLs. Note the absence of periods between initials, year of publication and title of the reference. Journal names should always be given in full, each name’s word starting with a capital letter (except for conjunctions and articles), and providing the volume and page range for each reference (do not include issue numbers). For non indexed journals add the country of publication in parentheses before the volumen. Books, book chapters and theses must include the city of publication (the country should be added at the end of the reference only if necessary for a proper identification). Examples:

(a) Citation of journal articles (note the use of colon after volume number, blank space after the colon, and period after the page range):

MINAMI N & MT KIMURA (1980) Geographical variation of photoperiodic adult diapause in Drosophila auraria. Japanimation (Japan) 55: 319¬-324.
PACKARD MJ, GC PACKARD & TJ BOARDMAN (1980) Water balance of the eggs of a desert lizard (Callisaurus draconoides). Canadian Journal of Zoology 58: 2051-2058.
PÉREZ JC (1982) Distribución de los roedores andinos. Revista Chilena de Historia Natural 256: 45-56.
ZAMUDIO B (1999a) .....
ZAMUDIO B (1999b) .....

(b) Citation of books:

DIXON WJ (ed) (1991) BMDP biomedical computer programs. Third edition. University of California Press, Berkeley, California. 214 pp.
SOTO D & RH PÉREZ (1986) El oceáno. Academia Editores, Santiago, Chile. 356 pp.
LONG HI & J LONG (eds) (1990) Novel approaches to ...

(c) Citation of book chapters*:

PÉREZ J (1982) Lizards as laboratory animals. In: Veronese BG (ed) Laboratory animals: 70-89. Second edition, Moulin Editors, Paris.
ÁLVAREZ JS (1993) Ecología de aves. En: López GH, DR Lee & RH Dixon (eds) Fauna tropical: 89-114. SS Impresores, Santiago, Chile.

* When referring to a book containing the cited chapter, the use of “En” or “In” depends on the language of the manuscript (Spanish or English, respectively).

(d) Citation of theses:

WILLIAMS CA (1991) Ecology of Antarctic bats. Ph.D. Thesis, Faculty of Sciences, Northern University, Buenos Aires. 207 pp.

(e) Citation of articles in press:

ALERTADO JJ & LJ ROCHER (in press) A revolutionary technique for restoration. Journal of Controversy.

Do not indicate the expected year or volume of forthcoming publications, unless you have an official confirmation (RChHN will ask for these data prior to the publication of manuscripts).

(f) Citation of electronic journals:

At the end of the reference, include “(online)” or “(en línea)” (for English or Spanish articles, respectively), the full URL, and the access date between parentheses; when issue pages are not correlatively numbered, cite the total number of pages (e.g., 20 pp.). Examples:

CORTÉZ R (2004) La dinámica de fluidos y su rol en el estudio de fenómenos biológicos. Ciencia al Día Internacional 5: 14 pp. (en línea) URL: http://www.ciencia.cl/CienciaAlDia/volumen5/numero2/articulos/articulo2.html (accedido Febrero 2, 2009).
TOSTO D & E HOPP (2008) Characterization of the nuclear ribosomal DNA unit in Oxalis tuberosa (Oxalidacea) and related species. Electronic Journal of Biotechnology (online) 11: 11-22. URL:
http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0717-34582008000300002&lng=es&nrm=iso (accessed December 23, 2008).

(g) Citation of URLs for electronic documents or information (only acceptable for official sites maintained by recognized organizations, and containing relevant data of a scientific/academic nature): provide the full reference and access date. Examples:

JPL (2009) El Niño/La Niña watch. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, NASA. USA. URL: http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/elnino/index.html (accessed March 12, 2009).
IUCN (2008) The IUCN red list of threatened speciesTM. 2008. International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. URL: http://www.iucnredlist.org/ (accessed June 8, 2006).

6. Footnotes

Provide in this section the full reference of abstracts or expanxded abstracts referred to by footnotes in the text. List them in correlative order, preceded by their superscript numbers, and include: author, year, title, meeting name and number (maintain the original notation), date, and place. If published in journals or proceedings, add the corresponding reference. Examples:

¹SMITH P & G JONES (2007) Discovery of fossil cats in the Antarctic. 20th Congress of Polar Research, June 2007, Fildes Bay, Antarctica. Abstracts and sessions: 183.
²PÉREZ JC (2009) Un nuevo roedor marino. XXV Congreso de Ciencias Novedosas, Marzo 2009, Chile. Biological Research 209: R44.
³SMITH RJ (2008) Bottom-up controls in the deep sea. Fourth Annual Meeting of Biology, August 2008, New York, USA. Ocean Biology 34 (Suppl.): A173.

7. Appendices (optional)

If necessary, specific methodological aspects and results that are not directly related with the objectives or conclusions of the work, but are essential for its understanding by referees or readers, may be included in a separate appendix, not exceeding four manuscript pages. Appendices may contain relevant materials such as primary data, species lists, or mathematical proofs (avoid the use of appendices for including non-essential infomation). Each manuscript may include up to two appendices, which should be referred to in the main text as Appendix (single case) or Appendix A and Appendix B.

In the appendix, the heading should be in upper case letters and centered, and the text should follow the same guidelines as for the main text. If Figures and Tables are included, these should be numbered in correlative order (even if there are two appendices) but independently from those used in the main text (e.g., Fig. A1, Table A1).

If more than two appendices need to be included, they should be merged into a single text, and submitted as Supplementary material (see below) in a separate file. Appendices greater than four manuscript pages should also be submitted as Supplementary material.

8. Figure Legends

All Figures must have bilingual legends (in English and Spanish), with priority according to the language of the manuscript. Legends should provide a synthetic description which should be understandable without reference to the text. Bilingual legends must be listed in correlative order, left justified, headed (in italics) by their abbreviation and number, and followed by a colon. Different legends must be separated by a blank line. Example:

Fig. 1: Location of the study site in the Atacama Desert.
Ubicación del sitio de estudio en el Desierto de Atacama.

Fig. 2: Negative correlation between variable A and variable B, as predicted by the NN model.
Correlación negativa entre la variable A y la variable B, según lo predicho por el modelo NN.

9. Tables

Tables should be presented on separate pages, numbered (in Arabics) consecutively, and preceded by bilingual legends (in English and Spanish, with priority according to the language of the manuscript), which provide a synthetic description. The header should be in uppercase letters (e.g., TABLE 1).

In the main text, authors may mark the approximate position where each Table should be placed, noting that the final position will largely depend on design constraints.

All Tables should be prepared using word processing tools for creating tables, and include only three horizontal dividing lines (plain black, without special effects) to separate the beginning, the ending, and the main column headings. For text and numbers inside the Table, follow the same guidelines as for the main text. The first word of the column and line headings should start with a capital letter (do not use bold or italics). In the first column, the main heading and subsequent line headings should be left justified. The contents (text or numbers) in the remaining columns should be centered. Units must be given in parentheses and abbreviated (without an ending period) according to the International System of Units.

Example:

TABLE 2
Mean (± SE) biomass and length of male and female sparrows at the study site.
Biomasa y longitud promedio (± EE) de gorriones machos y hembras en el sitio de estudio.

10. Figures

(a) General:

Each figure (diagram, graph, map or photograph) must be prepared as a single electronic file, and saved in image format (preferably TIFF, JPG) with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. All Figures must be embedded (as centered images) on separate, correlative pages at the end of the manuscript, indicating their corresponding number at the bottom of the page (e.g., Fig. 1). Subfigures must be referred to by upper case letters in parentheses, placed in the upper left corner of each subfigure area.

All texts in the Figures (inside legends, axis legends, or others) should be in “Arial”font, using upper and lower case letters, capitalizing only the first letter of the first word (except for names, acronyms and accepted conventions). For location maps, and pictures of organisms or structures, include a scale bar with abbreviated SI units in the left bottom corner. Maps should also include latitude and longitude references.

Any black-and-white or grey-scaled Figure will be printed by RChHN without additional charge. Authors may request the publication of color figures at a rate US$ 600 per published page. However, submitted manuscripts may include color Figures, which should be replaced with regular Figures in the final printed version, but may be kept in the online version.

In the main text, authors may mark the approximate position where each Figure should be placed, noting that the final position will largely depend on design constraints.

(b) Graphs:

Axis lines must be continuous and their tickmarks positioned inside the graph. Axis legends and numbers must use at least 16 and 14 sized fonts, respectively. Units in each axis must be placed after the axis text, given in parentheses, and abbreviated according to the International System of Units; for example: “Population density (individuals m-2)”, “Body mass (g)”, “Air temperature (°C)”, “Water flow (m3 h-1)”. Dispersion measures must be identified only in Figure Legends, not in figures themselves. Legends for bar, point or line series should be placed preferably inside the graph area.

For line graphs, use a solid line for single data series, and solid, dashed and dotted line patterns for multiple data series. All lines should be black and of the same thickness.
For scatterplots and bar graphs, use: filled (black) dots/bars for single data series; open and filled (black) dots/bars for two data series; open and filled (black and grey) dots/bars for three data series. Scatterplots with multiple data series should combine open and filled (black and grey) patterns with different shapes (e.g., dots, squares, triangles). Bar graphs with more than three data series should use open, plain filled (black and grey), and contrastingly hatched bars. Black and grey patterns should be clearly contrasting.

11. Supplementary material

When pertinent, authors may submit information (generated from their research) that is relevant for complementing the contents of a given manuscript, though not necessarily essential for its understanding by referees or readers (e.g., extensive tables, data sets). In the main text of the manuscript, such information should be explicitly referred to as Supplementary material. When relevant, referees or members of the Associate Editors’ board will be asked to comment on the appropriateness of the submitted material.

Supplementary material should be submitted along with the manuscript and its cover letter, as a single file in a common or easily exportable format (e.g., PDF, doc, Excel), or compressed into a single zip or rar file when including several files in different formats. Tables and Figures should be numbered correlatively but independently from those used in the main text (e.g., Fig. S1, Table S1). They must include bilingual legends, and follow the same guidelines as for regular Tables and Figures (however, special formats might be acceptable in justified cases).

Supplementary material may be subject to peer review depending on the case (e.g., information or groups of appendices requiring validation in some respect). At the time of publication, this material will be made available online (open access).