About the Journal

The Journal of Sociedad Argentina de Botánica (Bol. Soc. Argent. Bot.) is the research dissemination service of the Sociedad Argentina de Botánica (SAB), a non-profit civil association. It publishes original scientific works and reviews of the entire spectrum of Plant Biology (structure, anatomy, development, taxonomy, systematics, physiology, cytology, genetics, evolution, phytogeography, ecology, paleobotany, palynology, phytogeography, ethnobotany, etc.) in the different plant organisms and related groups (mycology, ficology, lichenology, briology, etc.), both in basic and applied aspects. It is published quarterly in electronic and printed format.

The Bulletin is incorporated to the Basic Nucleus of Argentine scientific journals and Scielo (Scientific Electronic Library On Line) and is cited in Science Citation Index Expanded, Current Contents (Agriculture, Biology & Environmental Sciences), Scopus, AGRICOLA, Index to American Botanical literature, Periódica, Latindex, Excerpta Botanica, The Kew Record of Taxonomic Literature, CAB (Center for Agriculture and Bioscience International), Biosis Previews, Biological Abstracts.

Identification

The Bol Soc. Argent. Bot. is owned by the Sociedad Argentina de Botánica. Legal Address: Av. Angel Gallardo 470, CABA. Argentina.
Argentine Society of Botany. The deposit established by Law 11.723 has been made.
Contact: boletinsab@gmail.com
Abbreviation: Bol. Soc. Argent. Bot.
ISSN printed version 0373-580X // ISSN on-line version 1851-2372

Director/Chief Editor

ANA MARIA GONZALEZ
Instituto de Botánica del Nordeste, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Téncia, Universidad Nacional del Nordeste, Corrientes, Argentina // http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9311-0967  // anaboletinsab@gmail.com

Index

The Bulletin is incorporated to the Basic Nucleus of Argentine scientific journals and Scielo (Scientific Electronic Library On Line) and is cited in Science Citation Index Expanded, Latindex, Current Contents (Agriculture, Biology & Environmental Sciences), Scopus, AGRICOLA, Index to American Botanical literature, Periódica, Excerpta Botanica, The Kew Record of Taxonomic Literature, CAB (Center for Agriculture and Bioscience International), Biosis Previews, Biological Abstracts. Articles published in issues 40 and up are available at www.scielo.org.ar 
All articles and volumes have individual DOI (Digital Object Identifier) provided by CROSSREF.

Archive

This journal uses the LOCKSS system to create an archive distributed among participating libraries, allowing those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for preservation and restoration purposes.
Authors of Argentine nationality must provide the data supporting the research and its deposit, in accordance with Law No. 26,899, Institutional Repositories of Open Access. https://www.argentina.gob.ar/normativa/nacional/ley-26899-223459

JOURNAL POLICIES

Focus and scope

Bol. Soc. Argent. Bot. publishes original scientific works from the whole spectrum of Plant Biology (structure, anatomy, development, physiology, cytology, genetics, evolution, ecology, paleobotany, palynology, ethnobotany, etc.) in the diverse vegetable organisms and related groups (mycology, ficology, lichenology, briology, etc.), both in basic and applied aspects.

Taxonomic works (of systematics, phylogeny, monographs, revisions, lectotypifications, nomenclatural acts, descriptions of taxa), phytogeographic and phytosociological works (survey and classification of vegetation at different spatial scales and without restriction of methodological approaches) are considered for publication. Contributions that address complete phytogeographic units or sub-units and those that fill gaps in knowledge of vegetation in little-known territories are especially welcome. Extensions of geographical areas are published only when it comes to new citations for a country. Checklists and lists of annotated plants are not published.

Articles submitted for publication must be original and must not have been submitted to another publisher or previously published (print or electronic format). Submissions of papers already published in another language will not be accepted (autoplagio for translation).

Contributions accepted will be in the form of articles or reviews, in Spanish, Portuguese or English. Original research and studies will comprise 85% of the journal's content. The remaining % may include review articles, techniques or obituaries. The Bol. Soc. Argent.Bot. does not publish works of divulgation, for which the SAB has the publication "FOLIUM".

Frequency of publication: A volume is published with four issues per year (March, June, September, December). The accepted contributions will be in the form of articles or revisions, in Spanish, Portuguese or English.

Fees and Forms of Payment

The SAB MEMBERS with a daily fee have the benefit of publishing for free in the Bol. Soc. Argent. Bot, without limit of pages for work, nor of works to the year. Members with overdue dues must catch up before their work is published.
NON-MEMBERS of the SAB: Each of the authors of a work that is not a member must pay the equivalent of an annual active member fee, before their work is published.
The journal does not charge costs to submit and process articles. In the digital edition of the Bulletin the colored figures do not have cost, in the printed version the same ones will be in gray scales and without extra cost. Payment must be made at the time the article has been accepted for publication by the Editorial Committee, prior to publication. Form of on-line payment through the Mercado Pago system (Debit or Credit Cards, Cash through authorized merchants throughout the country, or via Red Link Transfer, consult the society's web page).

Peer review process

Manuscripts received at the Bol. Soc. Argent. Bot. are evaluated in the first instance by the Editorial Committee to i) verify their originality and pertinence to the scope of the journal and ii) adequacy to the instructions for the authors. If it corresponds by subject matter and originality but does not adapt to the instructions for the authors, the manuscript will be returned to the correspondence author for correction.  The Editorial Committee may reject manuscripts directly without recourse to reviewers, if it does not consider them relevant, or if it presents evidence of fraud. When the fulfilment of the required conditions has been verified, this date is recorded as receipt of the manuscript and an Editor is assigned, specialized in the subject matter of the article. The Editor sends the manuscript to a minimum of two referees or anonymous reviewers, in a single-blind system. The reviewers are specialists with experience in the subject matter of the research work, external to the editorial board, who have a maximum of 6 weeks to return corrections and suggestions. The list of referees is published in the last issue of each year.

Special attention is paid to the interest of new contributions to knowledge. When the opinions of the reviewers are divergent, a third reviewer will be consulted, leaving the final decision to the editors. The response of the referees may be: (a) Accept submission, (b) Publishable with modifications, (c) Reassessable (in its current version the work is not acceptable and must be resubmitted, initiating the process of review by specialists) or (d) Non-publishable. The observations and criticisms of the arbitrators are evaluated by the Editor, who informs the correspondence author in writing of the result of the evaluation, together with editorial observations.

If it is evaluated as "Publishable with modifications" the authors must forward a modified version to the journal in a maximum time of 5 (five) weeks, so that the Editorial Committee together with the reviewers can analyze the manuscript again. This manuscript must have the changes made highlighted in yellow. 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' reflections, and on compliance with ethical standards and good practices.

Accepted manuscripts are published according to the order in which they are received.

If the originality of the material is suspected, the Editorial Committee may check the manuscript for plagiarism using tools provided by Google. In cases where it is verified, the manuscript will be returned without evaluation and without the possibility of resubmission. Plagiarism (the use of identical phrases from previously published works by the same author) is also not acceptable and will be controlled by the Editorial Board (more information below in SAB Ethics and Editorial Statement of Good Practice).

If copyrighted material is reproduced in the manuscript, its full attribution must be provided in the text and proof of permission sent to the Editorial Committee, this being the responsibility of the authors.

Open access policy, copyright and self-archiving

The Bol. Soc. Argent. Bot..:

  • It provides immediate and free OPEN ACCESS to its content under the principle of making research freely available to the public, which fosters a greater exchange of global knowledge.
  •  It allows authors of published works to maintain their copyright without restrictions. Material published in Bol. Soc. Argent. Bot. is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. More information at http://oca.unc.edu.ar/derechos-de-autor/
  •  Adheres to the Budapest Open Access Initiative's definition of open access, BOAI https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org, providing free Internet availability, allowing any use https://www.argentina.gob.ar/normativa/nacional/ley-26899-223459r to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link the full texts of their articles. The only limitation on reproduction and distribution and the sole role of copyright in this domain should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.
  •  It allows free of charge the partial or total reuse of its content and illustrations, attributing the original source to the author/res and to the journal.
  •  It allows and recommends the self-archiving of contributions in their final version (post-print), immediately after their on-line publication, both in personal websites of authors (Facebook, ResearchGate, Academia.edu, etc.) and in institutional websites. 

Preservation policy

Argentina adheres to the Open Access Policy through Law No. 26899: "Creation of Institutional Digital Repositories of Open, Own or Shared Access", December 2013. https://www.argentina.gob.ar/normativa/nacional/ley-26899-223459. This Law and its regulations determine that researchers, teachers, postdoctoral fellows and master and doctoral students whose research activity is financed with public funds, must deposit or expressly authorize the deposit of a copy of the final version of their scientific-technological production published or accepted for publication in the open-access digital repositories of their institutions, within a period of no more than six (6) months from the date of its official publication or approval (Art.5).  The primary research data must be deposited within a period of no more than five (5) years from the time of collection, in accordance with the policies established by the institutions.

The materials published in this journal are deposited in the Repository of the National University of Córdoba, which ensures the automatic backups and remote copies, format adjustments, integrity checks and other activities required to ensure digital preservation are carried out through the repository.  The UNC is part of the National System of Digital Repositories of the Argentine Republic. Both the University Digital Repository and the Portal of Magazines have adhered to the system. It also complies with the Guidelines for Content Providers of the National System of Digital Repositories of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation. More information at http://oca.unc.edu.ar/normativas

Ethics of the SAB and Editorial Declaration of Good Practices

This magazine adheres to COPE (Code of Conduct and Best Practices Guidelines for Journals Editors, https://publicationethics.org/files/Spanish%20%281%29.pdf) and the recommendations of the San Francisco Declaration (DORA, https://sfdora.org) to guarantee good practices regarding the evaluation of academic productions.

All members of the Editorial Committee, Reviewers, Technical Staff involved in the editorial process and Authors are committed to respecting the objectives and ethics of the Argentine Botanical Society.

For Authors

  • Authorship and contribution: Authors are those who have made a substantial contribution to the design, data acquisition, analysis, writing, or interpretation of data from the reported study. In addition, the authors as a whole agree to be responsible for all content, accuracy and completeness, including those parts of the study in which the author has not personally participated.
    The role(s) of all authors should be indicated at the end of the article; it is suggested to adopt the CRediT categories (https://casrai.org/credit).
    The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all parts of the work are accurate and all authors agree to the presentation. It is also responsible for sharing with all authors the suggestions of reviewers and editors.
    It is recommended to avoid "honorary" authors (people with relevant backgrounds included, even if they did not participate in the study) or "ghost" authors (researchers who actually participated in the study, but were excluded due to conflicts of interest).
  • Originality: Authors should send original articles, written by those who declare their authorship, and unpublished, specially prepared for publication in the Bulletin of the Argentine Botanical Society, which should not have been published in the same or another language in any print or electronic media and should not be in another editorial process. Congress abstracts and doctoral theses are not considered as prior publication. The underlying data must be accurately represented in the work. An investigation must have enough details, references and citations to allow the reproducibility of the study. The taxa involved in the study should be deposited in a Herbarium registered in Index Herbariorum, and their data mentioned in Materials and Methods.
    The Editorial Committee will submit the manuscript to anti-plagiarism software and content similarity verification, to check the originality of the manuscript, and identify the presence of serious infringements of intellectual property (inadequate citation, altered or self-plagiarism). Upon receipt of a manuscript, searches are made on the Internet for other works by the authors, title, excerpts from the abstract, and the results. Evaluators, as subject matter specialists, are asked to repeat this task. Fraudulent or deliberately inaccurate statements constitute unethical and unacceptable behaviour. Authors should not fabricate or manipulate data (including images) to support their conclusions. In cases where it is verified, the manuscript will be returned without evaluation and without the possibility of resubmission.
    Image integrity: Only manipulation of images such as brightness, contrast, or color balance adjustments is acceptable as long as they are applied to the entire image; it is not acceptable to enhance, darken, move, remove, or introduce a specific feature within an image.
    The Bol.Soc.Argent.Bot. will not accept fragmentation of research: if a study is complex, it should be presented in a single paper and not divided into two or more individual publications in order to increase the number of presentations through submission to several journals or to one journal over time. If an article has already been published and the authors (or some of them) send another work where the fragmentation of results or "salami slicing" is evidenced, the same will be rejected by the editorial committee.  Papers with "1st part" or similar text in the title or in the manuscript will not be accepted.
    Fundamental errors in published works: When an author discovers an error or inaccuracy in his or her own published work, it is his or her obligation to immediately notify the editor of the journal and cooperate with him or her in publishing a retraction or correcting the work (erratum).
  • Plagiarism: Authors should avoid extensive textual copies of other works or books, if strictly necessary, it is advisable to use quotation marks and the text in italics along with the corresponding citation.
    The use of phrases from previously published works by the same author is considered plagiarism (autoplagiarism), which could even constitute a violation of copyright laws.
    If you reproduce copyrighted material (texts, images, photographs), or unpublished data belonging to other authors must be indicated in the text and send proof of permission to the Editorial Committee, which must be submitted before the work is accepted, 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.

Ethics for the Editor and Editorial Committee Members

Editors shall evaluate the scientific content and merits of manuscripts solely on the basis of rigorous intellectual content without regard to the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnicity, citizenship or political philosophy. They will also ensure that the peer review process is fair and impartial by selecting suitable and impartial reviewers.

The editors and all staff involved in the editorial process guarantee the confidentiality of the data of both authors and reviewers as well as information about a manuscript submitted to the Bol. Soc. Argent. Bot. The editors will inform and apologize for any conflict of interest. To avoid conflicts of interest, editors should take into account funding sources and author affiliation to choose evaluators who do not belong to those specific circles. They will also not use unpublished information for their own personal benefit or research.

Ethics for Reviewers

The reviewers collaborate with the editor on editorial decisions and are committed to evaluating the manuscript honestly, objectively and critically in order to help the author improve the article. Reviewers must carefully evaluate the intellectual content of the submitted manuscript, including research methodology and procedures, taking into account the same ethical and confidentiality recommendations expressed in "for editors. Reviewers should communicate to the editor conflicts of interest, or inability to review the manuscript promptly, or indicate lack of suitability or experience to review the manuscript. Reviewers should avoid suggesting citations from their own articles in order to expand citations from their own or their research group. Reviewers should report suspected plagiarism or ethical non-compliance.