Scope | Submission guidelines | Article types | Manuscript preparation | Ethical Standards | Research Transparency and Reproducibility | Statistical Guidelines | Supplementary Material | BioImage Archive | Peer Community In Friendly Journal

Scope

Quantitative Plant Biology provides an interdisciplinary forum for high quality research on ground-breaking discoveries and predictions in quantitative plant science, such as.

• Multiscale (molecule to population) dynamics
• Variability, noise and stochasticity
• Nonlinearities and feedback loops
• Biochemical and mechanical signalling synergies
• Growth, patterning and developmental robustness
• Systems approaches for sustainability
• New theories and hypotheses

These questions can now be addressed thanks to quantitative approaches:

• Quantitative interactions and dynamics (systems biology approaches), e.g. molecular network dynamics and stochasticity, feedback mechanisms, cell biology, morphogenesis, physiology and morphodynamics
• Correlative data generating robust predictions (BigData approaches), e.g. co-expression analysis, deep-learning, statistical approaches to imaging and modelling (mathematical, statistical, computational) and ecosystem sustainability
• Large dataset resources (high throughput approaches), e.g. natural variation, (epi)genetics, “-omics”, morphometry and biomechanics

The journal welcomes submissions at all biological scales (from molecular through cellular and organismal to populations) and from a wide range of sources (from lab to field). The journal also welcomes the submission of quantitative studies involving citizen science (see dedicated article format).

The core of the publication strategy will be to enhance our quantitative understanding of how plants function from a physiological and evolutionary perspective.

Submission guidelines

All new submissions should be submitted online via the journal’s ScholarOne site.  

Article types

Publications can take the form not only of more traditional research and review articles, but will also include three new forms, in line with the quantitative focus:

• Theories: building on meta-analysis of publicly available data and/or exploratory concept opening on testable hypotheses with quantitative approaches
• Citizen science papers: building on very large datasets across wide regions from non scientists, co-written with scientists
• Insights: highlights from the literature in quantitative plant biology selected and critically analyzed by early career researchers (i.e. up to 7 year post PhD)

Article Type	Limits	Description
Original research article	The main text of an original research article, should be no longer than necessary (2000-5000 words for a long-form article). Articles should contain no more than five display items (figures or tables).	A research article is an original piece of research with strong, well-supported conclusions that mark a significant advance in understanding and global implications.  The text should be divided into the following sections: introduction, methods, results and discussion.
Theories	The length of Theories should be 2000-5000 words.	These articles focus on new concepts. They either build on meta-analysis of publicly available data to extract overarching trends or question existing dogma thanks to quantitative analyses. The Theory format is also intended for papers that employ computational, theoretical, or analytical approaches to derive novel conceptual models that make quantitative predictions that are experimentally testable. The text should be divided into the following sections: discussion (with supporting data) and conclusion.
Citizen science	The length of Citizen science papers should be 2000-5000 words.	Research providing quantitative insight into new questions, from heterogeneous data collected by professional as well as amateur scientists in local communities, schools, farms or more globally through their network.
Reviews	The length of Reviews should be 2000-5000 words. Reviews should contain no more than five display items (figures or tables).	A review article should provide a balanced overview of a given topic. We welcome descriptive reviews (e.g. on model systems or computational models), in particular when they include relevant quantifications, and their critical analysis. The text should be divided into coherent sections.
Classics	The length of Classics should be 2000 words. The abstract should not exceed 150 words. They should include one figure.	Highlights seminal, well cited and more than 20 years old articles from the literature in quantitative plant biology selected and critically analyzed by leaders in the field.
Perspective	The length of Perspectives should be 2000-5000 words. The abstract should not exceed 150 words.	Perspective articles value creative and interdisciplinary approaches as well as prospective questions and viewpoints related to quantitative plant biology. The text format is flexible.
Insights	The length of Insights should be 2000 words. They should include one figure.	Highlights from the literature in quantitative plant biology selected and critically analyzed by early career researchers (i.e. up to 7 year post PhD)

Note: for all article types, the word count excludes the abstract, tables, figures, references, required statements and keywords

Manuscript Preparation

For initial submissions, you do not need to strictly adhere to our formatting guidelines below. However, we do ask that you stay close to our overall length restrictions.  At this stage you do not need to have formatted the references or adhered to our abstract length limit. However, we do need you to include a graphical abstract at initial submission stage - see 'Abstract & Graphical Abstract' section below for more information, and manuscripts need to be provided in an editable format (word for the text; and tiff or eps files for figures). If you are submitting in Latex, please supply all the Latex files and an accompanying PDF (to show typesetter how it is meant to look).

Title page

The title page should include:

• The title of the article, which should be short (preferably up to 12 words) but informative and accurately reflect the content.
• Authors’ names and contact details: please list a brief affiliation for each author with country included (assigned with superscript numbers) below the author names, and in addition, indicate the corresponding author with an asterisk and in this case provide an email address
• Word count, including all text but excluding tables, figures and references.

Abstract and Graphical Abstract

Abstracts (150 words max) should summarize the background, findings, and implications of the work.

In addition to the standard abstract, submission of graphical abstracts is also mandatory for all articles to help promote their impact online. 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 or a combination thereof. The graphical abstracts will be used both for Twitter promotion, and will be 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. Graphical abstracts should be clear and easy for the viewer to read, and should illustrate the main pointers of your manuscript. The Editors will decide if your Graphical Abstract is satisfactory or needs improvement but this will not determine the result of the peer-review findings. 

We recommend that only TIFF, EPS or PDF formats are used for electronic artwork. 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.

Text

For all types of articles, please make sure the manuscript is presented with figures incorporated in roughly the correct place if possible, with legends. Also please submit a document with numbered lines.  All these requests are made to facilitate the reviewing process.

Keywords

During submission, you will be asked to include a minimum of three keywords.

Figures and tables

For guidance on producing figures and tables, please visit the Cambridge Journals Artwork Guide.

References

References and citations should be formatted correctly in journal style when the article is submitted to the journal but formatting is not grounds for rejection at the submitting phase.

References in text should be cited by the author(s) surname(s) and the year of publication (e.g. Smith, 2012). References with two authors should be cited with both surnames (e.g. Smith and Wright, 2013). References with three or more authors should be cited with the first author followed by et al. (in italics; e.g. Smith et al.).

‘Unpublished observations’ and ‘personal communications’ may not be used as references, although references to written, not oral, communications may be inserted (in parentheses) in the text. Include among the references articles accepted but not yet published, or published online only (please supply Digital Object Identifier [DOI] reference, if known); designate the journal and add ‘(in press)’. For in press citations, an acceptance letter from the publisher will be required. Information from manuscripts submitted but not yet accepted should be cited in the text as ‘unpublished observations’.

The references must be verified by the author(s) against the original documents.

The references section should be in alphabetical order by the first author's surname.

Please follow the APA citation style.

 Footnotes

This journal does not accept footnotes.

Required Statements

The sections below must be included. These statements should be included at the end of the manuscript, before the References section.

a) Acknowledgements

You may acknowledge individuals or organisations that provided advice, support (non-financial). Formal financial support and funding should be listed in the Financial Support section (see below).

b) Author Contributions

A short statement should be provided indicating how each author contributed to the work. For example: AB and CD conceived and designed the study. CD and EF conducted data gathering. GH performed statistical analyses. AB, EF and GH wrote the article.

c) Financial Support

Please provide details of the sources of financial support for all authors, including grant numbers. For example, "This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (grant number XXXXXXX)". Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma and space, and where research was funded by more than one agency the different agencies should be separated by a semi-colon, with 'and' before the final funder. Grants held by different authors should be identified as belonging to individual authors by the authors' initials. For example, "This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (A.B., grant numbers XXXX, YYYY), (C.D., grant number ZZZZ); the Natural Environment Research Council (E.F., grant number FFFF); and the Australian Research Council (A.B., grant number GGGG), (E.F., grant number HHHH)".

Where no specific funding has been provided for research, please provide the following statement: "This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors." 

d) Conflicts of Interest declarations in manuscripts

Authors should include a Conflicts of Interest declaration in their manuscript. If authors do not include this, their submission will not proceed to peer review. 

• Conflicts of Interest are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on an author’s presentation of their work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations. 
• Conflicts of Interest do not necessarily mean that an author’s work has been compromised. Authors should declare any real or perceived Conflicts of Interest in order to be transparent about the context of their work. 
• If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting the manuscript must include Conflicts of Interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors. 
• Example wording for a Conflicts of Interest declaration is as follows: “Conflicts of Interest: 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 Conflicts of Interest exist, the declaration should state “Conflicts of Interest: None”. 

e) Data and Coding Availability Statement

See more details in our 'Research Transparency and Reproducibility' section below.

Ethical Standards

All Cambridge journals adhere to a set of Ethical Standards, as laid out here. 

Where research involves human and/or animal experimentation, the following statements should be included (as applicable): "The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional committees on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008." and "The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional guides on the care and use of laboratory animals."  Any other specific ethical clearance with details of the granting institution should be given in the Methods section.

We take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism, or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously.  Text taken directly or closely paraphrased from earlier published work that has not been acknowledged or referenced will be considered plagiarism.  Submitted manuscripts in which such text is identified will be withdrawn from the editorial process. If a concern is raised about possible plagiarism in an article submitted to or published in the journal, this will be investigated fully and dealt with in accordance with the COPE guidelines. We run all Quantitative Plant Biology papers through iThenticate software to screen papers for unoriginal material. 

Research Transparency and Reproducibility

Authors must follow the journal’s policy for supporting research transparency and reproducibility. Authors must make all data, materials, protocols and software available to readers without undue barriers to access. 

Data and Coding Availability Statement

Research articles must contain sufficient information to allow others to understand, verify, and replicate findings. See the journal’s policy for supporting research transparency and reproducibility for more details.

The article must contain a Data and Coding Availability Statement explaining how data and other resources were created, from where they are available, along with information about any restrictions on the accessibility of data and other resources.

Quantitative hypothesis testing (Bayesian or frequentist) should be used throughout and code should be made available to promote reproducibility.

Statistical Guidelines

Please can you consider the questions below in relation to the statistical data in your paper. We recommend that where possible the answers to the questions below should be 'yes': 

• Is the exact sample size for each experimental group/condition given? 
• Is the number of replications of each experiment given? 
• Is the null model described for each hypothesis test? 
• Are negative controls included for computational as well as  experimental analyses?
• Are the requirements for each statistical test used explicitly met  (especially t-test, requiring normal distributions with equal  variances), including whether one- or two-sided tests are used? 
• Are multiple comparisons appropriately accounted for?
• If p-values are used, are they given as specific values, not inequalities? 
• Are averages defined as mean/median/other? 
• Are error bars defined as s.d. / s.e.m. / other? 
• Are the actual datapoints, or distribution structure, underlying a  summary statistic plotted? 
• Is every absence of evidence interpreted as such, and not as an  evidence of absence?'

Supplementary Material

Additional material (e.g. data sets, large tables) relevant to the article can be submitted with your manuscript for publication online, where they are made available via a link from the article. Supplementary material can take the form of a Word document, Excel file or image. The article should stand alone without these data. Supplementary Material must be cited in a relevant place in the text of the article.

Please note that (unlike figures included in the printed article) captions or legends should be included for all figures and tables in Supplementary Material. You should number figures or tables with the prefix ‘S’, e.g. Supplementary Figure S1, Supplementary Table S1. Colour images for online publication as Supplementary Material must be saved in RGB format (not CMYK).

Supplementary Material is not checked, copyedited or typeset after acceptance and it is loaded onto the journal’s website exactly as supplied. You should check your Supplementary Material carefully to ensure that it adheres to journal styles. Corrections cannot be made to the Supplementary Material after acceptance of the manuscript. Please bear this in mind when deciding what content to include as Supplementary Material.

Journal Style

Authors should note the following:

• S.I. units should be used throughout in text, figures and tables.
• Authors should spell out in full any abbreviations used in their manuscripts.
• Foreign quotations and phrases should be followed by a translation.

References

References and citations should be formatted correctly in journal style when the article is submitted to the journal but formatting is not grounds for rejection at the submitting phase.

References in text should be cited by the author(s) surname(s) and the year of publication (e.g. Smith, 2012). References with two authors should be cited with both surnames (e.g. Smith and Wright, 2013). References with three or more authors should be cited with the first author followed by et al. (in italics; e.g. Smith et al.).

‘Unpublished observations’ and ‘personal communications’ may not be used as references, although references to written, not oral, communications may be inserted (in parentheses) in the text. Include among the references articles accepted but not yet published, or published online only (please supply Digital Object Identifier [DOI] reference, if known); designate the journal and add ‘(in press)’. For in press citations, an acceptance letter from the publisher will be required. Information from manuscripts submitted but not yet accepted should be cited in the text as ‘unpublished observations’.

The references must be verified by the author(s) against the original documents.

The references section should be in alphabetical order by the first author's surname.

Please follow the APA citation style. Research articles should not exceed 75 references in the main text, and reviews should not exceed 150 references. 

Footnotes

This journal does not accept footnotes.

Author Language Services

Cambridge recommends that authors have their manuscripts checked by an English language native speaker before submission; this will ensure that submissions are judged at peer review exclusively on academic merit. We list a number of third-party services specialising in language editing and/or translation, and suggest that authors contact as appropriate. Use of any of these services is voluntary, and at the author's own expense.

Production - Further Details 

For further information on this journal, please see our Production FAQs. 

BioImage Archive

The BioImage Archive (BIA) stores and distributes biological images that are useful to life sciences researchers. It also provides data archiving services to the broader bioimaging database community including added-value bioimaging data resources such as EMPIAR, Cell-IDR and Tissue-IDR. 

• Please note that any changes to links to images or references to images on BioImage Archive must be completed before publication of the article. The record cannot be corrected after publication of the paper.
• To use the BioImage Archive site, authors can submit their data and receive an accession identifier, which can then be referenced in the publication and released at the same time. The BIA can also link from the dataset to its associated publication. Please see the instructions on submission here.
• Linking to the whole dataset or individual image files is possible at the moment. Linking/visualisation of subcomponents of images (for example particular 2D planes within a 3D image) is not currently possible.
• There are no associated charges for using the BioImage Archive.
• The BioImage Archive can provide metrics on both whole dataset and individual file access - the frequency of these metrics is to be determined.

Peer Community In Recommended Preprints

Quantitative Plant Biology is now a Peer Community In friendly journal. If you have a PCI recommended preprint that you would like to be considered for publication in Quantitative Plant Biology please can you indicate this clearly in your cover letter to the journal, and also tick the relevant tickbox question about PCI when submitting your paper in ScholarOne.