Overview

Journal of Plant and Environmental Sciences is an open-access journal that publishes peer-reviewed papers on all aspects of plants and environment, as reviews (solicited or submitted), research articles (full length and short communications) and correspondence.

Contributions are considered for evaluation on the understanding that they are original and not being considered for publication elsewhere. Upon preliminary evaluation by an Editor, the papers are sent to referees (experts in the field) for evaluation. The decision of the Editor to publish a paper in concurrence with referee(s) opinion is considered final.

Notes:

• Your manuscript may be screened for plagiarism and similarity to published material.
• The submission to this journal is through email. Please email your manuscript to editor.plantenvironment@gmail.com in one file (in PDF (preferred) Word (.docx) formats). Cover letter as well as supplementary information should be provided as separate documents. While submitting, corresponding author should cc the manuscript to all the co-authors of the manuscript.

Free Format Submissions

• Journal of Plant and Environmental Sciences has no restrictions on the length of manuscripts, provided that the text is concise and comprehensive. Full experimental details must be provided so that the results can be reproduced.
• We do not have strict formatting requirements, but all manuscripts must contain the required sections: Author Information, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results, Conclusions, Figures and Tables with Captions, Funding Information, Author Contributions, Conflict of Interest and other Ethics Statements. Check the Author guidelines for more details.
• Your references may be in any style, provided that you use the consistent formatting throughout. It is essential to include author(s) name(s), journal or book title, article or chapter title (where required), year of publication, volume and issue (where appropriate) and pagination. DOI numbers (Digital Object Identifier) are not mandatory but highly encouraged. The accuracy of the References is the responsibility of the author(s).
• When your manuscript reaches the revision stage, you will be requested to format the manuscript according to the journal guidelines.

Author Guidelines

Instructions for authors are provided below:

Manuscript Submission Requirements Checklist

• Cover letter underlining the significance and novelty of your manuscript. In cover letter, authors must also submit the names and addresses (including email addresses) of at least 3 potential reviewers who do not have conflicts of interest with the authors or manuscript content. Whenever possible, suggest academic email addresses rather than personal email addresses.
• Manuscript as a single file (in PDF (preferred) Word (.docx) formats) with all the figures/Tables. Manuscript should be structured as described in the following sections. Supplementary information should, however, be provided separately. Your manuscript may be screened for plagiarism and similarity to published material.
• Submission to this journal is through email:editor.plantenvironment@gmail.com Please email your manuscript in one file (in PDF (preferred) Word (.docx) formats). Cover letter should be provided as a separate document. While submitting, corresponding author should cc the manuscript to all the co-authors of the manuscript.

Introduction

Journal of Plant and Environmental Sciences is an open access peer-reviewed journal devoted to a wide range of scientific and technological aspects related to plants and environment. This journal publishes Research Article, Critical Review, Short Communication, Correspondence (comment/rebuttal), and Correction/Addition (errata).

Language:

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these).

Types of articles

Research Papers are not limited in size. However, we do strongly recommend to authors to be as succinct as possible in the best interest of the readers and the dissemination of the work.

Review Papers are thoroughly documented, forward-looking comprehensive assessments of particular areas in the plant and environmental science research domain.

Short Communications have the following soft limits: the manuscript should ideally contain no more than 4-6 Figures/Tables and 4000 words, including the title page, all sections of the manuscript (including the references), and Figure/Table legends. The abstract should be limited to 200 words.

Correspondence are opinion pieces; can be either invited by an editor or volunteered. They are intended to discuss the issues related to the general readership of this journal or to address issues raised in another article published in the Journal.

Manuscript Text Components

The various sections of the manuscript are described in detail below:

• Title and Authorship
• Abstract and Keywords
• Introduction
• Materials and Methods
• Results and Discussion
• Acknowledgment
• References
• Tables and Figures (embedded in the text at the point of relevance)
• Supplementary Information (to be submitted separately)

Title: Use a brief, specific, and informative title.
Keywords: in titles assist in effective literature retrieval. If trade names are used, give generic names in parentheses.
Authorship: List the full first name, middle initial(s), and last name of each author. Omit professional and official titles. An author’s affiliation should be based on where they were when the work was performed. When the present address of an author is different, include the new information in a footnote. In a paper with more than one author, the name of the corresponding author, to whom post-publication inquiries should be addressed, carries an asterisk (*). Provide an email address for the corresponding author.

Abstract and Keywords

Abstract: A 200–300-word clear and concise abstract must accompany Research Articles, Review, and Short Communication. As a one-paragraph summary, describe the purpose, methods or procedures, significant new results, and implications. Define any abbreviations or acronyms used in the abstract. Include major quantitative data if they can be stated briefly, but do not include background material. Do not include reference numbers in the abstract.

Keywords: 5–8 keywords. Authors are encouraged to include significant keywords that do not appear in the title to expand discoverability and aid the reader in literature retrieval. The keywords are published immediately before the text, following the abstract.

Introduction: The introduction should clearly and concisely explain the motivation for the work, its importance and originality, where it fits in the development of the field and why it should be of interest to Plant and Environment readers. Discuss relationships of the study to previously published work, but do not reiterate or provide a complete literature survey.

Materials and Methods: Describe pertinent and critical factors involved in the experimental work but avoid excessive description. Details not essential for understanding the paper can be placed in Supplementary Information (SI). Specific experimental methods should be sufficiently detailed for others to repeat the experiments unequivocally. List devices of a specialized nature or instruments that may vary in performance or affect the quality of the data obtained (e.g. spectroscopic resolution), including the vendor. If the procedures are already published, provide citations to previous publications and expand only on differences in the current work. Authors must emphasize any unexpected, new, and/or significant hazards or risks associated with the reported work and this safety information must be included in the Materials and Methods section.

Results and Discussion: Be complete but concise. Discuss your findings, postulate explanations for the data, elucidate models and compare your results with those of others. Avoid irrelevant comparisons or contrasts, any speculation unsupported by the data presented and verbose discussion.

Conclusions: The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone.The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone.

Acknowledgment: Include only essential credits to acknowledge financial or professional assistance to the conduct of research. Sources of financial support must be acknowledged.

Tables and Figures: Tables and figures should be carefully designed to maximize presentation and comprehension of the experimental data with superfluous information excluded.Tables. Tables and figures should be simple, concise, and supplement, not duplicate, information presented in the text and figures. Tables and figures should be embedded in the text at the point of relevance, and be furnished with appropriate titles of one phrase or sentence. The title should be understandable without reference to the text. Tables and figures should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numbers (i.e., 1, 2, …). Each figure graphic should have good resolution, be clear, concise, and complete and use legible font. Colors may be used to enhance graphics. Graphics must meet the journal’s minimum quality standards or will be returned to authors for improvement. Any graphic (figure, chart, scheme or equation) that has appeared in an earlier publication should include a Credit Line citing the original source. Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to re-use this material.

Disclosures: The corresponding author must reveal any potential and/or relevant competing financial or other interest (of all authors) that might be affected by publication of the results contained in the manuscript. Potential conflicts of interest and sources of funding of the research reported must be clearly stated at the time of manuscript submission and included in the Acknowledgments. If no potential for a conflict of interest is declared, the following statement will be published in the article: “The authors declare no competing financial interest.”

References: Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). If more than one reference by the same author(s) published in the same year are cited, they should be distinguished from each other by placing a, b, etc. after the year, References at the end of paper should be alphabetically arranged. Names of all authors should be included.
There are no strict requirements on reference formatting at submission. References can be in any style or format as long as the style is consistent. Where applicable, author(s) name(s), journal title/book title, chapter title/article title, year of publication, volume number/book chapter and the article number or pagination must be present. Use of DOI is highly encouraged. The authors would be requested to follow the reference style used by the journal at the revision stage according to the following examples:

Reference style

Text: All citations in the text should refer to:

1. Single author: the author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity) and the year of publication.
2. Two authors: both authors' names and the year of publication.
3. Three or more authors: first author's name followed by 'et al.' and the year of publication.Citations may be made directly (or parenthetically). Groups of references can be listed either first alphabetically, then chronologically, or vice versa

Examples:

'As demonstrated (Allan, 2000a, 2000b, 1999; Allan and Jones, 1999)…. Or, as demonstrated (Jones, 1999; Allan, 2000)… Kramer et al. (2010) have recently shown …'

List:

References should be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication.

Examples:

Reference to a journal publication: Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J.A.J., Lupton, R.A., 2010. The art of writing a scientific article. J. Sci. Commun. 163, 51–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.Sc.2010.00372.

Reference to a journal publication with an article number: Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J.A.J., Lupton, R.A., 2018. The art of writing a scientific article. Heliyon. 19, e00205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e00205.

Reference to a book: Strunk Jr., W., White, E.B., 2000. The Elements of Style, fourth ed. Longman, New York.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book: Mettam, G.R., Adams, L.B., 2009. How to prepare an electronic version of your article, in: Jones, B.S., Smith , R.Z. (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age. E-Publishing Inc., New York, pp. 281–304.

Reference to a website: Cancer Research UK, 1975. Cancer statistics reports for the UK. http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/aboutcancer/statistics/cancerstatsreport/ (accessed 13 March 2003).

Reference to a dataset: [dataset] Oguro, M., Imahiro, S., Saito, S., Nakashizuka, T., 2015. Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions. Mendeley Data, v1. https://doi.org/10.17632/xwj98nb39r.1.

Reference to software: Coon, E., Berndt, M., Jan, A., Svyatsky, D., Atchley, A., Kikinzon, E., Harp, D., Manzini, G., Shelef, E., Lipnikov, K., Garimella, R., Xu, C., Moulton, D., Karra, S., Painter, S., Jafarov, E., & Molins, S., 2020. Advanced Terrestrial Simulator (ATS) v0.88 (Version 0.88). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3727209.

Supplementary information

Authors are encouraged to use Supplementary Information (SI) to present ancillary data and material of interest mainly to specialists, as a way to shorten the text of research manuscripts. This information is provided to the reviewers during the peer-review process and is available to readers of the published work. Supporting Information must be submitted separately at the same time as the manuscript.

Editorial Policies

Peer Review

All manuscripts submitted are handled by the Editor-in-Chief and/or editors to firstly evaluate the content and format of the paper. Manuscripts that meet editorial expectations are sent for external review to experts in the field. Editors select reviewers, monitor the progress of the review process, evaluate the comments of reviewers and forward them to the authors for their response, communicating ultimate acceptance or rejection to the corresponding author and carrying out a final check of accepted manuscripts. Authors must also submit the names and addresses (including email addresses) of at least 3 potential reviewers who do not have conflicts of interest with the authors or manuscript content. Whenever possible, suggest academic email addresses rather than personal email addresses. However, the Editors are under no obligation to use specific individuals. Reviewers are requested to provide their assessment within two to three weeks. Anonymous copies of the reviews and the Editor’s decision regarding the acceptability of the manuscript are sent to the corresponding author.

Submitting Revised Manuscripts and Response to Reviewers

Following the peer review of your manuscript, the corresponding author may be requested to perform either a major or a minor revision of the manuscript in order to fully satisfy all peer review comments. If you are submitting a revised manuscript (or an authorized resubmission of a manuscript that was already peer reviewed), you must submit point-by-point responses to each of the comments of the reviewers. We recommend that you copy the reviewer’s comment into the text immediately prior to your response.
It would be essential to provide an annotated copy of the revised manuscript where all the changes are marked.