About Frontiers in Zoology

What is Frontiers in Zoology?

Frontiers in Zoology is an Open Access, peer-reviewed, online journal publishing high quality research articles and reviews on all aspects of animal life.

As a biological discipline, zoology has one of the longest histories. Today it occasionally appears as though, due to the rapid expansion of life sciences, zoology has been replaced by more or less independent sub-disciplines amongst which exchange is often sparse. However, the recent advance of molecular methodology into "classical" fields of biology, and the development of theories that can explain phenomena on different levels of organisation, has led to a re-integration of zoological disciplines promoting a broader than usual approach to zoological questions. Zoology has re-emerged as an integrative discipline encompassing the most diverse aspects of animal life, from the level of the gene to the level of the ecosystem.

Frontiers in Zoology is the first Open Access journal focussing on zoology as a whole. It aims to represent and re-unite the various disciplines that look at animal life from different perspectives and at providing the basis for a comprehensive understanding of zoological phenomena on all levels of analysis. Frontiers in Zoology provides a unique opportunity to publish high quality research and reviews on zoological issues that will be internationally accessible to any reader at no cost.

The journal was initiated and is supported by the Deutsche Zoologische Gesellschaft, one of the largest national zoological societies with more than a century-long tradition in promoting high-level zoological research.

Content overview

Frontiers in Zoology considers the following types of articles:

• Research articles - reports of data from original research.
• Book reviews - short summaries of the strengths and weaknesses of a book. They should evaluate its overall usefulness to the intended audience.
• Commentaries - short, focused and opinionated articles on any subject within the scope of the journal. These articles are usually related to a contemporary issue, such as recent research findings, and are often written by opinion leaders invited by the Editorial Board.
• Debate articles - present an argument that is not essentially based on practical research. Debate articles can report on all aspects of the subject including sociological and ethical aspects.
• Hypotheses - short articles presenting an untested original hypothesis backed solely by previously published results rather than any new evidence. They outline significant progress in thinking that would also be testable.
• Methodology articles - present a new experimental method, test or procedure. The method may either be completely new, or may offer a better version of an existing method. The article must describe a demonstrable advance on what is currently available.
• Reviews - comprehensive, authoritative descriptions of any subject within the scope of Frontiers in Zoology. These articles are usually written by opinion leaders invited by the Editorial Board.
• Short reports - brief reports of data from original research.

Peer review policies

Manuscripts submitted to Frontiers in Zoology will initially be assessed for suitability by an Editor-in-Chief, and then allocated to the appropriate Section Editor. Any member of the Editorial Board may be contacted in advance to determine whether a manuscript is within the scope of the journal. The Research Editor will assign suitable referees to the manuscript. The final decision on a manuscript will be taken by one of the Editors-in-Chief, based on the recommendation of the Research Editor and the referees' reports.

Edited by Jürgen Heinze and Diethard Tautz, Frontiers in Zoology is supported by an expert Editorial Board.

Publishing in Frontiers in Zoology

All articles are listed in PubMed immediately upon acceptance (after peer review), and are covered by PubMed Central, Thomson Reuters (ISI), CAS and Embase.

Articles in Frontiers in Zoology should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. However, because articles in this journal are not printed, they do not have page numbers. Instead, they have a unique article number.

The following citation:

Front Zool 2004, 2:1

refers to article 1 from volume 2 of the journal.

As an online journal, Frontiers in Zoology does not have issue numbers. Each volume corresponds to a calendar year.

To keep up to date with the latest articles from Frontiers in Zoology, why not register to receive alerts? Registration also enables you to customise your subject areas of interest, store your searches, and submit your manuscripts.

Submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to Frontiers in Zoology using the online submission system. Full details of how to submit a manuscript are given in the instructions for authors.

General journal policies

Frontiers in Zoology is published by BioMed Central, an independent publisher committed to ensuring peer-reviewed biomedical research is open access. That means it is freely and universally accessible online, it is archived in at least one internationally recognised free access repository, and its authors retain copyright, allowing anyone to reproduce or disseminate articles, according to the BioMed Central copyright and licence agreement. Frontiers in Zoology however, has taken this further by making all its content open access.

Frontiers in Zoology's articles are archived in PubMed Central, the US National Library of Medicine's full-text repository of life science literature, and also at INIST in France and in e-Depot, the National Library of the Netherlands' digital archive of all electronic publications. The journal is also participating in the British Library's e-journals pilot project, and plans to deposit copies of all articles with the British Library.

BioMed Central is working closely with Thomson Reuters (ISI) to ensure that citation analysis of articles published in Frontiers in Zoology will be available.

Frontiers in Zoology is able to deliver summaries of frequently updated content via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. These are accessible via the orange "XML" button at the top of the list of recent articles or the list of most accessed articles. For more information about RSS feeds see our publisher's website.

For further information about general policies please see the instructions for authors.