Duties of the Publisher

The journal does not publish any advertisement. Commercial revenue as processing charges etc,
has no impact or influence on editorial decisions.

Duties of Editors

The editor of a learned journal is solely and independently responsible for deciding which of
the articles submitted to the journal should be published, often working in conjunction with
the Indian Ecological Society. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers (or
society officers) in making these decisions.

The editorial policies of the journal encourage transparency and complete, honest reporting,
and the editor will ensure that peer reviewers and authors have a clear understanding of what
is expected of them. The editor shall use only the journal’s standard electronic submission
system for all journal communications.

The editor shall protect the confidentiality of all material submitted to the journal and all
communications with reviewers, unless otherwise agreed with the relevant authors and
reviewers.

Peer Review

The editor shall ensure that the peer review process is fair, unbiased, and timely. Research
articles must typically be reviewed by at least two external and independent reviewers, and
where necessary the editor should seek additional opinions.

Journal follows a single anonymized review process. Your submission will initially be
assessed by our editors to determine suitability for publication in this journal. If your
submission is deemed suitable, it will typically be sent to two reviewers for an independent
expert assessment of the scientific quality. In case of contradictory review reports from two
reviewers, editor will send the manuscript to third reviewer. The final decision as to whether
your article is accepted or rejected will be taken by our editors.

The editor shall select reviewers who have suitable expertise in the relevant field. The editor
shall follow best practice in avoiding the selection of fraudulent peer reviewers. The editor
shall review all disclosures of potential conflicts of interest and suggestions for self-citation
made by reviewers to determine whether there is any potential for bias.

Duties of Reviewers

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate
and reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Reviewers should declare potential conflicts of interest to the editor before agreeing to review
a manuscript and should discuss with the editor whether they need to recuse themselves
because there may be a concern of potential bias. Examples of potential conflicts of interest
include (but are not limited to) collaborations between the reviewer and author(s) in the
previous three years, reviewers and author(s) who are based in the same institution, and
reviewers and authors who have close personal relationships or associations.

Reviewers should not suggest citations to the reviewer’s (or their associates’) own work
unless the suggested citations are for genuine scientific reasons and not with the intention of
increasing the reviewer’s citation count or enhancing the visibility of their work (or that of
their associates). Editors may remove inappropriate citations from reviewer comments.

Reviewers must not share the review or information about the paper with anyone or contact
the authors directly without permission from the editor. Reviewers must also respect the
confidentiality of the peer review process.

Reviewers must not use AI to write reviews and must disclose any AI use and remain
personally accountable for the review's content.

Duties of Authors

Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain
sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable. All
manuscripts submitted to the journal will be checked for plagiarism.

Authors will be asked to provide the research data supporting their paper for editorial review
and/or to comply with the open data requirements of the journal. Authors should be prepared
to retain data for a reasonable number of years ( at least 3 years) after publication.

Authors should ensure not having indulged in any research misconduct and must follow
publication ethics. Author(s) should not submit for consideration in another journal a paper
that has been published previously, except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published
lecture or academic thesis or as an electronic preprint.

Authorship of the paper

Authorship criteria: Authors should only be listed on a manuscript if they have made a
significant contribution to the research and the writing of the manuscript. Please follow the
ICMJE definition of the author ship (please see
https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-
authors-and-contributors.html). All authors should agree to the final version of the manuscript
and its submission for publication.

Author contributions

Corresponding authors are required to acknowledge each author’s contributions using:

  • Conceptualization
  • Data curation
  • Formal analysis
  • Funding acquisition
  • Investigation
  • Methodology
  • Project administration
  • Resources
  • Software
  • Supervision
  • Validation
  • Visualization
  • Writing – original draft
  • Writing – review and editing.
     

Generative AI or use of AI tools in writing , figures/ images and artwork

The journal does not permit the use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools to create or alter
images in submitted manuscripts.

Author(s) should not use AI tools in writing the manuscript. The author(s) must insert at the
end of the manuscript, immediately above the references, entitled ‘Declaration of Generative
AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process” that no use of AI tools have been
used in the writing process. Basic checks of grammar, spelling and punctuation need no
declaration.