Author guidelines

How we publish

Molecular Biology and Evolution is a peer reviewed fully open access journal publishing 12 issues per year online. All papers published in the Journal are made freely available online under open access publishing agreements, with applicable charges. Please refer to the open access section below.

Once a paper is accepted and the publishing agreement is signed, the Journal will publish the Accepted Manuscript version of the paper (before copyediting and review of the final proof) within one week on the Advance Access page. The Accepted Manuscript will be removed from Advance Access when the Version of Record of the paper (after copyediting and proof review process) is published in an issue. Substantial changes to the published Accepted Manuscript may require a correction notice.

Scope of the journal

Molecular Biology and Evolution welcomes contributions about molecular evolutionary patterns, processes, and predictions at all levels of taxonomic, functional, genomic, and phenotypic organization. We also welcome new and improved methods, resources, protocols and theories that are critical for advancing molecular evolutionary research. MBE does not publish manuscripts containing largely descriptive work, confirmatory research, and discoveries with a limited scope or impact.

Manuscript types

Molecular Biology and Evolution publishes full length and short manuscripts that fall into the following types:

• Discoveries
• Methods
• Resources
• Reviews
• Protocols
• Brief Communications
• Perspectives

Full length manuscripts

Discoveries

Discoveries present novel and important empirical results that advance the field of evolutionary biology or theories that have the potential to enhance our understanding of molecular evolution.

Resources

Resources describe significant advances in widely-used software tools and databases for molecular evolutionary studies. Manuscripts must clearly describe how the advances will broaden the application scope or significantly accelerate the pace of biological discovery. All research resources must be made available for general usage at the time of publication.

Methods

Methods papers present statistical, computational, or experimental methods of broad interest to the evolution community. These reports need to clearly demonstrate the robustness and practical utility of the advanced methods using computer simulations and/or data analysis; comparison with current practices is particularly helpful to our readers. Methods papers may also include new data and interesting results, but new or revised methods are the primary focus.  

Reviews

Reviews provide a balanced summary of recent developments in one or more fields in molecular evolutionary biology or on emerging areas of study.  Reviews should provide historical context, clearly explain the existing literature, and point to topics that need to be addressed in the future.  Reviews may be invited. If you have a review idea, feel free to contact the editor-in-chiefs (eic.mbe@gmail.com) for feedback.

Protocols

Protocols provide step-by-step instructions to carry out a specific evolutionary analysis of molecular data using one or more research resources available freely to the community. Protocols should explain how to interpret the outcome of the data analysis and include a section on competing resources and protocols that may also be relevant to the problem at hand. If you have an idea for a protocol, please write to our editors-in-chief (protocols.mbe@gmail.com) with a copy to (EIC.mbe@gmail.com) for feedback.

Short manuscripts

Brief Communications

Molecular Biology and Evolution welcomes short manuscripts that present significant discoveries, methods, and resources. These can include short reports of software tools and databases that have the potential for significant and immediate impact on the scientific community.

Perspectives

Perspectives advocate important future directions in a field or an application of molecular evolution. Authors present them in the context of the most recent developments. Perspectives are generally solicited by the Editors, but unsolicited Perspectives are welcome and should be submitted online.

Peer review process

The Journal operates single-anonymized peer review, meaning that the identity of the authors is known to the editors and to the reviewers, but that the reviewers’ identities are known only to the editors and are hidden from the authors.

Once a submitted manuscript passes initial assessment by the Journal’s Editor-in-Chief, it will then be passed to a handling editor, who will oversee peer review and recommend a final decision. The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision on the submitted manuscript. Editors and reviewers must not handle manuscripts if they have a conflict of interest with an author or the content. Editors make every effort to avoid potential conflicts of interest in the assignment of other editors and peer reviewers. For more information, please see the section on Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. During the peer review phase, your manuscript is typically sent to 2 reviewers. You may suggest potential reviewers at submission. However, there is no guarantee the suggested reviewers will be selected by the Journal. Recommended reviewers should be experts in their field and able to provide an objective assessment of your manuscript without financial or interpersonal conflicts of interest with any authors. We encourage you to consider reviewers from a diverse range of backgrounds, including those from under-represented communities. If your manuscript is accepted for publication, the reviewer comments will not be published alongside the paper. 

For full details about the peer review process, see Fair editing and peer review or OUP author FAQs. 

Manuscript transfers

Previous reviews 

If your manuscript has been reviewed by another journal, Molecular Biology and Evolution will consider a revised manuscript. Please provide the previous reviews and your point-by-point response in the cover letter. We also require information about the previous journal. This procedure aims to save time and burden for everyone, but be aware that revised manuscripts may be rejected at editorial levels or sent out for re-review.

Transfers to GBE

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Other Oxford University Press journals

In addition to these transfer opportunities, Molecular Biology and Evolution sends and receives transfers from other journals on related topics published by Oxford University Press. All transfers are sent according to the choice of the authors. Unless a reviewer declines to have their feedback shared, reviewer reports and the original decision letter are included in the transfer, but the reviewer identities are not shared.

Screening for misconduct

Manuscripts will be screened using iThenticate to help detect publication misconduct including plagiarism and redundant publication.

Reviewer recognition

To promote recognition of the essential work done by reviewers, the Journal offers reviewers the option to have their reviews verified and automatically listed on their Web of Science Researcher Profile. 

Reviewer locator

The Journal uses the Web of Science Reviewer Locator to assist the editors in finding appropriate reviewers.

Appeals and complaints

Authors appealing a reject decision must submit a rebuttal detailing a point-by-point response to reviewer and editor comments (no revised manuscripts please) to both the Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Assistant by email (EIC.mbe@gmail.com, eassist.mbe@gmail.com). Please include the text “Appeal Request” and the Manuscript ID number in the subject line. This decision may take up to 6 weeks and, if allowed, the revised manuscript must be submitted as a new manuscript and it may be subjected to all editorial steps once again. Manuscripts that are rejected prior to external review or manuscripts that have previously been resubmitted through the appeal process are not eligible for appeal except in unusual circumstances involving actual error or misconduct.

To register a complaint regarding non-editorial decisions, the Journal’s policies and procedures, editors, or staff, please contact us. Complaints will be taken seriously and will be carried forward following COPE guidelines and processes and/or sanctions will be enacted if deemed appropriate.

Publication and research ethics

Authorship

Authorship is limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the design and execution of the work described. Any contributors whose participation does not meet the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged but not listed as an author.

The Journal does not allow ghost authorship, where an unnamed author prepares the article with no credit, or guest/gift authorship, where an author who made little or no contribution is listed as an author. The Journal follows Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidance on investigating and resolving these cases. For more information, please see the OUP Publication Ethics page.

Natural language processing tools driven by artificial intelligence (AI) do not qualify as authors, and the Journal will screen for them in author lists. The use of AI (for example, to help generate content or images, write code, process data, or for translation) should be disclosed both in cover letters to editors and in the Methods or Acknowledgements section of manuscripts. Please see the COPE position statement on Authorship and AI for more details.

After manuscript submission, no authorship changes (including the authorship list, author order, and who is designated as the corresponding author) should be made unless there is a substantive reason to do so. The editor and all co-authors must agree on the change(s), and neither the Journal nor the publisher mediates authorship disputes. If individuals cannot agree on the authorship of a submitted manuscript, contact the editorial office at eassist.mbe@gmail.com. The dispute must be resolved among the individuals and their institution(s) before the manuscript can be accepted for publication. If an authorship dispute or change arises after a paper is accepted, contact OUP’s Author Support team. COPE provides guidance for authors on resolving authorship disputes.

After submission, changing who is designated as the corresponding author will be permitted only where there is a substantive reason to do so. For the avoidance of doubt, changing the corresponding author in order to access Read and Publish funding is not permissible. For more information on Read and Publish funding, see the Open access charges section.

ORCiD

Submitting authors are required to provide an ORCID iD (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) at submission. If you do not already have an ORCID iD, you can register for free via the ORCID website.

As ORCID identifiers are collected, they are included in papers and displayed online, both in the HTML and PDF versions of the publication, in compliance with recommended practice issued by ORCID.

ORCID functionality online allows users to link to the ORCID website to view an author’s profile and list of publications. ORCID iDs are displayed on web pages and are sent downstream to third parties in data feeds, where supported.

If you have registered with ORCID, you can associate your ORCID iD with your submission system account by going to your account details, entering your ORCID iD, and validating your details. Learn more about ORCID and how to link it to your account.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

Authors

The Journal requires all authors to disclose any potential conflict of interest at the point of submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that conflicts of interest of all authors are declared to the Journal.

A conflict of interest exists when the position, activities, or relationships of an individual, whether direct or indirect, financial or non-financial, could influence or be seen to influence the opinions or activities of the individual. For more information, refer to OUP’s definition of conflict of interest.

The Journal follows the COPE guidance for any undisclosed conflict of interest that emerges during peer review, production, or after publication.

Reviewers

Individuals that have a conflict of interest relating to a submitted manuscript should recuse themselves and will not be assigned to oversee, handle, or peer review the manuscript.

If during peer review an editor, reviewer, or author becomes aware of a conflict of interest that was not previously known or disclosed they must inform the Editor-in-Chief immediately.

Editors

At initial submission, the corresponding author must declare if the Editor-in-Chief, an editor, or an Editorial Board Member of the Journal is an author of or contributor to the manuscript. Another editor without a conflict of interest will oversee the peer review and decision-making process. If accepted, a statement will be published in the paper describing how the manuscript was handled. The statement will read “[Author name] holds the position of [role] for Molecular Biology and Evolution and has not peer reviewed or made any editorial decisions for this paper."

Previously published material

You should only submit your manuscript(s) to the Journal if:

• It is original work by you and your co-author(s).
• It is not under consideration, in peer review, or accepted for publication in any other publication.
• It has not been published in any other publication.
• It contains nothing abusive, defamatory, derogatory, obscene, fraudulent, or illegal.

The submitting author must disclose in their cover letter and provide copies of all related or similar preprints, dissertations, manuscripts, published papers, and reports by the same authors (i.e., those containing substantially similar content or using the same, similar, or a subset of data) that have been previously published or posted electronically or are under consideration elsewhere at the time of manuscript submission. You must also provide a concise explanation of how the submitted manuscript differs from these related manuscripts and papers. All related previously published papers should be cited as references and described in the submitted manuscript.

The Journal does not discourage you from presenting your findings at conferences or scientific meetings but recommends that you refrain from distributing complete copies of your manuscripts, which might later be published elsewhere without your knowledge.

For previously published materials including tables and figures, please see the Reusing copyrighted materials section.

Preprints

As an author, you retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (preprint) available through various channels and this does not prevent submission to the Journal. If accepted, the authors are required to update the status of any preprint, including adding your published paper’s DOI. For full details on allowed channels and updating your preprint, please see our Author self-archiving policy.

Reusing copyrighted material

As an author, you must obtain permission for any material used within your manuscript for which you are not the rightsholder, including quotations, tables, figures, images, data, or software. In seeking permissions for published materials, first contact the publisher rather than the author. For unpublished materials, start by contacting the creator. Copies of each grant of permission should be provided to the editorial office of the Journal. The permissions agreement must include the following:

• nonexclusive rights to reproduce the material in your paper in Molecular Biology and Evolution
• rights for use in print and electronic format at a minimum, and preferably for use in any form or medium
• lifetime rights to use the material
• worldwide English-language rights

If you have chosen to publish under an open access license but have not obtained open access re-use permissions for third-party material contained within the manuscript, this must be stated clearly by supplying a credit line alongside the material with the following information:

• Title of content
• Author, Original publication, year of original publication, by permission of [rightsholder]
• This image/content is not covered by the terms of the Creative Commons license of this publication. For permission to reuse, please contact the rights holder.

Our publisher, Oxford University Press, provides detailed Copyright and Permissions Guidelines, and a summary of the fundamental information.

Misconduct

Authors should observe high standards with respect to research integrity and publication ethics as set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Falsification or fabrication of data including inappropriate image manipulation, plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the author's own work without proper citation, and misappropriation of work are all unacceptable practices. Allegations of ethical misconduct, both directly and through social media, are treated seriously and will be investigated in accordance with the relevant COPE guidance.

If misconduct has been established beyond reasonable doubt, this may result in one or more of the following outcomes, among others:

• If a submitted manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.
• If a paper has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction, either a correction notice will be published and linked to the paper, or retraction of the paper will occur, following the COPE Retraction Guidelines.
• The relevant party’s institution(s) and/or other journals may be informed.

Manuscripts submitted to the Journal may be screened with plagiarism-detection software. Any manuscript may be screened, especially if there is reason to suppose that part or all the of the manuscript has been previously published.

COPE defines plagiarism as:

“when somebody presents the work of others (data, words or theories) as if they were their own and without proper acknowledgment.”

COPE defines redundant/overlapping publication as: 

“when a published work (or substantial sections from a published work) is/are published more than once (in the same or another language) without adequate acknowledgment of the source/cross-referencing/justification,
or
when the same (or substantially overlapping) data is presented in more than one publication without adequate cross-referencing/justification, particularly when this is done in such a way that reviewers/readers are unlikely to realise that most or all the findings have been published before.”

COPE defines citation manipulation as: 

“behaviours intended to inflate citation counts for personal gain, such as: excessive self-citation of an authors’ own work, excessive citation to the journal publishing the citing article, and excessive citation between journals in a coordinated manner.”

Data fabrication is defined as intentionally creating fake data or misrepresenting research results. An example includes making up data sets.

Data falsification is defined as manipulating research data with the purpose of intentionally giving a false representation. This can apply to images, research materials, equipment, or processes. Examples include cropping of gels/images to change context and omission of selected data.

If notified of a potential breach of research misconduct or publication ethics, the Journal editor and editorial office staff may inform OUP and/or the author’s institutional affiliation(s).

Ethical research

The Journal follows Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on ethical oversight. We take research integrity seriously, and all research published in the Journal must have been conducted in a fair and ethical manner. Wherever appropriate, the Journal requires that all research be done according to international and local guidelines.

Human subjects

When reporting on human subjects, you should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration (1964, amended most recently in 2013), which were developed by the World Medical Association. For non-interventional studies, where ethical approval is not required or where a study has been granted an exemption by an ethics committee, this should be stated within the manuscript with a full explanation. Otherwise, manuscripts must include a statement in the Methods section that the research was performed after approval by a local ethics committee, institutional review board and/or local licensing committee, or that such approval was not required. The name of the authorizing body and any reference/permit numbers (where available) should also be stated there. Please be prepared to provide further information to the editorial office upon request.

Human subjects must give written informed consent, or if they are minors or incapacitated, such consent must be obtained from their parents or guardians. Consent forms should cover not only study participation but also the publication of the data collected. Also, any patient or provider information should be anonymized to the extent possible; names and ID numbers should not be used in the text and must be removed from any images (X-rays, photographs, etc.). Please note blanking out an individual’s eyes in a photograph is not an effective way to conceal their identity. In studies where verbal, rather than written, informed consent was obtained, this must be explained and stated within the manuscript. If informed consent is not required or where a study has been granted an exemption, this must be included in the Methods section along with the name of the authorizing body. The Journal does not routinely collect consent forms, but authors should be prepared to provide written consent forms signed by the participants or other appropriate documentation to the editorial office upon request. For further guidance and examples, please refer to COPE’s guidance on consent.

You are encouraged to consult the ARRIVE guidelines recommended by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3R).

Manuscripts describing research involving laboratory-based animals must include details on housing, husbandry, and steps taken to reduce suffering. In studies where experimental animals were euthanized, details must be provided on humane endpoints. Details on the planned behavioral observations or physiological measurements used to determine the humane endpoint must be described. You are advised to consult the NC3Rs guide on Humane Endpoints and the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Guidelines for the Humane Slaughter of Animals.

C4DISC partnership

The Journal and OUP aim to create a community that fosters diversity, equity, and inclusion. As part of our commitment to these principles, OUP is a proud partner of the Coalition for Diversity & Inclusion in Scholarly Communications (C4DISC). C4DISC works with organizations and individuals within the scholarly communications landscape to foster equity, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility across the publishing industry and its published outputs.

Inclusive language and images

As defined by the Linguistic Society of America: 

“Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities”

We encourage you to consider using inclusive language and images when preparing your manuscript. For guidelines, please see the C4DISC Guidelines on inclusive language and images

Accessibility

Written, visual, and audio content in your submission should be accessible to all. Please see the C4DISC guidelines for making text, images, charts, tables, and audio and video accessible.

Availability of data and materials

The Journal requires all authors, where ethically possible, to publicly release all data and software code underlying any published paper as a condition of publication. Authors are required to include a data availability statement in their paper. When data and software underlying the research article are available in an online source, authors should include a full citation in their reference list. For details of the minimum information to be included in data and software citations see the OUP guidance on citing research data and software.

Whenever possible, data should be presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files or deposited in a public repository. Visit OUP’s Research data page for information on general repositories for all data types, and resources for selecting repositories by subject area.

Data availability statement

The inclusion of a data availability statement is a requirement for papers published in the Journal. Data availability statements provide a standardized format for readers to understand the availability of original and third-party data underlying the research results described in the paper. The statement should describe and provide means of access, where possible, by linking to the data or providing the required unique identifier.

More information and example data availability statements.

Authors may request an exception to the policy due to legal, privacy, ethical, or other limitations or restrictions. Exceptions will be made at the discretion of the Journal. Please notify the editorial office at eassist.mbe@gmail.com when submitting your manuscript if you wish to request an exception. If an exception is granted, a data availability statement must still be included in your paper specifying what cannot be shared and explaining why.

Any data or material not exempt must be available indefinitely. If readers encounter an error accessing data or material, they should reach out to EIC.mbe@gmail.com and MBE will contact the authors to make the data or material available as soon as possible.

Choosing where to archive your data

Authors are highly encouraged to select a repository that issues DOIs as this helps to facilitate persistent linking to the dataset from the research article. You may refer to online resources such as FAIRsharing.org and re3data.org for lists of data repositories, including information on certification status and services offered. We suggest you consider these options when choosing your repository:

• GenBank
• EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database
• DNA Database of Japan
• Protein Data Bank
• Swiss-Prot
• GEO
• EMBL-ALIGN 
• Array-Express 
• Dryad Digital Repository
• Figshare

Submitting your bioRxiv preprint to the journal

You can submit your bioRxiv preprint directly from the bioRxiv server to Molecular Biology and Evolution. To do this, visit the Author Area in bioRxiv and select Molecular Biology and Evolution from the list of options.

This will transfer all manuscript files and author information to Molecular Biology and Evolution. You will then receive an email with a link to your submission in Molecular Biology and Evolution, where you will need to answer some additional questions and approve the manuscript for submission.

Authors submitting their bioRxiv preprint to Molecular Biology and Evolution should refer to the section on Preprints. In particular, you should note the following:

• You should not submit your preprint to more than one journal simultaneously.
• If your paper is accepted for publication in Molecular Biology and Evolution, you are responsible for ensuring that the preprint is updated with the DOI of and a link to the published paper. bioRxiv does this automatically for most papers, but the process is imperfect, particularly if the preprint and paper titles are different.
• For details on updating your preprint, please see our Author self-archiving policy.

Digital Preservation

Content published in the Journal will automatically be deposited into digital preservation services, including CLOCKSS, the Global LOCKSS Network, and Portico. This ensures the long-term preservation of your work. Through LOCKSS, participating institutions can sustain access to content if the Journal were to otherwise be unavailable, even for a short period of time. Should the Journal ever cease to publish, or content would otherwise become permanently unavailable, long-term access to the archives of CLOCKSS and Portico would be triggered. Until such a trigger event were to occur, this content is not available to the public through CLOCKSS and Portico.

Self-archiving

Self-archiving refers to posting a copy of your work on a publicly accessible website or repository. Under certain circumstances, you may self-archive versions of your work on your own webpages, on institutional webpages, and in other repositories. For information about the Journal's policy, and to learn which version(s) of your paper are acceptable for self-archiving, please see our Author self-archiving policy.

Publishing agreement and charges

Publishing agreement

After your manuscript is accepted, you will be asked to sign a license to publish through our licensing and payment portal, SciPris. The Journal is fully open access, meaning all papers in the Journal are published under an open access license. The corresponding author will need to arrange payment of an open access charge to publish in the Journal. This charge allows all published papers to be immediately and freely available to all readers immediately upon online publication. Editorial decisions occur prior to this step and are not influenced by payment or ability to pay. Papers can be published under the following:

• CC BY
• CC BY NC

Please see the OUP guidance on Licences, copyright, and re-use rights for more information regarding these publishing agreement options.

Complying with funder mandates

Please note that some funders require open access publication as a condition of funding. If you are unsure whether you are required to publish open access, please do clarify any such requirements with your funder or institution before selecting your license.

Further information on funder mandates and direct links to a range of funder policies.

Charges

Open access charges

Please see the details of open access licences and charges. As the Journal is fully open access, you must pay the open access charge or request to use an institutional agreement to pay the open access charge through our licencing and payment portal, SciPris.

The charge for Discoveries, Methods, Resources, and Reviews is $3,418. The charge is discounted by 20% if the corresponding author is an SMBE member.

The charge for Brief Communications, Perspectives and Letters is $2,393. The charge is discounted by 20% if the corresponding author is an SMBE member.

The charge for Editorial Protocols is $0.

OUP has a growing number of open access agreements with institutions and consortia, which provide funding for open access publishing (also known as Read and Publish agreements). This means corresponding authors from participating institutions can publish open access, and the institution may pay the charge. Find out if your institution has an open access agreement.

To be eligible for one of OUP’s Read and Publish agreements, the corresponding author must provide their qualifying institution as their primary affiliation when they submit their manuscript. After submission, changing the corresponding author in order to access Read and Publish funding is not permissible.

Waivers

As an open access journal, we rely on article processing charges for the journal's continued operation, and we ask authors to ensure they are able to pay these charges before submitting a paper. However, we acknowledge this is not always possible for all authors. Corresponding authors based in or at institutions in countries and regions that are part of the developing countries initiative receive a full waiver of their open access charge. For further details, please see our open access waiver policy.

If you are not eligible for our developing countries initiative and unable to pay the APC for your article, you may apply for a waiver before acceptance. If you would like to apply for a partial or full waiver, please complete this form, and send it to the OUP open access team at openaccess@oup.com. Please note that an APC waiver does not guarantee acceptance of a manuscript, it only waives the fee when and if the paper is accepted. An author’s eligibility will not affect peer review or editorial decision-making. APC waivers are managed by Oxford University Press (OUP) staff and the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. Journal editors or peer reviewers are not informed about APC waiver eligibility or receipt.

Changes to published papers

The Journal will only make changes to published papers if the publication record is seriously affected by the academic accuracy of the published information. Changes to a published paper will be accompanied by a formal correction notice linking to and from the original paper.

As needed, we follow the COPE guidelines on retractions.

For more information and details of how to request changes, including for authors who wish to update their name and/or pronouns, please see OUP’s policy on changes to published papers.

Promoting your work

As the author, you are the best advocate for your work, and we encourage you to be involved in promoting your publication. 

You can promote your work by:

• Sharing your paper with colleagues and friends.
• Signing up for an ORCID iD author identifier to distinguish yourself from any other researchers with the same name, create an online profile showcasing all your publications, and increase the visibility of your work.
• Using social media to promote your work. To learn more about self-promotion on social media, see our social media guide for authors. We encourage authors to send suggested Tweets and promotional images to our social media email molbiolevol.social@gmail.com. Please include your article title in the subject and ensure that any third party who may claim rights to the image gives their permission for it to be used on social media. Please follow MBE and SMBE on social media, and like/retweet/share your article once it becomes available.

Find out how Oxford University Press promotes your content. 

Press releases

If you would like to arrange an embargo date so that a press release can be issued simultaneously with the publication of your paper, please contact us as soon as possible. Once published, the paper cannot be temporarily withdrawn. If your paper has already been accepted, contact jnls.author.support@oup.com. If your manuscript is still under review, please contact the editorial office (eassist.mbe@gmail.com).

Preparing your manuscript

General guidelines on preparing your manuscript for publication can be found on OUP’s Preparing and submitting your manuscript page. Specific instructions for Molecular Biology and Evolution can be found below.

Article type requirements

Full manuscripts

Discoveries, Methods, Resources, Reviews and Protocols have an abstract of up to 250 words. The abstract is typically followed by sections (in order) with headings: Introduction, Results, Discussion, and Materials and Methods, if applicable. However, Results and Discussion may be combined, and the order of the sections can be modified if deemed necessary for clarity of presentation (e.g., Materials and Methods prior to Results). Subsections are allowed throughout.

Short manuscripts

Brief Communications and Perspectives begin with an abstract of up to 150 words. The main text is to be no more than 2,000 words and may contain subsections and up to three figures or tables. The Abstract can be followed by sections with headings -e.g., Introduction, Results, Discussion, and Materials and Methods, when applicable - but the format is flexible.

Manuscript formatting

Molecular Biology and Evolution requires that all new submissions be uploaded as a single PDF that contains the main text, references, tables, figures and figure captions. This file will be used by the editors and the reviewers at every step.  We emphasize that initial submissions are flexible in format. We recommend, however, that the pdfs include line numbers (because it helps streamline the review process) and the references conform roughly to MBE’s citation format (see below). For revised manuscripts, you will be provided detailed formatting instructions in the decision letter. 

Main text

The Abstract is typically followed by sections (in order) with headings: Introduction, Results, Discussion, and Materials and Methods, if applicable. However, Results and Discussion may be combined, and the order of the sections can be modified if deemed necessary for clarity of presentation (e.g., Materials and Methods prior to Results). For initial submissions, Figures, Tables and their legends can be embedded in the text where they are first cited, or they can be appended after the References section. Subsections are allowed throughout.

We encourage submissions to be double spaced throughout the manuscript, with margins of ~25mm at the top, bottom and sides of each page. Do not include supplementary material in the PDF of the main text but as a separate document or set of files. 

If you are using LaTeX, please generate a PDF locally in your own LaTeX application and submit that PDF to the journal rather than uploading all your source files. If your article is accepted, the editorial office will request that you upload all source files to the submission system in a zip alongside the PDF you have created locally.

Cover letter

A cover letter is required for submission.  The letter represents a valuable opportunity to explain the value of the work to the editorial board.  Please briefly explain, in one paragraph, the significant discoveries or methodological advances reported in your study.  Please also mention the broader impacts of your study to the scientific community. All authors must have read and approved the final version of the manuscript, assurance of which must be given in the cover letter.

Cover-art

Molecular Biology and Evolution's front cover has a new look monthly and highlights different art from selected contributions. The final acceptance letter invites authors to provide cover-worthy art. Please submit your image candidate for the issue cover with a brief caption in PDF format to MBE’s Editorial Assistant by e-mail (eassist.mbe@gmail.com). It should be in landscape format (Width to Height ratio = 3:2). If selected, you will be requested to provide a high-resolution version.

Cover page 

The cover page should contain a brief and informative title that is accessible to general readers. Below the title, list all author names and their current affiliations, including institution(s) where research was performed. Every author affiliation/address must include the country. Finally, list the name and e-mail address of the corresponding author.

Title

The title must be short and meaningful, carefully chosen to adequately describe the content of the paper. Remember that many people will choose to read your paper based in part on what has been conveyed in the title.

Figures

For initial submissions, include all figures in the single PDF file containing the manuscript. Figures should be numbered consecutively following the sequence in which they are mentioned in the text, have uniform lettering styles and include scale-bars where appropriate.

Upon final revision, Molecular Biology and Evolution will request high quality figures in separate files (high-resolution .tif files: 1200 dots per inch for line drawings and 300 dots per inch for color and half-tone artwork). We will ask that the figures are in Adobe postscript fonts and submitted as .tif, .eps, .ppt, .xls, .doc, .pdf, .gif, or .jpg files.

Tables

Tables should be numbered consecutively. Each table should have a short title that describes the content. Include sufficient information (e.g., column and row headings) to clearly convey the meaning of the data without reference to the text, when possible. Feel free to include explanatory material as footnotes immediately below the table.

Data and resource availability

Molecular Biology and Evolution requires that all new data are publicly available upon publication (see Availability of data and materials).  Any published manuscript reporting new data must contain a clear data availability statement before the Acknowledgements.  This section will report accession numbers for public databases for all newly-reported sequences and structural coordinates.  It should also list all resources - including vcfs, alignments, computational pipelines and other resources - that have been made available in public repositories like github, Data Dryad, Zotero and Figshare. All data in public repositories should have clear descriptions, perhaps in an accompanying read.me file.

Acknowledgements 

All manuscripts must provide funding information in this section, including the official name of the funding agency and full grant numbers (in parentheses). If applicable, authors may also use this section to thank individuals and institutions who have contributed to the production of the manuscript. Oxford Journals will deposit all NIH-funded articles in PubMed Central (see this page for details) and into CrossRef (for further information, visit the CHORUS initiative).

Supplementary materials

If you are submitting Supplementary Materials, upload them in a single separate PDF file, whenever possible. Additional files can be submitted in a range of formats, like .cvs, .txt, .xls, etc.  All tables and figures in the supplementary files must be referenced in the main text. All supplementary figures and tables need to be clearly described, preferably within each file.

References in text

References within the text must:

• be cited by author and year
• include relevant pages for direct quotations,
• be in chronological order when grouped (e.g., Thomas and Wilson 1991; Okimoto et al. 1992; Powers ST and Powers JD 1993a, 1993b),
• include the name of the first author and "et al." when there are three or more authors,
• refer to unpublished work of authors as "name AB, unpublished data", or others as "name AB, name CD, personal communication" (authors are responsible for securing permissions to cite).

References section

For revised manuscripts, the References section must:

• be arranged alphabetically by name of author(s) and then chronologically for references with identical authors,
• contain only works cited in the main text; works cited in Supplementary files only should NOT be included in this list,
• include manuscripts accepted for publication but which have not yet been published as "forthcoming",
• formatted as, for example:
  • Journal articles: Pesole G, Gissi C, Lanave C, Saccone C. 1995. Glutamine synthetase gene evolution in bacteria. Mol Biol Evol. 12:189-197.
  • (>10 co-authors): Wilson R, Ainscough R, Anderson K, Baynes C, Berks M, Bonfield J, Burton J, Connell M, Copsey T, Cooper J, et al. 1994. 2.2 Mb of contiguous nucleotide sequence from chromosome III of C. elegans . Nature 368:32-38.
  • Books: Ingram VM. 1963. The hemoglobins in genetics and evolution. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • Book chapters: Hall BG. 1983. Evolution of new metabolic functions in laboratory organisms. In: Nei M, Koehn RK, editors. Evolution of genes and proteins. Sunderland (MA): Sinauer Associates. p. 234-257.
  • Pre-prints: Blumenstiel JP, Chen X, He M, Bergman CM, unpublished data, http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.3456, last accessed June 26, 2022

Text abstracts

Text abstracts must be written in English.

Graphical abstracts

A graphical abstract is a single figure prepared by the authors that summarizes the key point(s) of an article and serves as a visual introduction to encourage interest in the content. When preparing your graphical abstract, keep in mind that they are ideally suited for promoting your article on social media, so text should be large enough to be read in that context and the image should be oriented in landscape format.

Please also consider the accessibility of your graphical abstract to all readers. See OUP’s Guidelines for making figures accessible. Graphical abstracts are peer reviewed and published as part of the article online and in the PDF. It also appears in the table of contents and some other journal pages including in search results.

Your graphical abstract should be submitted as a separate file, selecting the appropriate file type designation in the online submission system. The file should be named “graphical_abstract”. Please see OUP's guidance on appropriate file format and resolution for graphics.

Authors of all articles may submit a graphical abstract in addition to a text abstract for their manuscript at first revision at the latest.

Study funding

You must fully declare all funding information relevant to the study, including specific grant numbers, under a separate subheading following the acknowledgements.

Pre-submission language editing

You may wish to use a language-editing service before submitting to ensure that editors and reviewers understand your manuscript. Our publisher, Oxford University Press, partners with Enago, a leading provider of author services. Through the OUP-Enago partner page, prospective authors are entitled to a discount for language editing, abstract and layperson summary writing, rejected manuscript editing, and creation of graphical abstracts, illustrations, and videos.

Enago is an independent service provider, which will handle all aspects of this service, including payment. As an author you are under no obligation to take up this offer. Language editing and other services from Enago are optional and do not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted. Edited manuscripts will undergo the regular review process of the Journal. For more details and a list of additional resources, please see OUP’s page on language services.

Contact us

For questions regarding submission and review, including appeals, you can reach the editorial office by email at eassist.mbe@gmail.com.

After your paper has been sent to production, you can contact oupsupport@scipris.com for questions regarding publishing agreements and charges, the production process, or publication. Please see Changes to published papers if you need to request a substantive change to your published paper.