Ukrainian Journal of Ecology

Focus and Scope

The Ukrainian Journal of Ecology (formerly the Biological Bulletin of Bogdan Chmelnitskiy Melitopol State Pedagogical University) is an open-access trimonthly journal which publishes original studies dealing with all aspects of ecology with special focus on domains such as population ecology, community ecology, biodiversity, and biogeochemistry. Manuscripts pertaining to the ecology of all the taxa, in any given biome and/or geographic area are considered.

Studies pertaining to topics such as climate change, conservation of biodiversity, environmental attitudes, environmental hazards, and effects of globalization and anthropogenic activities on the ecosystem are especially welcome. The Ukrainian Journal of Ecology publishes a broad array of scientific studies that include a rapidly expanding corpus of subject matter, approaches, techniques (including molecular techniques and mathematical modeling), and concepts.

The Ukrainian Journal of Ecology publishes concise and lucid articles that merit immediate publication by virtue of the interest they garner in the field, their originality, and their contribution towards the development of new ecological paradigms. Priority shall be given to manuscripts testing a clearly stated hypothesis or having strong ecological messages that advance our current understanding of the ecological principles. The research presented for publication must transcend the limits of case studies. Both experimental as well as theoretical studies are accepted, as are descriptive or historical accounts.

Manuscripts in the below-mentioned formats are accepted:

Regular research articles- These are usually limited to 30 normalized, typed pages including illustrations and references.

Review articles synthesizing information regarding burning questions in ecology merit urgent coverage. These are usually limited to 50 normalized, typed pages.

Short research contributions or research notes presenting ecological findings in brief, or presenting new methods or models are welcome. These are usually limited to 5-7 and 2-4 pages.
All types of papers are reviewed.
The majority of papers are published in English.
Ukrainian Journal of Ecology is published in four issues per year.

Section Policies

Articles

Peer-reviewed articles

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Research Notes

Peer-reviewed articles

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Review article

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Publication Frequency

The journal is published bi Monthly.

Open Access Policy

The Ukrainian Journal of Ecology provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. However please also see our copyright statement.

The author(s) of a manuscript agree that if the manuscript is accepted for publication in the Ukrainian Journal of Ecology, the published article will be copyrighted using a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. International" license. This license allows full use, and reuse rights to everyone, as long as the work is attributed to the original authors.

The authors’ names should be listed in the article in order of their contribution to the article, and all authors must take responsibility for their own contributions. Only those individuals who have made a substantive contribution should be listed as authors; those whose contributions are indirect or marginal (e.g., colleagues or supervisors who have reviewed drafts of the work or provided proofreading assistance, and heads of research institutes/centers/labs) should be named in an “Acknowledgments” section at the end of the article, immediately preceding the Reference List. The corresponding author must ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the article, and that all listed co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the article and agreed to its publication.

Archiving

This journal utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archive system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create and maintain permanent archives of the journal.

Journal Contact

Statement on Open Access

The Ukrainian Journal of Ecology is committed to working toward a business model that:
•    Allows the dissemination of peer reviewed (or otherwise) manuscripts containing original research or scholarship immediately upon publication, at no charge to user groups, without requiring registration or other restrictions to access.
•    Requires copyright holders to allow users to “use, copy, distribute, transmit, and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship.”

Manuscript Processing Charges

Since the Ukrainian Journal of Ecology publishes articles in an open access format, it does not have any income source.

If the manuscript is accepted for publication, authors will be asked to pay an Article Publication Fee to cover publication costs.

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

A publication ethics and publication malpractice statement
(composed using the Publishing ethics resource kit and in compliance with recommendations from Elsevier)

Ethical guidelines for journal publication
(based on existing Elsevier policies).

Ethical Guidelines for Journal Publication

The publication of an article in the Ukrainian Journal of Ecology is a direct reflection of the quality of the work. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific method. It is therefore essential to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the process of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, the publisher and the society.

Alex Matsyura Press as the publisher of the Ukrainian Journal of Ecology takes its duties of guardianship over all stages of publishing extremely seriously and recognizes its ethical responsibilities.

We at Alex Matsyura Press are committed to ensuring that advertising, reprints or other sources of commercial revenue have no impact on the editorial decisions.

Duties of Authors
Reporting Standards

Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of their work as well as, an objective discussion of the significance of their work. The data should be accurately represented 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 behavior and are unacceptable.

Reviewes and professional publication articles should also be accurate and objective, and editorial “opinion” works should be clearly identified as such.

Data Access and Retention

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data, and should in any event be prepared to provide such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism

The authors should ensure that they have authored entirely original works, and should appropriately cite or quote whenever they have used the work and/or statements of others. Plagiarism takes multiple forms, from “passing off” another’s paper as the author’s own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication

An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable. In general, an author should not submit for consideration in another journal a previously published paper. Publication of some kinds of articles (e.g. clinical guidelines, translations) in more than one journal is sometimes justifiable, provided certain conditions are met. The authors and editors of the journals concerned must agree to the secondary publication, which must reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary document. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication.

Acknowledgement of Sources

Proper acknowledgment must always be given to the work of others. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved.

Authorship of the Paper

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Hazards and Human or Animal Subjects

If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that are associated with any unusual hazards, the author must clearly specify these in the manuscript. If the work involves the use of animal or human subjects, the author should ensure that the manuscript contains a statement to the effect that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) has approved them. Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All the sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed. Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest stage possible.

Fundamental Errors in Published Works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper. If the editor or the publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the author to promptly retract or correct the paper or provide evidence to the editor of the correctness of the paper.

Duties of the Editorial Board
(based on existing Elsevier policies and COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors)

Publication Decisions

The editor of the Ukrainian Journal of Ecology is responsible for deciding which of the submitted manuscripts should be published. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Fair Play

An editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality

The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.

•    Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.
•    Editors should excuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the articles.
•    Editors should require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication. If needed, other appropriate actions should be taken, such as the publication of a retraction or expression of concern.
•    It should be ensured that the peer-review process for sponsored supplements is the same as was used for the main journal. Items in sponsored supplements should be accepted solely on the basis of academic merit and interest to readers and not be influenced by commercial considerations.
•    Non-peer reviewed sections of their journal should be clearly identified.

Journal Self Citation

An editor should never conduct any practice that obliges authors to cite his or her journal either as an implied or explicit condition of acceptance for publication. Any recommendation regarding articles to be cited in a paper should be made on the basis of direct relevance to the author’s article, with the objective of improving the final published research. Editors should direct authors to relevant literature as part of the peer review process; however this should never extend to blanket instructions to cite individual journals.

Involvement and Cooperation in Investigations

An editor should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper, in conjunction with the publisher (or society). Such measures will generally include contacting the author of the manuscript and giving due consideration to the respective complaints or claims made. This process might also include further communications to the relevant institutions and research bodies, and if the complaint is upheld, the publication of a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other note, as may be relevant. Every reported act of unethical publishing behavior must be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication.

Duties of Reviewers
(based on existing Elsevier policies and COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors)

Contribution to Editorial Decisions

Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication, and lies at the heart of the scientific method.

Promptness

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself/herself from the review process.

Confidentiality

All manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except when authorized by the editor.

Standards of objectivity

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

Acknowledgement of sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflict of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Based on the Publishing ethics resource kit of Elsevier
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/editorshome.editors/Introduction
http://publicationethics.org/files/u2/Best_Practice.pdf

Statement of Human and Animal Rights

When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (5). If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach, and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. When reporting experiments on animals, authors must indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

Informed Consent, Privacy and Confidentiality Statement

Patients and Study Participants: Patients have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information, including names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) has provided written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that an identifiable patient be shown the manuscript to be published. Authors should disclose to these patients whether any potential identifiable material might be available on the internet as well as in print after publication. Patient consent should be written and archived with the journal, the authors, or both, as dictated by local regulations or laws. The Journal requires that all authors obtain written patient consent and that this be archived by the author and be made available for inspection for a period of at least three years. A written statement should be included in the manuscript that attests that the authors have obtained and archived written patient consent. Nonessential identifying details should be omitted. Informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt that anonymity can be maintained. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance, and editors should also note, that such alterations do not distort scientific meaning.

Manuscripts that include human subjects must include a statement that written informed consent was obtained. If materials or records derived from humans are included, the statement that approval from an Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Ethics Committee was obtained prior to initiation of the study, if it is required by the institution. When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.

The use of laboratory animals must follow the standards established by the NIH Office of Animal Care and Use (OACU ARAC guidelines) and Institute for Laboratory Animal Research as published in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (1996).

Manuscripts will be reviewed with due respect to author and reviewer confidentiality. Editors at the Ukrainian Journal of Ecology have been instructed to not disclose information about manuscripts (including their receipt, content, status in the reviewing process, criticism by reviewers, or ultimate fate) to anyone other than the authors and reviewers. Manuscripts sent for review are privileged communications. Therefore, reviewers and members of the editorial staff respect the authors’ rights by not publicly discussing the authors’ work or appropriating their ideas prior to the publication of the manuscript. Reviewers cannot make copies of the manuscript for their files and cannot share it with others, except with the editor’s permission. Reviewers have to return or destroy the copies of the manuscripts after submitting reviews.

Conflict-of-Interest Statement for Publications

A conflict of interest exists when the validity of research might be influenced by a possible financial gain or personal rivalry. It may arise for the authors of an article when their financial interest may influence their interpretation of their results or those of others.

The Editors will not reject papers simply because of a conflict of interest but believe that any competing interests should be acknowledged and openly stated prior to publication; therefore, a declaration of interest is published alongside the final published article.

The authors are required to fill out a conflict of interest form that discloses all the relevant conflicts of interest and send the form electronically to all contributing authors.

When completing the form, the authors should be aware that questions 1-4 relate to the present article and that the questions 5-7 relate to both the present article and to the possible conflicts of interest that the authors themselves may have, beyond the bounds of the particular study.

Name: ______________________________

Manuscript title: _________________________________

Manuscript number (if known): _____________

Publication title: __________________________

1. Have you, in the past 5 years, accepted the following from an organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially from the results of your study or the conclusions of your review, editorial or letter? Please mark ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Reimbursement for attending a symposium – Yes   No

A fee for speaking – Yes   No

A fee for organising education – Yes   No

Funds for research – Yes   No

Funds for a member of staff – Yes   No

Fees for consulting – Yes   No

Gifts exceeding per year – Yes   No

2. Have you, in the past 5 years, been employed by an organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially from the results of your study or the conclusions of your review, editorial or letter? Please mark the ‘yes’ or ‘no’. If you answer yes, please give details in the appropriate section later in this form.

Yes No

3. Do you hold any stocks or shares in an organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially from the results of your study or the conclusions of your review, editorial or letter? Please mark ‘yes’ or ‘no’. If you answer yes, please give details in the appropriate section later in this form.

Yes   No

4. Have you acted as an expert witness on the subject of your study, review, editorial or letter? Please mark ‘yes’ or ‘no’. If you answer yes, please give details in the appropriate section later in this form.

Yes   No

5. Do you have any competing financial interests? Please mark ‘yes’ or ‘no’. If you answer yes, please give details in the appropriate section later in this form.

Yes   No

6. Are you or have you ever been in any relationship with or in receipt of any benefit (financial or other) from the tobacco industry or corporate affiliates? Please mark ‘yes’ or ‘no’. If you answer yes, please give details in the appropriate section later in this form.

Yes   No

7. Do you or your spouse knowingly hold stocks or shares in companies in the tobacco industry or companies involved in the tobacco industry? Please mark ‘yes’ or ‘no’. If you answer yes, please give details in the appropriate section later in this form.

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Yes   No

If you have answered ‘yes’ to any of the above questions, the Biosystems Diversity considers that you or your institution may have a conflict of interest, which, in the spirit of openness, should be declared. Please draft and add to this form a statement detailing these interests. This statement will be published alongside your article in the event of acceptance. An example of such a statement is given below:

Conflict of interests: ________ has received an educational grant from ________ Pharmaceutical industries; has stocks in excess of £_____ in _________; and travel to the ________ congress was funded by _____________________.

Please add your statement here: _____________________________

If you did not answer "yes" to any of the questions above, we will publish "Competing interests: None declared."

The above questions are limited to financial interests; however, you might want to disclose another sort of conflict of interest that would embarrass you if it became generally known after publication. The following list gives some examples:

A close relationship with, or a strong antipathy to, a person whose interests may be affected by publication of this paper.

An academic link or rivalry with somebody whose interests may be affected by publication of this paper.

Membership of a political party or special interest group whose interests may be affected by publication of your paper.

A deep personal or religious conviction that may have affected what you wrote and that readers should be aware of when reading your paper.

If you want to declare any such competing interest then please add it to the statement above. 

Policy of screening for plagiarism

Papers submitted to the Ukrainian Journal of Ecology are screened for plagiarism using the CrossCheck / iThenticate plagiarism detection tools. Apart from these, Copyscape is also used to check for plagiarism. The Ukrainian Journal of Ecology will immediately reject papers leading to plagiarism or self-plagiarism.

Plagiarism

Adapted from Bella H. Plagiarism. Saudi J Med Med Sci 2014;2:127

Available from: http://www.sjmms.net/text.asp?2014/2/2/127/137015

"Plagiarism is the use of others' published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual property) without attribution or permission, and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source. The intent and effect of plagiarism is to mislead the reader as to the contributions of the plagiarizer. This applies whether the ideas or words are taken from abstracts, research grant applications, Institutional Review Board applications, or unpublished or published manuscripts in any publication format. Plagiarism is scientific misconduct and should be addressed as such.

Self-plagiarism refers to the practice of an author using portions of their previous writings on the same topic in another of their publications, without specifically citing it formally in quotes. This practice is widespread and sometimes unintentional, as there are only so many ways to say the same thing on many occasions, particularly when writing the methods section of an article. Although this usually violates the copyright that has been assigned to the publisher, there is no consensus as to whether this is a form of scientific misconduct, or how many of one's own words one can use before it is truly "plagiarism." Probably for this reason self-plagiarism is not regarded in the same light as plagiarism of ideas and words of other individuals. If journals have developed a policy on this matter, it should be clearly stated for the authors’ information."

Direct plagiarism is the plagiarism of the text. Mosaic plagiarism is the borrowing of ideas and opinions from an original source and a few verbatim words or phrases without acknowledging the author. 

Authors can adhere to the following steps to report plagiarism: 

1. Inform the editor of the journal where a plagiarized article is published.
2. Send original and plagiarized articles with plagiarized part highlighted.
3. If evidence of plagiarism is convincing, editor should arrange for a disciplinary meeting.
4. Editor of the journal where the plagiarized article should communicate with the editor of the journal containing the original article to rectify the matter.
5. The plagiarist should be asked to provide an explanation.
6. In case of nonresponse in the stipulated time or an unsatisfactory explanation, the article should be permanently retracted.
7. Author should be blacklisted and debarred for submitted an article to a particular journal for at least 5 years.
8. The concerned head of the institution must be notified.

Authors could check their manuscripts by: 

http://www.crossref.org/crosscheck/index.html or software:
http://advego.ru/plagiatus/advego_plagiatus.exe