Submissions

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

• I, the submitting author, warrant that I am authorized by all co-authors to submit this version of the manuscript and to be the spokesperson during the review process and beyond. All authors qualify as authors, as described in Journal Policies, and have given permission to be listed on the submitted paper.
• The submitted manuscript has not been published previously, nor is it under consideration for another journal. If the manuscript has been made available in a preprint archive, this should be stated in a cover letter to the Editor. If the submitted manuscript has a considerable overlap with previously published material, for example a short popular-scientific text, it needs to be stated both in the submitted manuscript and in the cover letter to the Editor.
• All third-party licensed material used in the submitted manuscript have been identified, appropriate credit has been given in the manuscript, and permission has been obtained from the copyright holder prior to submission.
• Statements in the manuscript are appropriately supported by references to original sources. Appropriate credit has been given to the existing literature in the field. All references cited in the text are listed in the reference list.
• All tables and figure are referred to in the main text and are included in the text document at approximately the correct place.
• For DNA results, the journal guidelines are followed in particular with respect to personal integrity of living and recently deceased persons.