Submissions

Author Guidelines

Important Notice

During the online submission process, authors must carefully complete all metadata fields in the journal platform and upload the following mandatory documents as separate files:

1. Manuscript (prepared using the official journal template)
2. Cover letter
3. Author statement

The Manuscript Template, Cover Letter, and Author Statement are available in Word format and must be used as official journal documents during manuscript preparation and submission.
Authors should also consult the Extended Author Guidelines available as a PDF file, which provide additional explanations, formatting details, and reference examples. The PDF guidelines are intended to complement the information provided on this page and should be used together with the official manuscript template.
Submissions that do not include all mandatory files, or that do not comply with the journal requirements, may be returned to the authors before editorial evaluation.

Download journal documents

• Manuscript Template (Word)
• Cover Letter (Word)
• Author Statement (Word)
• Extended Author Guidelines (PDF)
• Nova Journals Harvard Style (Zotero CSL)

Required Submission Files

All submissions must include the following mandatory documents, uploaded as separate files:

1. Manuscript

The manuscript must be prepared using the official journal template. Authors are strongly encouraged to follow the template carefully in order to ensure correct structure, formatting, and consistency throughout the paper.
The template is available for download in Word format and must be used for all submissions.

2. Cover Letter

The Cover Letter must be uploaded as a separate file and should include:

• the full names of all authors;
• the affiliation and email address of each author;
• clear identification of the corresponding author;
• the names and contact details of three to five potential reviewers, from institutions and countries different from those of the authors.

3. Author Statement

The Author Statement is mandatory for all submissions. It must be completed, signed, scanned, and uploaded together with the manuscript and Cover Letter.
Files may be submitted in PDF, JPEG, or other common formats.
If the manuscript is accepted for publication, the journal may request the original signed Author Statement.

General Information

Notulae Scientia Biologicae publishes peer-reviewed scientific papers in biology, agriculture, horticulture, forestry, biotechnology, medicine-related biological sciences, and related interdisciplinary fields.
The journal accepts the following categories of manuscripts:

• Research Articles (Original Articles)
• Notes (Short Research Articles)
• Review Articles
• Editorials

Research articles should normally follow the IMRAD structure (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions), complemented, where appropriate, by additional sections such as Authors’ Contributions, Acknowledgements, Conflict of Interests, and References.
Manuscripts must be written in clear, scientifically sound English. An impersonal scientific style is generally recommended. First person may be used sparingly, only where it improves clarity or appropriately emphasizes the authors’ direct contribution.

General Formatting Requirements

Manuscripts should be prepared on A4 page format and should follow the journal template. The recommended font is EB Garamond (11 pt for the main text). Authors may initially use a standard, widely available font such as Times New Roman (11 or 12 pt) when drafting the manuscript. Final formatting, including font standardization, will be applied at the production stage. The EB Garamond font is freely available and can be downloaded online.
Authors are strongly encouraged to use the template styles and to avoid unnecessary manual formatting. The manuscript should be written clearly, consistently, and in a form suitable for peer review and editorial processing.

Title

The title must be concise, accurate, and informative, and should clearly reflect the content of the article. Whenever possible, it should include the organism, system, or topic under investigation.
Please avoid unnecessary abbreviations, formulae, and vague introductory phrases such as “Study on…”, “Investigation of…”, or “More about…”. The title should be understandable to specialists from related fields, not only to experts in a very narrow discipline.

Authors and Affiliations

Authors’ full names should be listed in the order intended for publication. Superscript numbers must be used to indicate institutional affiliations. The corresponding author must be clearly marked with an asterisk (*).
Affiliations should be written in a consistent format, in the following order:

• institution / university, faculty / department, city, country; email. Postal codes are not required and should be omitted.

Institutional email addresses are strongly recommended for all authors. ORCID identifiers are also strongly encouraged.
A maximum of two corresponding authors is allowed.

Abstract

The abstract should be written as a single paragraph, with a length of approximately 200–250 words. It should be concise, informative, and self-explanatory, allowing readers to understand the rationale, methodology, main findings, and relevance of the study without consulting the full text.
The abstract should not contain citations, footnotes, or undefined abbreviations.
A well-prepared abstract typically reflects the internal structure of the paper and briefly includes:

• the scientific background;
• the objective of the study;
• the methods used;
• the most important results;
• the main conclusion or implication.

Keywords

Please provide five to seven keywords, arranged in alphabetical order and separated by semicolons. Keywords should complement the title and abstract and should include relevant scientific terms not already overused in the title.
Do not place a period at the end of the keyword list.

Abbreviations

If necessary, a short Abbreviations section may be included after the Keywords. Only abbreviations that are important for the paper and may not be immediately obvious to readers should be listed.
Abbreviations should be defined in alphabetical order and separated by semicolons.

Metadata in the Submission System

All metadata entered during submission must correspond exactly to the final manuscript version.
In particular, the following elements must be identical in both the manuscript and the submission system:

• Title
• Abstract
• Keywords
• List of Contributors

Authors must ensure that all contributors are entered in the correct order in the platform.
When completing metadata:

• use the correct form of the given name and family name;
• enter a valid email address for each author;
• include ORCID iD where available;
• provide affiliation in a clear and complete form;
• select the correct country for each author.

The fields Preferred Public Name and Bio Statement do not need to be completed unless specifically requested.
If the platform requires references to be inserted into a dedicated metadata field, individual references should be separated clearly, preferably by blank lines.

Introduction

The Introduction should provide the scientific context of the study and explain clearly why the research topic is relevant, timely, and important. It should summarize the most relevant literature and establish the current state of knowledge in relation to the investigated problem.
Authors are encouraged to cite recent, credible, and accessible sources, particularly peer-reviewed journal articles indexed in international databases. General background literature may be consulted during preparation, but references cited in the manuscript should primarily support the specific scientific context and rationale of the study.
The Introduction should not become a broad literature review unrelated to the research question. Every paragraph should contribute to defining the problem, identifying the knowledge gap, and building the argument for the study.
The section should end with a clear and explicit statement of the objective, hypothesis, scope, or research question addressed by the paper.

Citation style in the text

Examples:

• one author: (Smith, 2019)
• two authors: (Johnson and Miller, 2022)
• more than two authors: (Anderson et al., 2025)
• When several references are cited together, they should be separated by semicolons and arranged chronologically (Gibson, 2016; Davey et al., 2024; Robson et al., 2026)

Materials and Methods

The Materials and Methods section must describe the study clearly enough to allow understanding, evaluation, and, where relevant, replication of the work.

Authors should present:

• the study area or biological material, where applicable;
• the experimental or sampling design;
• the materials, instruments, datasets, and procedures used;
• the variables measured;
• the analytical and statistical methods applied;
• the software used for data analysis.

Methods should be presented in a logical manner and, where useful, divided into clearly titled subsections. These subsections should help readers follow the sequence of the work without becoming too fragmented.
Well-established methods may be cited without being described in excessive detail. However, if a method is uncommon, difficult to access, or published in a non-English source, sufficient explanation should be provided in the manuscript.
Descriptions should be precise, chronological where appropriate, and focused on what is necessary for understanding and reproducibility.
Commercial brand names should generally be avoided unless essential. Authors should instead provide the active substance, relevant specifications, or methodological details.

Study Area and Maps

If a map is necessary to describe the study area, authors must ensure that the figure can legally be published under the journal’s open-access license. Copyrighted map images or third-party materials that are not compatible with journal licensing conditions should not be used without permission.
Authors should use compatible or public-domain resources wherever possible and should clearly indicate the source in the figure caption.

Ethical Issues

Authors must ensure that the study complies with applicable ethical standards concerning human subjects, animal welfare, environmental protection, and any other relevant area of research ethics.
If the research involved humans, informed consent must have been obtained, and the approving ethics committee must be identified. If the study involved animals, authors must indicate the measures taken to ensure ethical treatment and welfare.

For all studies requiring formal approval, the manuscript must state:

• the name of the approving authority or ethics committee;
• the ethical approval number or code.

Where applicable, a formal Ethical Approval statement must be included in a dedicated “Ethical Approval” section of the manuscript.

Statistical Analysis

The statistical analysis must be appropriate for the study design and clearly described. Authors should identify:

• the sample size;
• the statistical tests used;
• the assumptions of the tests;
• the software used;
• the significance threshold applied.

Where relevant, authors should specify whether data are presented as mean ± SD or mean ± SE and ensure that these measures are used correctly.
P-values should be reported consistently in the text, tables, and figures when statistical comparisons are presented. Statistical symbols (e.g., P, r, t, F) should be written in italics. A statement such as “Values of P < 0.05 were considered statistically significant” should be included where appropriate, unless a different threshold is justified.
Because statistical methodology has a major influence on the validity and interpretation of results, authors are encouraged to ensure that the analysis is well matched to the type and distribution of the data.

Style, Units, Numbers, and Equations

Authors should follow standard scientific conventions throughout the manuscript.
Please note the following:

• use decimal points, not commas: 0.6, not 0,6;
• use a zero before decimals: 0.5, not .5;
• separate thousands with commas: 1,230;
• use SI units consistently;
• leave a space between the numerical value and the unit: 5 g, 16 m, 18.6 °C;
• use 5% and 55° without extra spacing;
• use kg ha^–1 rather than kg/ha;
• spell out numbers from one to ten unless they are associated with units or measurements;
• scientific names of species (genus and species) must be written in italics. Cultivar names should be written in single quotation marks (e.g., Malus domestica ‘Golden Delicious’). Latin expressions (e.g., in vitro, in vivo, in situ) should be written in italics;
• mathematical equations should be clearly typed, with superscripts and subscripts correctly formatted. Equations should be numbered consistently where necessary.

Results

The Results section should present the findings clearly, logically, and objectively, based strictly on the authors’ own data. Results should not be distorted, selectively omitted, or manipulated in any way.
This section may be organized with relevant subheadings if needed. In some cases, authors may choose a combined Results and Discussion section; however, a separate Discussion section is generally recommended for clarity.
Results should be closely connected to tables and figures and should follow a logical sequence. All tables and figures must be cited in the text in the order in which they appear.
Tables and figures should be placed as close as possible to their first citation in the text.

Tables and Figures

Tables and figures are essential components of the manuscript and must be prepared carefully and presented clearly.

General Principles

• each table and figure must be numbered consecutively;
• each must have a concise, informative title or caption;
• captions should be clear enough to allow understanding without returning repeatedly to the main text;
• all symbols, abbreviations, units of measurement, and statistical indicators (including significance levels, letters indicating statistical differences, and the statistical test used, where applicable) must be clearly defined in the table or figure. For example: “Means followed by different letters differ significantly at P < 0.05 (Tukey test)”;
• data presented in tables should not be duplicated in figures, and vice versa.

Tables

Tables should be editable, not embedded as images. Column headings must be explanatory, units must be clear, and the layout should remain readable. If smaller fonts are required in large tables, the font should not be smaller than 8 pt.

Figures

Figures, graphs, photographs, and combined panels must be clear, well designed, and of sufficient quality for publication. A minimum resolution of 300 dpi is recommended, and images should preferably be of high clarity and suitable size for publication.
Figures should be provided in high-quality formats such as TIFF, PNG, or EPS. JPEG files are acceptable for photographic images, provided that the resolution and overall quality are sufficient for publication.
If figures contain multiple panels, these should be labelled A, B, C, etc., and each panel should be described in the figure caption.

In the text, figures should be cited as:

• Figure 1
• Figure 2A
• Figures 2B and 2C
• Figures 3A-D

Authors are encouraged to use colour figures when they improve clarity, as colour publication is permitted.
Whenever possible, figures generated in editable formats should also be retained by the authors in case revisions are needed during the editing process.

Figure captions

Figure captions should follow the figure and should be informative but not excessively long. Rather than writing “Figure 1 shows…”, authors are encouraged to integrate the figure citation naturally into the sentence, for example:
The highest infection intensity was observed in leaves (Figure 1).

Supplementary Material

Additional datasets, images, files, tables, or other supporting materials may be uploaded as Supplementary Files during submission.
Supplementary files are also made available to reviewers during peer review. Authors are encouraged to use common, widely accessible file formats whenever possible.

Appendices and Supplementary Material

Additional material that is essential for understanding or reproducing the study, but not central to the main text, may be included as Appendices.
Appendices should be placed at the end of the manuscript, before the References section.
In appendices (labelled A, B, etc.), tables and figures must be numbered separately from the main text, for example:

• Table A1, Table A2
• Figure A1, Figure A2

All tables and figures included in the appendices must be cited in the main text of the manuscript.
Other additional materials that are not suitable for inclusion in the main manuscript (e.g., large datasets, additional images, or files) may be submitted separately as Supplementary Material. These files will be made available alongside the published article.

Discussion

The Discussion should interpret the results and place them in the context of existing scientific literature. It should not merely repeat the Results section.

Authors should explain:

• how the findings relate to the original question or hypothesis;
• whether the results support or contradict previous studies;
• what is novel or significant about the work;
• what limitations should be acknowledged;
• what future directions may arise from the findings.

Discussion should be balanced, scientifically reasoned, and supported by relevant citations. Recent and methodologically sound literature should be used wherever possible.
The aim is not simply to increase the number of references, but to interpret the findings within a meaningful scientific framework.

Conclusions

The Conclusions section should summarize only those conclusions that are directly supported by the results. It should emphasize the main message of the study and, where relevant, its implications.
Authors should avoid repeating detailed results, introducing new information, or making claims that go beyond the evidence provided in the paper.
A concise and well-focused conclusion is generally preferable.

Authors’ Contributions

The contribution of each author must be specified in a dedicated section entitled Authors’ Contributions. All listed authors must define their specific roles according to the CRediT Taxonomy:

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

Authors must be identified by their initials (e.g., Conceptualization: A.B., C.D.; Data curation: A.B., E.F., etc.). Authors may have contributed in multiple roles.

Please add the statement:
All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Authorship must be limited to persons who made substantial scientific contributions to the work and meet all four ICMJE criteria (see ICMJE recommendations):

• Substantial contribution to the conception/design of the work or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data;
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
• Final approval of the version to be published;
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

To ensure compliance with ICMJE standards, an author’s contribution statement must reflect substantial involvement in the research (via CRediT roles, i.e., Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, etc.) combined with participation in the manuscript’s preparation or revision. Contributions that provide general support (technical, financial, or purely facilitative in nature) should be recognized in the Acknowledgments section rather than as authorship.

Ethical Approval

For research involving humans or animals, a dedicated Ethical Approval statement must be included in the manuscript, identifying the approving body and the corresponding approval code.
For studies involving human participants, authors must also confirm that informed consent was obtained where applicable.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements should be concise and limited to relevant support, especially financial support, grants, institutional assistance, or other significant contributions that do not justify authorship.
If the study was funded, the recommended form is:
“This work was supported by …, grant number …”
If no specific funding was received, authors may state:
“This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.”

Conflict of Interests

Authors must disclose any personal, professional, financial, or institutional relationships that could be perceived as influencing the work.
If no conflict exists, the recommended statement is:
“The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest related to this article.”
If funders had no role in the design, execution, interpretation, or publication decision, authors may state:
“The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analysis, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.”

References

At the initial submission stage, strict reference formatting is not mandatory unless otherwise requested. However, references must be complete, accurate, and consistent.
After acceptance, references must be formatted according to the Nova Journals Harvard Style.

Authors should ensure that:

• every in-text citation appears in the reference list;
• every reference listed is cited in the text;
• references are arranged in alphabetical order;
• sources are accurate, accessible, and relevant;
• journal titles are written in full, not abbreviated.

Authors are encouraged to cite primarily peer-reviewed journal articles and high-quality academic sources. Books, reports, theses, and web resources may be used where justified, but they should not dominate the reference list in standard research articles.
Scientific names and Latin terms should be formatted appropriately in italics where relevant.
Detailed reference examples are available in the manuscript template and in the Extended Author Guidelines (PDF).

Reference Examples

The reference list should include only works cited in the text and must follow the Nova Journals Harvard Style.

All references should include a DOI (as a full URL) where available, particularly for articles published in peer-reviewed journals indexed with Crossref. For official online sources (e.g., institutional reports, databases, or websites), a stable URL and access date must be provided. Unofficial platforms or repositories lacking long-term accessibility or scientific validation should not be used as primary reference sources.

Below are examples for the most common types of sources:

Journal articles

Anderson PT, Devi ZHT, Diggins T, Stanford Z, Stone V, Roth S, et al. (2017). Nutrition analysis of cherry juice. Scientia Pomologica Journal, 19: 234–241. https://doi.org/xxxxx
Johnson BV, Miller CK (2020). Response to diseases attack of European (Pyrus communis L.) and Asian (Pyrus serotina Rehd.) pear cultivars. Fruit Trees Pathology, 31: 125–136. https://doi.org/xxxxx
Smith D (2019). Biosynthesis of phenolic compounds and its regulation in pear. Journal of Biosynthesis, 37(1): 54–63. https://doi.org/xxxxx

Books

Abbot MC (2014). Molecular cell biology. San Diego: Academic Press.

Book chapters

Gibson JH (1999). Apples. In: Taylor K, Noon YT, eds. Advances in fruit breeding. West Lafayette, Indiana: California University Press, pp. 3–37.

Conference proceedings

Davey SD, Norris TG, Saylor JL (2014). Advances in cucumber fertility. In: Knorr VB, Sting F, Banner Y, eds. Proceedings of the Society for Horticultural Sciences 2014 Conference. Sydney: Springer, pp. 113–119.

Theses

Nemeth V (2016). Decision support systems for the evaluation and use of orchards. PhD Thesis, Corvinus University, Budapest.

Web sources

Department of Agriculture (2019). German agricultural statistics for 2018. German Agriculture Department Munich. Available at: http://www.germanyagriculture.gov/projects (Accessed: 12 February 2020).

Formatting citations and references

The journal uses the Nova Journals Harvard Style for formatting citations and references. Authors are strongly encouraged to use reference management software such as Zotero for accurate and consistent formatting of citations and references.
The citation style file (CSL) can be downloaded from the link below and imported into Zotero for automatic formatting of in-text citations and reference lists.

Download Nova Journals Harvard Style (Zotero CSL)

Download the ZIP file, extract it, and import the CSL file into Zotero.

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Before Submission – Final Check

Before submitting, please ensure that:

• the manuscript follows the journal template;
• all mandatory files are uploaded;
• metadata are complete and identical to the manuscript;
• the text is written in clear academic English;
• all figures and tables are cited correctly;
• ethical and authorship statements are included where required;
• references are accurate and appropriate for the study.

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