Submissions

Author Guidelines

1 Aims and scope

The Annals of the University of Parakou - Natural Sciences and Agronomy series, abbreviated AUP-SNA, is an open access scientific journal with peer-reviewed articles. It is intended for a diversified public consisting of development professionals, researchers, lecturers, students and producers. Articles, written in French or English, must be original, constitute an important scientific or technical contribution for this public and interest an international readership.

The journal publishes research (experimentation, surveys, modeling, simulations, meta-analyzes and syntheses) on all aspects of natural, biological, agronomic, environmental and related sciences. We are particularly interested in the improvement of production systems, as well as the sustainable use of agricultural production and natural resources.

More specifically, the journal welcome work concerning:

• Plant science (phytotechnics, mycology, horticulture, biotechnology and plant protection, storage and preservation of harvested products);
• Animal science (zootechnics, animal health, fishing, aquaculture, animal genetic improvement, domestication and exploitation of wild species);
• Food technology, nutrition and food security, including the transformation and use of animal and plant products for household consumption or in the industry;
• Natural resources management (forest, wildlife, soil, water), including forestry, ecology, environmental impacts, biodiversity conservation and monitoring, management of protected areas, ecotourism and hydro-agricultural facilities;
• Economics and sociology of agricultural production systems and natural resources;
• Agricultural development in general and technical, institutional and political innovations in all areas above.

The journal  "Annals of the University of Parakou - Natural Sciences and Agronomy Series" is published by the University of Parakou (Benin). It was created in 2010 and appeared until 2017 under a single issue per year, in paper format.

Since 2018, the journal is published semi-annually (twice a year: in June and in December) and has shifted from paper olny format to both electronic and paper format, in open access.

Each publication is composed of articles submitted spontaneously by their authors. In addition, special issues may be initiated by the editorial board, consisting of articles on topical issues or of conference proceedings (conferences, symposia, workshops, etc.) on the initiative of the organizers of said events or of the editorial board.

The articles submitted for publication, including for conference proceedings, are examined by the editorial board (pre-evaluation) and by anonymous reviwers (double-blind evaluation) for:

• The adequacy to the scope of the journal;
• The interest of the topic for the readership of the journal;
• The originality of the submitted manuscript;
• The rigor of the reasoning and clarity of the writing.

The final decision of acceptance or rejection of the article is taken by the editorial board.

2 Preparation of manuscripts

All manuscripts must comply with the following instructions before being examined.

• The desired length of a manuscript is at most 8,000 words for the original research articles (with at most 6 illustrations) and 10,000 words for syntheses (with at most 8 illustrations). The length of the article is for the full manuscript, including title, abstracts in French and English, keywords, text, bibliographic references, tables and figures with their bilingual titles and legends;
• Admissible synthesis article types include: narrative synthesis, bibliometric analysis, systematic review and meta-analysis;
• The list of authors and their affiliations must be removed from the manuscript text, to preserve the anonymity of the authors during the evaluation. It will be entered directly online in the form provided for this purpose during the submission process. The names of all authors and their affiliations should be entered in the said form. No changes will be made to the list of authors after submission.
• The elements constituting the manuscript (title and summary in French and English, keywords, text, bibliographic references, tables and figures with their bilingual titles and legends), excluding the authors and their affiliations, will have to be grouped into a single file rendered anonymous;
• The title, the summary and the introduction of the article must contain all the elements to seize the scientific interest of the article, its originality and its relevance, and encourage to read it;
• Manuscripts must be written in a text processing software compatible with Windows, in A4 format, "Times New Roman 12 font", with numbered pages and a normal margin (2.54 cm) on all edges and single lines;
• Subtitles are limited to three levels at most and the text must be written in plain text, without any underlined word (with the exception of URLs);
• footnotes are not accepted;
• Tables and figures will be limited to the minimum necessary for the understanding of the article and will be provided with their bilingual titles and legends (French and English). They will be inserted directly into the text to the appropriate locations, and not at the end of the article. If high resolution figures are deemed necessary, the authors may choose to attach the files of each relevant figure separately, especially for photographs;
• The text must be written in simple and understandable language, in French or English. International abbreviations are accepted (FAO, DDT, etc.).
• Only measuring units, symbols and equations of the international system are accepted;
• Equations will be inserted with the equation editor available in word processing softwares;
• The authors of scientific names will be cited only the first time a scientific name appears in the text (and not in the title of the article);
• In the text, use in moderation very specialized technical terms, abbreviations and little known acronyms, and systematically provide the definition the first time they appear in the summary and in the body of the manuscript;
• The manuscript will be subdivided into several parts on separate pages which contents are described below.

2.1 Full manuscript of the article (excluding the authors and affiliations)

Page 1: Title of the article, summary and abstract

This page must clearly provide:

• The title of the article (20 words maximum) in French and English: it includes the study subject and the scientific name of the taxon (if any) without its author(s);
• The short title of the article in the language of the article (10 words maximum);
• A summary in French (300 words maximum). The sections to be summarized include the introduction (context, problem and objectives), the methodology, the results and the conclusion;
• A summary in English (300 words maximum). The sections to be summarized include the introduction (context, problem and objectives), the methodology, the results and the conclusion;
• Five (5) keywords will follow each of the abstracts (French and English), describing the article as completely possible, and preferably indexed into the FAO agrovoc thesaurus (http://aims.fao.org/standards/agrovoc/functionalities/search). The key words will generally include: first, the species or object at the center of the study and end with the country where the study took place. Example: Iroko, Milicia excelsa, genetic variation, population structure, Benin.

Page 2 till the end of the article: manuscript text with tables, figures and references included

All original articles must be structured as follows: Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Conflicts of interest, Acknowledgements (if necessary) and Bibliographic references. If the author desires, results and discussion can be combined. The structure of a narrative synthesis can be organized differently to reflect its content. Except for the narrative synthesis, all other types of synthesis article must have a methodology section.

Introduction: The introduction presents the nature and importance of the problem and place it in the context of what is already known (review of the literature). It allows to justify the choice of the main hypothesis and the methodological approach. The objectives, questions or hypotheses of the study must be clearly stated and logically derived from the problem and the review of the literature presented.

Materials and methods: This section presents the methods used to achieve the results and makes it possible to judge the scientific value of the work. It usually starts with the presentation of the study area and the context of the study (dates, periods of realization, seasons, etc.). The description of the experimental protocol must contain (Dagnélie, 2012): the environmental conditions of the experiment or research; subjects that have been studied (population, sampling ...); the organization of the experimentation (duration, treatments, number of observations, samples, repetitions ...); the measurements that have been carried out (dependent and independent variables) and the methods (techniques, instruments ...) of collecting these measurements; the statistical tools for the analysis; the relative uncertainty and the accuracy of the instruments. For a protocol already described in the literature, a brief description with a reference is sufficient.

Results: This section serves to present the main results of the study (in the form of statistics, tables and / or figures), without interpretation or discussion, and in relation to the questions or hypotheses of the research. A logical order of presentation representing the author's reasoning must be used to help the reader understand this reasoning. For the illustrations, prefer the figures to the tables when possible.

Discussion: In this part, the answer to the central question or hypothesis must be provided. The author should refer to the results, without taking them back, and explain how these new results improve scientific knowledge. The discussion must also provide an explanation on the results, including those not expected, in connection with previous research, and present the limits of the study as needed.

Conclusion: It specifies the important theoretical and practical implications of the study as well as the perspectives and / or recommendations related to the results presented. It is different from the abstract and should not be a duplication of the abstract.

Conflicts of Interest: This section allows to report any existing conflict of interest. Here are some examples of declaration of conflict of interest that can be adapted:

- Author XXXXXXX (initials) was employed by XXXXXXX. The authors declare, however, that the research has been conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationship that can be interpreted as a potential conflict of interest.

- The authors declare that this study received funding from XXXXXXX. The funder participated in the study: XXXXXXX ".

- The authors declare that this study received funding from XXXXXXX. The funder was not involved in the design of the study, the collection, analysis, the interpretation of the data, the drafting of this article or the decision to submit it for publication.

Acknowledgments: Acknowledge, if necessary,  technical, financial or institutional contributors.

Bibliographic references: Authors are responsible for the correct spelling of names cited in bibliographic references. In the text, the references are cited by specifying the names of the authors (without the first names or initials) and the date of publication as follows: DUPONT (1995) or DUPONT & DUPONT (1990), or in the case of more than two (2) authors, Dupont et al. (1978). When the author's name is an integral part of a sentence, only the year will be put in parentheses. Otherwise, the name of the author and the year are all in parentheses, separated by a comma. In the case of several authors-date citations inside a parenthesis, separate them with a semicolon. If a given author or the same group of authors have published several articles the same year, append the letters a, b, c, etc. to the publication year. It is not recommended to cite unpublished documents (with the exception of official documents) or difficult to find.

In the list of bibliographic references at the end of the manuscript, the references will be arranged in alphabetical order of the names of the authors. List all authors up to 6; Beyond 6, maintain the first 6, followed by et al. When an article or document is downloadable or at least available on the Internet, indicate in parentheses, at the end of the reference, the corresponding URL. It is also necessary to provide the DOI of a reference when it exists. The names of scientific journals or conference titles can be abbreviated. In such a case, use internationally recognized standards. See for example:

• https://images.webofknowledge.com/images/help/WOS/A_abrvjt.html
• http://www.wsl.ch/dienstleistungen/publikationen/office/abk_EN
• http://library.stanford.edu/guides/find-journal-abbreviations

Depending on the types of publications, references will be presented as follows:

 * Journal article

• Adjanohoun E. 1962. Etude phytosociologique des savanes de la basse Côte-d'Ivoire (savanes lagunaires). Vegetatio 11 : 1-38.
• Grônblad R. Prowse G. A. & Scott A. M. 1958. Sudanese Desmids. Acta Bot. Fenn. 58: 1-82.
• Poche R. M. 1974a. Notes on the roan antelope (Hippotragus equinus (Desmarest) in West Africa. Applied Ecology, 11: 963-968.
• Poche R. M. 1974b. Ecology of the African elephant (Loxodonta africana) in Niger, West Africa. Mammalia, 38: 567-580.

 * Book chapter

• Whitton B.A. & Potts M. 1982. Marine littoral: 515-542. In: Carr N.G. & Whitton B. A. (eds.), The biology of cyanobacteria. Oxford, Blackwell.
• Annerose D. & Cornaire B. 1994. Approche physiologie de l'adaptation à la sécheresse des espèces cultivées pour l'amélioration de la production en zones sèches: 137-150. In Reyniers F. N. & Netoyo L. (eds). Bilan hydrique agricole et sécheresse en Afrique tropicale. Ed. John Libbey Eurotext. Paris.

* Book

• Zryd J. P. 1988. Cultures des cellules, tissus et organes végétaux. Fondements théoriques et utilisations pratiques. Presses Polytechniques Romandes, Lausanne, Suisse.
• Stuart S. N., Adams R. J. & Jenkins M. D. 1990. Biodiversity in sub-Saharan Africa and its islands. IUCN- The Word Conservation Union, Gland, Switzerland.

* Thesis

• Batonon D. I. 2014. Systèmes d’alimentation alternatifs pour le développement des filières volaille en régions chaudes. Thèse de Doctorat, Université François Rabelais, Tours, France, 160 p.

* Communication

• Viera da Silva J. B., Naylor A. W. & Kramer P. J. 1974. Some Ultrastrucural and enzymatic effects of water stress in cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) leaves. Proceedings of Nat. Acad. Sci. USA: 3243-3247.
• Lamachere J. M. 1991. Aptitude du ruissellement et de l'infiltration d'un sol sableux fin après sarclage. Actes de l'Atelier Soil water balance in the Sudano-Sahelian Zone. Niamey, Niger, IAHS n°199 : 109-119.

* Abstract

1. Takaiwa F. & Tanifuji S. 1979. RNA Synthesis in embryo axes of germination pea seeds. Plant Cell Physiol., 20 (5): 875-884. In: Crop Physiology Abstracts, 1980, 4533.

* Website

• Heuzé V., Tran G., Bastianelli D., Hassoun P. & Renaudeau D. 2015. Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) tubers. Feedipedia, INRA, CIRAD, AFZ, FAO, www.feedipedia.org/node/745 (consulté le jour/mois/année).

* Datasets

Authors are encouraged to cite the datasets generated or analyzed in their study. There are several data repositories (including free ones) such as: Dryad, Zenodo, FigShare, Open Science Framework, GBIF, Mendeley, etc. You can view some recommendations here: https://www.nature.com/sdata/policies/repositories#close. There are also other compiled lists of data repositories such as http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Data_repositories and https://www.lib.umn.edu/datamanagement/datacenters.

When datasets are cited, they must be included in the references list and the following format should be used:

Names of the authors. year. Data title. Name of the data repository. Version (if available). Identifier (eg DOI) and date of consultation.

Example:

Amahowe O I, Affoukou C, Natta A K. 2016. Species composition in twelve (12) Afzelia africana Sm & Pers populations in Benin. GBIF Benin. Occurrence dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/9wycdn  accessed via GBIF.org on 2021-05-02.

2.2 References Management Software and Applicable Styles

To facilitate the preparation of your manuscript, we strongly recommend that you use a bibliographic reference management software. There are several free on the Internet, the most popular of which are Mendeley (www.mendey.com) and Zotero (www.zototero.org). Style files for these two software (and also Papers2) rely on a language called "Citation Style Language (CSL)" and can therefore be used with any of these softwares. The following paragraphs explain the procedure for installing the bibliographic reference style file of our journal in Mendeley and Zotero. The style file is downloadable on this link. You may need to manually modify the extension of the downloaded file in ".csl" so that it is "Harvard-AnnealsUp-SNA-1.CSL". Please note that you must be logged into your account to be able to download the files.

Installing the AUP-SNA Style in Mendeley: To install it in Mendeley, go to the menu: View >> Citation Styles >> More Styles (go to the Get More Styles tab). At the bottom of the dialog box, add the link above and click on Download. The style is automatically installed, and you can use it to format your references.

Installing the AUP-SNA Style in Zotero: With the Zotero Standalone app, you must first download the style on your computer (with the ".csl" extension). To install it, make a double click on the downloaded file while the Zotero application is open or open it with Zotero and confirm the installation.

2.3 Tables and figures

All tables and figures must be numbered in Arabic numerals (Table 1, Figure 2) and cited in the manuscript with their number in a chronological order. Each table or figure must have a title. Titles and legends must be concise and clear enough so that the content is understandable without recourse to the text. They must also be translated into the second language (French or English) depending on the language of the manuscript. Drawings, maps and photographs will be uniformly designated as figures.

Tables titles will be displayed at the top of each table, while those of the figures will be displayed at the bottom. The figures and tables will be positioned immediately after their first quote in the text or on the following page (and not at the end of the article). It is necessary to avoid repeating the same data contained in the tables and figures in the text.

For tables and figures comprising text, use a font size 11 or 12; Otherwise, they would become unreadable, after size reduction. In the figures, prefer coarse textures (points, hatches, etc.) and use a minimum resolution of approximately 600 dpi for drawings containing lines and 400 dpi for graphics with gray shades, for the figures to be readable. Figures (diagrams, maps, photos, etc.) in color are accepted but the tables will be presented in black and white.

For tables, the borders of the columns will be rendered invisible and only the borders of the first line and the last line will be visible.

If some of the illustrations are taken from third parties, whether they have already been published or not, the author undertakes to obtain with the latter all the authorizations necessary for the integration and use of these illustrations into its article. The author will provide these reproduction authorizations with its manuscript. Official documents (laws, decrees, decisions, etc.) are not concerned.

Finally, feature your article with an eye-catching cover image: after an article is accepted for publication, authors must submit an image (photo or drawing) related to their article to be featured on the issue table of content or on the issue cover. Adding a cover image to your article helps introducing it. It is the first thing a reader will see.

2.4 Supplementary materials (appendices)

Elements not essential to the understanding of the work, but that the authors think they may have an interest for the readers, may be attached to the article; They are submitted separately as "Supplementary materials". Supplementary materials are indicated in the text by calls: "( Supplementary material I or Supplementary material IV)".

3 Submission and evaluation of manuscripts

3.1 Submission platform and documents

All stages since the submission of manuscripts to the final production of accepted articles is now managed online. The submission and follow-up are therefore exclusively online at: https://sna.fa-up.bj/ojs/index.php/sna/index. The author who submits the article will have to log in to his account on that platform, or create one if it was not already registered as a user. No attention will be granted to a manuscript sent in another form.

Each submission includes:

1. The cover letter (mandatory) based on the AUP-SNA journal template (see. template on this link). You must be logged in to download the template. The letter contains, among other things:
   • the proposition of three (3) reviewers, from different countries if possible, with their email addresses (mandatory);
   • the list and affiliations of co-authors (mandatory  and identical to the information entered in the online form);
   • the declaration of co-authors contribution (mandatory); 
   • in case a manuscript must be considered for a special issue, the authors must indicate it in the cover letter as well.
2. The manuscript of the article into a single file ".doc", ".docx" or ".rtf" (mandatory) and containing no information on the authors or their affiliations (see section below on how to preserve anonymity);
3. The files of the high-resolution figures (300 to 600 dpi) and properly numbered, if deemed necessary;
4. Supplementary materials (appendices), if applicable;
5. Reproduction authorizations for third parties materials used in the article (if applicable).

3.2 Preservation of anonymity of authors and reviewers

The peer assessment process will be done by protecting as much as possible the anonymity of the authors vis-à-vis the reviewers and vice versa. As such, the authors and reviewers must eliminate their identity of the properties of the file to be submitted, by clicking on the following commands in recent versions of Word: File> Info> Inspect the document> Delete personal information from the file when recording> Save (or OK). Similarly, the authors are invited not to let appear on data tables and figures, any labels, notes or legends that can identify one or more of the co-authors of the manuscript. This information may be added in the final version of the article after acceptance.

3.3 Steps for assessing manuscripts

The manuscripts submitted to the journal are evaluated in two steps:

2. A pre-evaluation by the editorial board to assess:
   • admissibility of the manuscript (completeness of the submission: cover letter, manuscript, and anonymization of the files);
   • compliance with the scope of the journal and originality of the results;
   • plagiarism and self-plagiarism check;
3. A double-blinded evaluation by experts in the field of the manuscript submitted.

At each of these steps, an article may be rejected, if it does not comply with the authors guidelines and the scope of the journal, or if it is considered of insufficient quality.

3.4 Plagiarism and self-plagiarism check

The Annals of the University of Parakou - Natural Sciences and Agronomy Series is engaged against plagiarism and self-plagiarism. Pre-evaluation includes plagiarism check using computer software by the editorial board. The plagiarism check report highlights plagiarized sources as well as Internet links to these sources. The manuscript is rejected in case of proven plagiarism.

3.5 Revision of Manuscripts and galleys

All exchanges concerning a manuscript, including the comments of the reviewers and the galleys of the manuscript are addressed to the corresponding author via the submission platform.

In the event a revision is required, the modified version of the manuscript must be filed on the submission platform by the corresponding author within one week for minor revisions and a month for major revisions. All recommendations from the reviewers and the editorial board are to be taken into account. In case of disagreement with certain remarks, the author clearly argues why they are not accounted for. A document summarizing all changes made in response to the reviewers comments must be attached to the revised version of the manuscript.

The revised version of the manuscript must clearly highlight the changes made by the authors, either by using the "Track changes" feature available in word processing software, or by highlighting the modified text.

After corrections and final acceptance of the manuscript, it will be published online in a downloadable PDF version whose link will be provided to the author. At the same time, the author will receive by email the final version in PDF format as author copy.

4 Article Publication Charges

Authors must pay Article Publication Charges of 40,000 FCFA (62 euros) per accepted article, within a maximum of 7 days following the acceptance of the article. The references of the bank account of the University of Parakou and instructions for the payment will be provided to the author upon acceptance of his manuscript.

5 General Tips

• Methodological Tips: Bochet B. (2015). Understand and master the scientific literature: http://orbi.ulg.ac.be/handle/2268/186181 or http://infolit.be/CoMLiS.
• Free software for editing images: http://www.archimag.com/vie-numerique/2016/03/02/3-outils-gratuits-retoucher-photos-pro
• Free Reference Management software: https://www.mpl.ird.fr/documentation/download/ENW_Zotero_Mendeley_AperoDoc.pdf   and http://espacechercheurs.enpc.fr/fr/lgrb
• Free Plagiarism check Software: http://www.archimag.com/bibliotheque-edition/2017/03/01/plagiat-3-outils-reperer-copies-colles ; https://www.redacteur.com/blog/logiciel-anti-plagiat-gratuit/ and http://www.precisement.org/blog/Logiciels-anti-plagiat-gratuits-et-payants-une-selection.html.

The editorial board thank the authors of the attention they will pay to these instructions. Their strict compliance will greatly facilitate the publication of their article and prevent delays.