Wader Study Author Guidelines

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to: editor@waderstudygroup.org

Please include a brief covering letter in the body of the email, which at minimum specifies the type of submission (e.g. Research Paper, Methods Paper, Short Communication, Synthesis/Review, Forum, or Book/Thesis Review), and include your manuscript as an attachment. For initial submissions, all tables and figures may be embedded in the text file; for revised manuscripts, we ask that figures be included as separate graphic files. Please include the names and contact information for potential reviewers for your manuscript. Each manuscript will be taken on by an editor, who will correspond with you, and finalised by the Editors-in-Chief (the list of current editors can be found on the main page).

Unless noted otherwise, the Wader Study editorship will assume that: 1) the data presented in the manuscript are original and your own work, and are not published or under consideration for publication elsewhere; 2) all authors agree to the content of the manuscript and that the corresponding author conscientiously represents their interests in this regard; and 3) that the work was conducted with scientific integrity and free from conflicts of interest.

The following information will help you to align your submitted manuscript with the style guidelines of Wader Study. We do not insist that initial submissions conform to these guidelines, although doing so may help expedite the review process. However, after review and initial recommendations by the editor, we will request and appreciate that your revised manuscript be formatted accordingly. This will greatly reduce the work required by our editorial staff and accelerate publication of your manuscript.

Language

Manuscripts must be in English; either American or British English spelling is acceptable as long as it is consistently applied. Non-native English writers are advised to seek language assistance prior to submission; if this is not possible, the Wader Study editors will try to provide or arrange language assistance. Where terms can be written in different ways (e.g. radio tag vs. radio-tag; color band vs. color-band; nonbreeding vs. non-breeding), please be consistent throughout the manuscript.

Text format

Text should be single-spaced but with a blank line (extra carriage return) between each paragraph. Please format text in a single, left-justified column with no indentation or hyphenation. Preferred text font is 12-point Times New Roman. On an A4 page (210 × 297 mm or 8.27 × 11.69 inches) with standard margins, two pages of text formatted in this manner will equate to approximately one printed page in Wader Study.

Headers

Headers are formatted as follows:

• Main section headers are in bold all capitals (e.g. INTRODUCTION, METHODS, etc.).
• Subheads are on their own line, in bold, italic and sentence case (an initial capital only) (e.g. Study site, Analysis).
• Sub-subheads, although rarely needed, are in italic and sentence case, and are separated from the paragraph text by an en-dash with spaces before and after it (e.g. Non-breeding sites – We measured …).

Scientific and common names

• Scientific names (please use those in the IOC checklist (https://www.worldbirdnames.org/ioc-lists/master-list-2/, use the latest version of the file ‘Master list’). The scientific name should appear after the first mention of the common name and should be italicized but not in parentheses, with the genus capitalized and the species epithet in lower case (e.g. Dunlin Calidris alpina). Once a genus name is used, further species in that genus may be indicated with just a single letter for the genus (e.g. Sanderling C. alba). If using a subspecies apply the same rule after the first mention of the species (e.g. C. a. schinzii). However, if there is the potential for confusion with other genera discussed in the paper (as in a paper involving both Calidris and Charadrius species) use the full name.
• Common names should be capitalized (e.g. Red-necked Phalarope). However, Generic  common names (e.g. phalaropes) are not capitalized. Short species names can be used after the first mention if clearly defined (e.g. Red Knot Calidris canutus (hereafter Knot)), after which Knot with an initial capital can be used in the rest of the paper. However, there may be a need to revert to Red Knot in the Discussion if there is potential confusion with other species of Knot. Use of plurals for species (e.g. Knots rather than Knot) should be consistent throughout the manuscript. Local common names can be used (e.g. Black-bellied Plover or Grey Plover), but must be consistent throughout.

Abbreviations in text (please avoid abbreviations in the Abstract if at all possible)

• Measurements should use standard abbreviations – g, km – and there should be a space between the number and the unit (e.g. 145 km, 35–56 d).
• Time & date should use standard abbreviations – hr, min (e.g. 3 hrs, 18:30 hrs on 13 April 2012).
• Months may be spelt out in the text, particularly if the abbreviations would look odd (e.g. we carried out the work in January), but if used to give a date range, they should be abbreviated using standard abbreviations (e.g. 3 Jan–20 Feb).
• Spans of years e.g. 2017–2019 inclusive, winter 2016–2017.
• Numbers less than ten should be spelt out (e.g. Most individuals were present in all four years of our study), but not in statistical statements (e.g. We had 3–6 years of data for each individual) or in lists including larger numerals (e.g. Age of the individuals was 8, 10 and 14 years, respectively). Numbers above 999 should have a comma (e.g. 1,000).
• Spans of numbers e.g. 1–15 or 2,000–5,000, but e.g. there were between 2,000 and 3,000 birds present.
• Circa = ca.
• Less familiar abbreviations, acronyms, or technical terms, should be defined upon first usage.

Statistical abbreviations

• Use the following statistical abbreviations: ANOVA, SD, SE, df, CV, NS, n, P, r, F, G, χ², t-test, U-test. Other statistical abbreviations, in general, should conform to Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers. The Rockefeller University Press, New York City, NY, USA.
• Include a space before and after ‘=’ or ‘<’ or similar when stating statistical details or results (e.g. n = 7), except when the statistic is presented without units (e.g. The population was estimated at >10,000 individuals or Tags represented <3% of body mass).

Other points

• Compass points/directions should be used consistently either as one word (e.g. northwestern Asia) or hyphenated (e.g. north-western Asia), lowercase unless it is a name (e.g. area southern Africa, but country South Africa, southeastern USA, western Europe, West Africa). Also for directions (e.g. the birds flew northwest, the birds flew in a northwesterly direction, they migrated in a westerly direction or north-west, north-westerly).
• Geographical co-ordinates may be in degrees, minutes (and seconds), or in decimal degrees (be consistent). The format is: 53^o12’20″N, 100^o21’10″E or 53.205556^oN, 100.35778^oE. Level of precision (use of seconds or number of decimal places) is at the author’s discretion, appropriate to the needs of the study.
• When quoting sources or defining terms, use single (‘ ’) rather than double (“ ˮ) quotation marks.
• Narrative emphasis in text should be in italic font, rather than quotes, underline, all-caps, or bold face.
• Trademarked software or other products should have an initial capital (e.g. Darvic) and include the company name and country (e.g. British Antarctic Survey, UK).
• Lists in the text should be numbered, with the numbers appearing in brackets e.g. (1) and a semi-colon between items, apart from the last number that should be preceded by ‘and’.
• Always capitalize Arctic and Antarctic (e.g. Arctic-breeding, high Arctic, low Arctic, Arctic Circle).
• En route, and other terms borrowed directly from Latin, should be in italics.
• Please make use of automatic spelling and grammar checks. Double- and triple-check everything!
• If using the Oxford (Harvard) comma, be consistent.
• Data are plural, not singular.
• Hyphens vs. dashes – Use hyphens in two-part words (like that one) and names (e.g. East Asian-Australasian Flyway). Use the en-dash to indicate ranges of values (e.g. 10,000–20,000 Dunlin), including in references (e.g. Wader Study 123: 136–142) and as a negative symbol (e.g. sun angles –4.4 to –4.8). There are no spaces before and after the en-dash in these usages. Also use the en-dash with spaces before and after, as interruptive punctuation (e.g. ‘The parameter of interest – breeding latitude – could not be derived from geolocators.’).

• Should be clear and consistent (if more than one).
• They should ideally fit the width of one column (83 mm) or two columns (170 mm).
• Resolution should be at least 300 pixels per inch (which roughly equals 300 dpi) at the size at which they will be printed.
• They can be provided as a PDF (preferably) or TIFF, JPEG or EPS. Graphs can also be supplied in Excel; in this case provide the Excel file with both the graph(s) and the data.
• Use a clear sans-serif font such as Arial and use boldface sparingly if at all.
• Type should generally appear at 8–11 pt. at actual size of reproduction.
• Label multi-panelled figures with lower-case letters in parentheses e.g. (a) and refer to them in the caption.
• Axis labels on graphs should be in sentence case (only first letter of first word capitalized) and should include relevant units in parentheses, if applicable.
• Numbers on the Y axis of graphs should be at right angles to the axis.
• For graphs, use a single Y and a single X axis (not a box), unless showing more than one scale.
• No horizontal or vertical lines should be used within plot areas, unless crucial for clarity.
• To minimize printing costs, we ask that figures be in black-and-white or gray-scale unless completely necessary for communication of the information. Authors submitting color figures will be asked to pay to help offset the additional printing costs (€80 per color page).
• For clarity, use different shapes, patterns and shades of gray, but limit the number of shades used and make them as different as possible.
• In the text, refer to Figures as e.g. (Fig. 1) or (Figs. 1 & 2) or (Figs. 1–3) or (Figs. 1a, c) or (Figs. 1a & 2c).
• Photos may be provided with manuscripts if they help to illustrate the paper. Again, if color photos are requested, there may be a charge for them.
• Photo credits should be in this format: (photo: Given name Family name) e.g. (photo: Jan van der Kam).

• All references to existing work or knowledge should be supported by citations, preferably the original publication, or credit for unpublished work (e.g. ‘pers. comm.’, ‘pers. obs.’, or ‘unpubl. data’).
• Note that typographic conventions (e.g. capitalization, use of parentheses) vary among sources; punctuation and species names should reflect the style of the original publication, but the title should be in sentence case (i.e. capitalize only the first letter in a sentence).
• Our Zotero and Mendeley compatible Citation Style can be downloaded here.

In the text

• Lists of references in text should be in chronological order first, then alphabetical order, separated by commas.
• Simultaneous references with identical authorship do not repeat author names, but only the years separated by a comma, even if dates of references by other authors appear between these years (e.g. Conklin & Colwell 2007, 2008, Johnson et al. 2007).
• References with identical authors and years are indicated by lowercase letters separated by a comma and a space (e.g. Conklin & Battley 2011a, b); see Reference list
• If multiple papers occur with the same authorship and year, these are ordered by when they are first cited in the text (receiving an a, b, c, etc. after the year both in the text and in the reference list).
• Italicize ‘et al.’ and make sure there is always a period after ‘al’.
• For two-author references use an ampersand ‘&’ rather than ‘and’.
• For unpublished references, additionally include the first initial of the author(s) and there is no comma between the author name and the description (e.g. ‘T. Piersma pers. comm.’ rather than ‘Piersma, pers. comm.’). Use pers. comm. in preference to in litt.
• For unpublished data of your own, use ‘unpubl. data’, for unpublished data held by another include the first initial of the collector(s) and there is no comma between the collectors’ name and the description (e.g. ‘T. Piersma unpubl. data.’ rather than ‘Piersma, unpubl. data.’ For multiple authors use ‘Piersma et al. unpubl. data’) – nothing appears in the reference list.
• For organizations as authors, in-text references should use acronyms when possible for very long names (e.g. ‘USSCPP 2016’, rather than ‘U.S. Shorebird Conservation Plan Partnership 2016’). See below for proper formatting in the References.

Reference list

• Do not use tabs or indents and include a line space between references.
• Put them in alphabetical order by first author.
• Order multiple papers by the same first author like this: two-author papers are in alphabetical order by second author, and then chronologically by year. Then, papers with three or more authors are in chronological order regardless of second author name (so that people can easily find the ‘et al.’ papers). If multiple papers occur with the same authorship and year, these are ordered by when they are first cited in the text (receiving an a, b, c, etc. after the year both here and in the text – below).
• Put author names in bold.
• Italicize the title of the largest publication unit: thus, for journal articles, it is the journal name; for book chapters, it is the book title; for reports, entire books, and other standalone contributions (like websites), the one title provided is italicized. For chapters or other sections, the section title is followed by ‘In: Larger Title’ or perhaps ‘Pp. 134–165 in: Larger Title (H.R. Bigshot, Ed.)’ for book chapters.
• Web addresses are in italics; e.g. ‘Accessed 15 Jun 2016 at: blah_blah’.
• For publications other than journals, there needs to be a publisher, with city and country of publication.
• References in languages other than English should be followed by the language: e.g. ‘[In Russian]’.
• Do not include DOIs for articles, unless that is the only reasonable way to reference them, as in some online-only publications.
• Do not include issue numbers within volumes (e.g. Ibis 122(3): 1–12), but include supplements (e.g. Ibis 122 (Suppl.): 1-12).
• Papers with 20 or more authors should include the names of the first five authors, an ellipsis (a series of three periods) and then the last author.
• If an in-text reference uses an organizational acronym (e.g. ‘(USSCPP 2016)’) the full organization name should appear alphabetically in the reference list, followed parenthetically by the acronym used in the text (see example below).
• Journal names should NOT be abbreviated, except that ‘The’ should be omitted at the start of a name (e.g. just Auk, not The Auk), and if an ‘and’ appears in the title, use an ampersand (e.g. Ecology & Evolution).
• If referencing an accepted but yet-to-be published manuscript, replace the year of publication with ‘In press.’ and conclude the reference with the journal name. Prior to acceptance, submitted or in-prep manuscripts should be referenced in the text as unpublished data (see above), and do not appear in the reference list.
• Referenced published material may occur in a variety of forms (see examples below for proper formatting):

Journal articles (Battley 2006, Verkuil et al. 2012)
Books (Engelmoer & Roselaar 1998)
Edited volumes (Gwinner 1990, Brook 2006)
Book sections (Alerstam & Lindström 1990)
Online ‘books’ (Nol et al. 2012, Hume et al. 2017)
Reports (MacKinnon et al. 2012)
Theses (Rynn 1982)
Websites or articles on websites (Wetlands International 2013, USSCPP 2016, R Team 2018).

Alerstam, T. & G.A. Gudmundsson. 1999. Bird orientation at high latitudes: flight routes between Siberia and North America across the Arctic Ocean. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 266: 2499–2505.

Alerstam, T. & Å. Lindström. 1990. Optimal bird migration: the relative importance of time, energy and safety. Pp. 331–351 in: Bird Migration: Physiology and Ecophysiology (E. Gwinner, Ed.). Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany.

Baker, A., P. Gonzalez, R.I.G. Morrison & B.A. Harrington. 2013. Red Knot (Calidris canutus), version 2.0. In: The Birds of North America (A.F. Poole, Ed.) Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York, USA. Accessed 27 Jul 2018 at: https://doi.org/10.2173/bna.563.

Battley, P.F. 2006. Consistent annual schedules in a migratory shorebird. Biology Letters 2: 517–520.

Brook, R. 2006. Forest and tundra fires in the Hudson Bay Lowlands of Manitoba. Pp. 365–378 in: Climate Change: Linking Traditional and Scientific Knowledge (J. Oakes & R. Riewe, Eds.). Aboriginal Issues Press, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Conklin, J.R. & P.F. Battley. 2011a. Contour feather moult of Bar-tailed Godwits (Limosa lapponica baueri) in New Zealand and the Northern Hemisphere reveals multiple strategies by sex and breeding region. Emu 111: 330–340.

Conklin, J.R. & P.F. Battley. 2011b. Impacts of wind on individual migration schedules of New Zealand bar-tailed godwits. Behavioral Ecology 22: 854–861.

Conklin, J.R. & M.A. Colwell. 2007. Diurnal and nocturnal roost site fidelity of Dunlin (Calidris alpina pacifica) at Humboldt Bay, California. Auk 124: 677–689.

Conklin, J.R. & M.A. Colwell. 2008. Individual associations in a wintering shorebird population: do Dunlin have friends? Journal of Field Ornithology 79: 32–40.

Cramp, S. & K.E.L. Simmons. (Eds.) 1983. The Birds of the Western Palearctic. Vol. 3: Waders to Gulls. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

Davidson, N., D. Bryant & G. Boere. 1999. Conservation uses of ringing data: flyway networks for waterbirds. Ringing & Migration 19 (Suppl.): 83–94.

eBird 2017. eBird: an online database of bird distribution and abundance. eBird, Ithaca, New York, USA. Accessed 28 Dec 2017 at: www.ebird.org.

Engelmoer, M. & C.S. Roselaar. 1998. Geographic variation in waders. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

Gwinner, E. (Ed.) 1990. Bird Migration: Physiology and Ecophysiology. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany.

Hume, R., G.M. Kirwan & P. Boesman. 2017. Beach Thick-knee (Esaacus magnirostris). In: Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D.A. Christie & E. de Juana, Eds.). Lynx Edicions, Barcelona, Spain. Accessed 13 Oct 2017 at: https://www.hbw.co,/node/53774.

Johnson, J.A., B.A. Andres, H.P. Sitters, J. Valenzuela, L.J. Niles, A.D. Dey, M.K. Peck & L.A. Espinosa. 2007. Counts and captures of Hudsonian Godwits and Whimbrels on Chiloé Island, Chile, January–February 2007. Wader Study Group Bulletin 113: 47–52.

MacKinnon, J., Y.I. Verkuil & N. Murray. 2012. IUCN situation analysis on East and Southeast Asian intertidal habitats, with particular reference to the Yellow Sea (including the Bohai Sea). Occasional Paper of the IUCN Species Survival Commission No. 47. International Union for Conservation of Nature, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK.

Nol, E., R.C. Humphery & American Oystercatcher Working Group. 2012. American Oystercatcher (Haematopus palliatus). In: The Birds of North America (P.G. Rodewald, Ed.). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York, USA.

Piersma, T., J. van Gils & P. Wiersma. 1996. Family Scolopacidae (Sandpipers, snipes and phalaropes). Pp. 444-533 in: Handbook of the Birds of the World. Vol. 3: Hoatzin to Auks (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliot & J. Sargatal, Eds.). Lynx Edicions, Barcelona, Spain.

R Core Team. 2018. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. Accessed at: https://www.r-project.org

Rynn, S. 1982. A revision of the taxonomy of the genus Limosa. PhD thesis, Liverpool Polytechnic, UK.

U.S. Shorebird Conservation Plan Partnership (USSCPP). 2016. U.S. Shorebirds of Conservation Concern – 2016. Accessed 14 Dec 2017 at: https://www.shorebirdplan.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Shorebirds- Conservation-Concern-2016.pdf

Van Gils, J., P. Wiersma & G.M. Kirwan 2020. Common Redshank (Tringa totanus), version 1.0. In: Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D.A. Christie & E. de Juana, Eds.). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. Accessed 19 Sep 2020 at: https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.comred1.01

Verkuil, Y.I., N. Karlionova, E.N. Rakhimberdiev, J. Jukema, J.J. Wijmenga, J.C.E.W. Hooijmeijer, P. Pinchuk, E. Wymenga, A.J. Baker & T. Piersma. 2012. Losing a staging area: eastward redistribution of Afro-Eurasian ruffs is associated with deteriorating fuelling conditions along the western flyway. Biological Conservation 149: 51–59.

Warnock, N.D. & R.E. Gill. 2020. Dunlin (Calidris alpina), version 1.0. In: Birds of the World (S.M. Billerman, Ed.). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. Accessed 19 Sep 2020 at: https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.dunlin.01

Weiser, E.L., R.B. Lanctot, S.C. Brown, H.R. Gates, R.L. Bentzen, … & B.K. Sandercock. 2017. Environmental and ecological conditions at Arctic breeding sites have limited effects on true survival rates of adult shorebirds. Auk 135: 29–43.

Wetlands International. 2013. Waterbird Population Estimates. 5th Edn. Wetlands International. Accessed 24 Oct 2014 at: https://wpe.wetlands.org/

Prepare text files in Microsoft Word or compatible text formats.

• Submit figures in PDF (preferably), TIFF, EPS, or JPEG format, or as graphs in Excel spreadsheets (include all data). For final revised manuscripts, include figures as separate files, not embedded in the text file.
• Provide tables in editable Word or Excel format, not as graphics.
• Format figures and tables as simply as possible for clarity. Ensure that fonts and symbols appear in a size that is legible at realistic reproduction size.
• To minimize printing costs, we ask that figures be in black-and-white or gray-scale unless completely necessary for communication of the information. Authors submitting color figures will be asked to pay to help offset the additional printing costs (€80 per color page). We may request gray-scale versions of any figures submitted only in color.
• Photographic figures are encouraged, particularly when gray-scale reproduction is sufficient (see above). Ideally, resolution of digital images should be at least 300 pixels/inch at the desired size of reproduction (although lower resolutions may be acceptable in some cases).
• We encourage submission of striking, representative photographic images for consideration to appear on the cover of Wader Study. These should be clear, high-quality images appropriate for our standard cover layout (approximate horizontal aspect 1:1.4).