Two identical copies of the files, as specified below, must be sent electronically, by email, or CD, zip-disk 100 or floppy disk, to the address:

revista BIOTA NEOTROPICA
Av. Dr. Romeu Tórtima, 388 - Barão Geraldo
CEP 13084-520
Campinas, SP, Brasil

e-mail: biotaneotropica@cria.org.br

All material sent in accordance to the instructions will be rewied by at least two "ad hoc" refeers selected by the Editorial Board. The comments made by the referees will be sent, without identification, to the author(s). If the paper is "not recommended" for publishing, it will usually be submitted to a third "ad hoc" referee. The final acceptance of the article will depend on the decision of the Editorial Board. When submitting the file, please indicate the category (article, short communication, etc.) it should be published in. The article will only receive a definite acceptance date after the approval of the Editorial Board as to its scientific merit and conformity to the rules established.
The rules specified herewith are valid for all categories unless specified otherwise.

All material should be sent in DOC (MS-Word for Windows version 6.0 or superior), or, preferably, in RTF (Rich Text Format) format. Articles may have electronic links as appropriate. All material will be reformatted in accordance to pre established standards approved by the Editorial Board for each category. Images and tables will be inserted within the final text following pre established standards. When appropriate, internal links to tables and images will be included as well as a table of contents. The file with the final format will be sent to each author for prior approval before publication. All images may be used to compose the site with the prior consent of the author and due recognition of the authorship.

Files submitted to the Biota Neotropica must be subdivided into a specific set of files with the appropriate extension in accordance to the format used, such as, .rtf for Rich Text Format, .doc for MS-Word, .gif for images in GIF, .jpg for images in JPEG, and so on. No spaces, hyphens or any other extra character should be added.

All texts must use font Times New Roman, size 10. Titles and subtitles may use size 11 or 12. Features such as bold, italic, underline, subscript and superscript may be used when necessary. It is recommended to avoid excessive use of these resources. When absolutely necessary, the following fonts may be used: Courier New, Symbol e Wingdings (see item "formulas" below).

Words should not be separated using "-", only when hyphenated. Use only one space between words and don't use "tabs".

Only 2 subtitle levels are accepted after the title of each section. Only one numbering level is permitted as well as only one level of items. Titles and subtitles must be numbered using Arabic numbers followed by a dot (".") in order to help in identifying the hierarchy when formatting the document. (Example: 1. Title; 1.1. subtitle; 1.1.1. sub subtitle)

Main Document

1. Title and Authors
• Title. Concise and informative;
• Running title
• Complete name of authors; institution and full address with electronic links to the institution, indicating the main author and respective email.
2. Abstract
   Abstracts shall have a maximum of 1500 words.
• Title in English
• Abstract in English
• Keywords in English
• Title in Portuguese or Spanish
• Abstract in Portuguese or Spanish
• Keywords in Portuguese or Spanish
3. Body of the Document

If the text is an article, short communication, inventory or identification key, it must have the following structure:

• Introduction
• Materials and Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Acknowledgments
• Bibliographic References

Items Results and Discussion may be joined.


In the case of inventories a list of species, environments, descriptions, pictures, etc. must be remitted separately so they can be organized in accordance with specific formatting.

In the case of identification keys, the key must be sent separately so that it can be adequately formatted.

In the case of referencing collected material it is mandatory to include the geographic coordinate in degrees, minutes, and seconds (p.ex. 24N 32' 75"). In the case of endangered species only degrees and minutes should be made available.

Include bibliographic citations in accordance to the following standard: Silva (1960) or (Silva 1960); Silva (1960, 1973); Silva (1960a, b); Silva & Pereira (1979) or (Silva & Pereira 1979); Silva et al. (1990) or (Silva et al. 1990); (Silva 1989, Pereira & Carvalho 1993, Araujo et al. 1996, Lima 1997). Unpublished material shall be cited as (A.E. Silva, unpublished data). In the case of taxonomic material, for citation, follow specific rules of the type of organism studied.

When referring to numbers or units, write numbers up to nine, unless when followed by a unit of measure. For decimal numbers use commas "," when the article is in Portuguese (10,5 m) and point "." when the article is in English (10.5 m). Use the International System Units (SI), separating the units from the value with a space (except in the case of percentages, degrees, minutes and seconds); use abbreviations always when possible. For compost units use exponentials and not bars (Ex.: mg.day-1 instead of mg/day, µmol.min-1 instead of µmol/min).

Do not add spaces to change the line if a unit does not fit in the line.

Do not use footnotes, include the information directly on the text as this makes reading easier and reduces the number of electronic links of the manuscript.

4. Bibliographic references

Adopt the following format:

• SMITH, P.M. 1976. The chemotaxonomy of plants. Edward Arnold, London.
• SNEDECOR, G.W. & COCHRAN, W.G. 1980. Statistical Methods. 7 ed. Iowa State University Press, Ames.
• SUNDERLAND, N. 1973. Pollen and anther culture. In Plant tissue and cell culture (H.F. Street, ed.). Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford, p.205-239.
• BENTHAM, G. 1862. Leguminosae. Dalbergiae. In Flora Brasiliensis (C.F.P. Martius & A.G. Eichler, eds.). F. Fleischer, Lipsiae, v.15, pars 1, p.1-349.
• MANTOVANI, W., ROSSI, L., ROMANIUC NETO, S., ASSAD-LUDEWIGS, I.Y., WANDERLEY, M.G.L., MELO, M.M.R.F. & TOLEDO, C.B. 1989. Estudo fitossociológico de áreas de mata ciliar em Mogi-Guaçu, SP, Brasil. In Simpósio sobre mata ciliar (L.M. Barbosa, coord.). Fundação Cargil, Campinas, p.235-267.
• FERGUSON, I.B. & BOLLARD, E.G. 1976. The movement of calcium in woody stems. Ann. Bot. 40:1057-1065.
• STRUFFALDI-DE VUONO, Y. 1985. Fitossociologia do estrato arbóreo da floresta da Reserva Biológica do Instituto de Botânica de São Paulo, SP. Tese de doutorado, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo.

Abbreviate titles of the periodicals in accordance to the "World List of Scientific Periodicals".

5. How to cite papers published in Biota Neotropica
Example: ROQUE, F.O.; CORREIA, L.C.S.; TRIVINHO-STRIXINO, S. & STRIXINO, G. 2004. A review of Chironomidae studies in lentic systems in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. Biota Neotropica 4(2): http://www.biotaneotropica.org.br/v4n2/pt/abstract?article+BN03104022004

Each paper published in Biota Neotropica has an individual eletronic address that appears just below the name(s) of the author(s) in the PDF version of the paper. This individual code is composed by the number received by the manuscript when submited (031 in the above example), the volume number (04), the fascicle number (02) and the year (2004).

Each table must be sent in a separate file. Each file must be named as tableN.EXT, where N is the number of the table and EXT is the extension of the format used, that is, doc for MS-WORD, rtf for Rich Text Format, or xls, for MS-Excel files. These are the only accepted formats. This way, the file containing table 1 on MS-Excel, must be named table1.xls. Avoid abbreviations, except in the case of units. Each table must have its own title on the top.

Each figure must be sent as a separate file and must be named as figureN.EXT, where N is the number of the figure and EXT is the extension of the format used, that is, jpg for images in JPEG, gif for images in gif, tif for images in TIFF, bmp for images in BMP. This way, the file with figure 1 in tif format must be named figure1.tif. We recommend the use of JPEG and TIFF formats for photographs and GIF or BMP for graphics. Other formats may be accepted if requested previously. The images must be sent using the best resolution possible. Images with a resolution smaller than 300 dpi may compromise the quality of the work when printed by the final user. The size of the image must, when possible, have a proportion of 3x2 or 2x3 between height and width. Texts inserted within the figures must use sans-seriff fonts such as Arial or Helvética for a better readability. Figures that in reality are a composition of various others must be sent, each part, as a separate file indicated by letters. Ex: figure1a.gif, figure 2a.gif and so on. Use bar scales to indicate the size. Figures should not have legends, these must be specified in a separate file (see below). Authors must open the files that were prepared for submission and see whether they are in the correct format.

Formulas that may be written in a single line even if they require special fonts (Symbol, Courier New and Wingdings), may be part of the text. Ex: a = pr2 or Na₂HPO, etc. Other types of formulas or equations must be considered a figure and must therefore follow the rules established for figures.

A separate file named legend.doc or legend.rtf must be sent, depending on the format used, containing the legends of all the figures. Each legend must be contained in a paragraph and must be clearly identified in the beginning of the paragraph as Figure N, where N is the number of the figure. Composite figures may or not have independent legends. If a table has a legend, this must be included in this file, in a separate paragraph that begins with Table N, where N is the number of the table.

Together with the files that hold the article, an index file named index.doc or index.rtf must also be sent with a list of all the files that are part of the document, one per line.

Category "thesis and dissertations"

• Title and author as specified above
• Name of the supervisor
• Institution and Graduate Course
• date the thesis was defended
• contact information
• Abstract and keywords in English and Portuguese or Spanish as specified above.