Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia (ALB) is a journal published by the Associação Brasileira de Limnologia - ABLimno (Brazilian Association of Limnology) that publishes original articles in Limnology, comprises physical, chemical and biological aspects of fresh water ecosystems.

Brief Background

The volume 1, number 1 of Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia was first published in 1986 after the first Brazilian Congress of Limnology that occurred in the same year. Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia is the official journal of the Brazilian Association of Limnology, an association without lucrative gains that was funded in 1982 (with the name Brazilian Society of Limnology) and have in its statute the mission to divulge the scientific knowledge of Limnology by a journal. The first numbers of the journal had biannual periodicity after the congress realization. After 1992 the journal had annual periodicity. Between 1998 and 2001 two numbers by year were published, and in 2002 and 2003 three numbers by year and after 2004 four numbers by year. After 2016 the journal started publishing one volume by year in a continuous flow. The short title of the journal is Acta Limnol. Bras. (Online), which must be used in bibliographies, footnotes, references and bibliographical subtitles.

Open Science Compliance

ALB follows the Diamond Open Access model. Readers can access, download, reproduce, copy, distribute, and print the published articles in full without any cost, and ALB also does not charge any publication fees. Authors are encouraged to make research data available directly in the article or in open-access repositories to ensure the replicability of studies. More information about research data can be found in the section “Instructions for Authors – Research Data”.

The submission and approval dates of manuscripts, as well as the name of the Associate Editor responsible for the evaluation process, are indicated in the article after the References section. Authors must download, fill the requested information and upload the Open Science Compliance Form when submitting their manuscript to ALB.

Ethics in publication

Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia adheres to the best practice guidelines outlined in the SciELO Brazil good practice guide for strengthening ethics in scientific publishing and follows the recommendations for editorial team members, reviewers, and authors described in the Core Practices document of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Authors must comply with ethical standards and best practices when preparing and submitting their manuscripts to ALB.

Studies involving animal sampling or testing, as well as human volunteers, such as environmental perception analysis, must be submitted for approval by an ethics committee. The name of the committee and the process number must be provided in the “Materials and Methods” section of the manuscript.

Focus and Scope

Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia publishes original articles, short notes, review articles, opinion articles and methods articles aiming to contribute to the scientific development of Limnology.

The Journal covers a broad spectrum, including any theme of the ecology of continental waters from ecosystems such as streams, rivers, lakes, floodplains, swamps, reservoirs and estuarine zones. The scope of Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia comprises all aspects of theoretical and applied continental aquatic ecology, management and conservation, ecotoxicology, and pollution. Taxonomic works may also be accepted, provided that they contain ecological and geographic distribution information. Manuscripts submitted to the journal must be original with no simultaneous submission to other periodicals

Digital preservation

This journal follows the standards defined in the SciELO Program Digital Preservation Policy.

Indexing sources

Bibliographic Journal Information

• Title of the journal: Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia

• Short title: Acta Limnol. Bras. (Online)

• Publication by: Associação Brasileira de Limnologia (ABLimno)

• Frequency: Annual

• Publication modality: Continuous Publication

• Year of creation of the journal: 1986

Websites and social media

X (Twitter) - @limnologica

Oficial website – actalb.org

Editorial Policy

Preprints

Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia does not recommend authors to publish articles on preprints servers. However, if authors choose this form of publication, we suggest using SciELO Preprints and providing the access link in the Open Science Compliance Form.

Peer review process

The manuscripts, submitted through the SciELO submission system (https://submission.scielo.br/index.php/alb/login), will first be checked for language, presentation, and style. Scientists who use English as a foreign language are strongly recommended to have their manuscript read by a native English−speaking colleague.

Manuscripts are initially evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief. As long as it adheres to the journal’s standards, the Editor in Chief forwards it to an Associated Editor, which indicates the paper for at least two peer reviewers. The journal uses the single-blind procedure in the analysis of the manuscripts in accordance with the latest principles of open science. Reviewers are granted anonymity, while the authors' names are made available to the reviewers. The reviewers submit their reviews to the Associate Editors that also elaborates a review based on the reviewer’s evaluations. After that, the Associate Editor can accept the submission with minor revisions, accept with major revisions, decline the submission or decline with the possibility of a new submission. After examination of the content of the work, the editor sends the reviews to the author’s reformulation. The authors then resubmit the revised article in thirty (30) days, comprising of two files, one of them with all the changes tracks and comments enabled, ensuring that all the requests made by the reviewers/Editor were addressed, and another one without comments, highlights or any tracks enabled, as well as a detailed response letter (example of response letter below) indicating the changes made or the justification for not making them. If authors require additional time to review the manuscript, they should contact the Associate Editor through the Discussion panel in the submission system to request an extension of the deadline. If the authors do not meet the thirty (30) day deadline and do not request additional time, the manuscript will be automatically rejected.

Reviewers and authors may, by mutual agreement mediated by the Associate Editor, agree to the publication of the reviews of accepted articles (with optional identification of the reviewers), as well as to the disclosure of reviewers' identities to the authors during the review process.

The Associate Editor notifies the Editor in Chief his decision, which then takes his final decision. After a paper has been accepted, a “proof print” of the article is sent (online) to the authors for a final revision.

Doubts and questions about the submissions’ workflow may be sent through de e-mail actalimno@ablimno.org.br.

Response letter example:

Open Data

Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia recommends the publication of research data related to manuscripts submitted to the journal. Supplementary data such as tables, figures, measurements, formulas, spreadsheets, maps, developed software, codes, audio files, or other materials used to validate the manuscript's results, if deposited in a research data repository prior to the article submission, should be indicated in the main text. The journal recommends that data from articles accepted for publication be deposited in the free ALB Dataverse on SciELO Data.

Third-party data used in the preparation of the manuscript must be properly referenced according to the journal's guidelines. More details about research data can be found in the section "Instructions for Authors - Research Data."

Fees

The Brazilian Association of Limnology (ABLimno) does not charge any fees for the submission, evaluation, approval, publication, and download of manuscripts in Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia.

Ethics and Misconduct, Correction and Retraction Policy

Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia adheres to the COPE guidelines regarding Ethics Policies and Misconduct.

When information contained in the main sections of published articles (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Conclusion) needs to be revised due to discrepancies or errors, an Erratum linked to the article in question will be published. Readers may contact the editorial team to report any detected errors.

Retractions will be published in cases of unethical behavior, following the guidelines of the SciELO Good Practices Guide. Retraction requests should be sent to the Editor-in-Chief at actalimno@ablimno.org.br, duly described and documented.

Policy on conflict of interest

Authors, reviewers, and editors must always disclose any conflicts of interest, should they arise, during the manuscript review process. Conflicts of interest of a personal, academic, professional, political, or financial nature may impact decision-making throughout the editorial process.

Authors should include a statement denying conflicts of interest in the cover letter. Reviewers and editors should inform the Associate Editor and/or Editor-in-Chief if they identify any conflicts of interest that might compromise the evaluation of the article.

Adoption of similarity software

The Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editors use the Turnitin® software to identify potential similarities in submitted manuscripts during the editorial process. Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia emphasizes that academic plagiarism at any level is a crime.

Adoption of Artificial Intelligence resources software’s

Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia recommends the cautious use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. AI-assisted technologies should not be credited as authors of the work. Authors submitting manuscripts that used any type of AI resources (e.g., generating graphic elements, data analysis, etc.) must detail their use in the “Materials and Methods” section. AI tools may be used to enhance the manuscript's readability and language quality during the writing process. It is important to note that the use of these technologies should always be supervised by the manuscript's authors.

Gender and Sex issues

The editorial team of Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia, as well as authors publishing in the journal, must always adhere to the guidelines on Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER). The SAGER guidelines comprise a set of recommendations that guide the reporting of sex and gender information in study design, data analysis, results, and interpretation of results. Furthermore, Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia observes gender equity policies in the composition of its editorial board.

Ethics Committee

If the study involves animals or human beings (environmental perception study’s), authors must attach a statement of approval from the ethics committee of the institution responsible for approving the research.

Copyright

Authors of articles published by Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia retain the copyright to their works, licensing them under the Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 4.0 license, which allows articles to be reused and distributed without restriction, as long as the original work is properly cited. Authors grant the journal the right of first publication.

Intellectual Property and Terms of Use

Responsibility of the Website: Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia reserves the right to make orthographic changes to maintain the formal standard of the language and to align with the journal's standards, while respecting the original style of the authors.

Responsibility of the authors: All content of the journal and articles published by Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia, unless otherwise specified, are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 4.0 license.

Authors of articles published in this journal retain the copyright to their works, which allows the articles to be reused and distributed without restriction, as long as the original work is properly cited.

Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia encourages authors to self-archive their accepted manuscripts by publishing them on personal blogs, institutional repositories, and academic social media, as well as posting them on their personal social media accounts, provided that a complete citation to the version on the journal's website is included.

Sponsors and Promotion Agencies