Download Annals of Forest Science  instructions to authors in PDF format.

“Annals of Forest Science” publishes eight issues every year with original research papers, review papers and letters to the editor. The language of the journal is mainly English. The journal covers a broad scope including ecology and ecophysiology, genetics and breeding, tree physiology, damage to forests, wood quality, and silviculture. The biological and ecological bases of sustainable forest management are an important topic for the journal. All forest ecosystems of the world under boreal, temperate and tropical climates may be addressed. The journal is also highly interested in the impact of climate change on these ecosystems. The journal contributes to worldwide result dissemination among scientists and hopes to answer needs and expectations of professional foresters. “Annals of Forest Science” is therefore a source of information about current developments and trends in forest research and forestry.
The submitted material must be previously unpublished and should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Updated instructions to authors will be made available directly on our website at http://www.afs-journal.org/, and on the Manuscript Management System of Annals of Forest Science at https://mms-inra.edpsciences.org/is/afs/.


RESEARCH PAPERS

Research papers should be concise, focused on new results and data, and no longer than about 10 printed pages (i.e., approximately 40000 characters including spaces, inclusive of figures that represent approx. 2000 characters each, and tables). Longer review papers may be considered for publication after an agreement with the Editorial Board (see below). The Editorial Board maintains the option of returning to authors, before any evaluation, manuscripts that do not comply with these recommendations. Long tables and similar material may be included free of charge as electronic-only material, i.e., they will not be printed but made available to readers on the journal’s website (http://www.afs-journal.org/).


REVIEW PAPERS

Annals of Forest Science wishes to publish review papers dealing with up-to-date advances in forest research and current important debates about forest ecology, tree physiology, soil biology, wood technology, tree genetics, etc. Review papers may be sponsored by the Editorial Board, or submitted on the author’s own initiative. In the case of an independent submission, authors are advised to submit their project to the editorial board with a few indications about the potential content prior to writing their review. The length of review papers may vary according to the importance of the material. Review manuscripts will be peer-reviewed like current research papers.


Letters to the editor

Annals of Forest Science makes this new option available to allow fast publication of opinions, responses to published papers and any other matter of scientific debate. Letters to the editor should be sent directly to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it with a brief cover letter providing a few clues about the topic addressed and the debate underlying the letter. Such letters should be no longer than 2000 characters, and follow the usual rules of the journal. They will be analysed by the editorial board and a decision about suitability for publication will be made in two weeks. Letters to the editor will be published online rapidly.


SUBMISSION

Electronic submission via the Manuscript Management System (MMS) is the preferred mode of submission for research articles and reviews, while letters to the editor should be submitted directly to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . The MMS of Annals of Forest Science is available at https://mms-inra.edpsciences.org/is/afs/. Please follow the instructions displayed on the screen after accessing the website. Exceptionally, manuscripts may be submitted by sending them to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Manuscripts should be submitted as a unique pdf file containing text, figures, tables and references. The file should be labelled with the corresponding author’s name; for example, “Dupont2005AFS.pdf”.

Contact office for further details

Further information and requests: Editorial Office of Annals of Forest Science, INRA-Nancy, F-54280 Champenoux, France, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .


MANUSCRIPT PROCESSING

Annals of Forest Science is aware that fast processing and rapid publication is a key to the diffusion of knowledge and innovation. Electronic submission and electronic management of manuscripts are used as one tool to speed up the review process. A simplified circuit for peer-reviewing allows the time period from submission to publication to be kept low. The first acceptance response will be no later than two months after submission, and online publication will take no longer than 6 months unless in-depth revision is required. Fast electronic publication will start in 2008: articles will be published online and made accessible to subscribing individuals, institutions and library consortia in advance of the printed edition, as soon as the manuscript has been fully processed and edited. They may also be made freely accessible to all readers by using the open-access option (see below).


OPEN ACCESS

Annals of Forest Science and its publisher EDP Sciences are in favour of broad and easy access to all published scientific information and will favour measures taken in this direction. The journal offers authors the possibility of making the papers freely available to all interested readers (subscribers or non-subscribers). In this case, articles will be immediately available for downloading and online consultation. Otherwise, the policy of the journal is to have all articles made freely accessible 24 months after the print date. If you wish your article to be accessible immediately online, please contact EDP Sciences once the manuscript has been definitively accepted by the editorial board. An additional cost of 550 Euros will be charged to authors or their institutions. This special offer is at a price that covers only a fraction of the editing costs.


GENERAL PRESENTATION OF MANUSCRIPTS

The manuscripts should be double-spaced with margins of at least 3.5 cm at the top, bottom and sides. Lines should be numbered in the margins with a continuous numbering from the start of the manuscript. The manuscript should be arranged as follows: (i) title page, (ii) second page with abstract in English, title and abstract in French (if needed, the editorial office will take care of the French translation), followed by the sections (iii) introduction, (iv) materials and methods, (v) results, (vi) discussion, (vii) acknowledgments, (viii) references, (ix) tables, (x) captions of figures and (xi) figures. The language should have been edited by a native English speaker before submission.

Title page

The title page should include: title of the article, first name, middle initial(s) and surname of each author (format: “Albert EINSTEIN”), department and institution where the study was carried out, detailed postal address, telephone and fax numbers and e-mail address of the corresponding author (this author being identified by an asterisk), a short title (running head) of no more than 45 characters, including spaces, and additional keywords.

Abstract

The abstract (max. 200 words) should be in a form suitable for abstracting services. It should provide a clear view of the content of the manuscript with a brief description of the main results and conclusions. The abstract should be presented as successive small sections providing:

• an introduction into the context of the study;
• a clear statement of the research questions;
• the most important results;
• a conclusion.

The number of sections is not limited. Footnotes, references, cross-references to figures and tables and undefined abbreviations must be avoided. A French abstract should be provided if the authors are proficient in this language. Otherwise, the editorial office will take care of the translation.

Keywords

Up to five keywords should be supplied. Keywords may be taken from the title, abstract or text. The plural form and uppercase letters must be avoided. Keywords should be written in bold lowercase letters, separated by slashes.

References

The number of references should not be excessive and only really relevant citations should be integrated in the manuscript. In the reference list, the references should appear in alphabetical order. The authors’ names are listed in alphabetical order, and in chronological order for each author. If there are more than one author, the order is as follows: publications of a single author in chronological order; publications of the same author with one co-author in alphabetical order of the second author, and in chronological order; publications of the author with more than one co-author in chronological order. The references are cited in the text by the name of the first author followed by the year of publication enclosed in brackets like (Dupont, 2007). In case there are several authors, only the first author should be cited and followed by: “et al.” (Dupont et al., 2002). All entries in the reference list must correspond to references in the text and vice versa.
The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the rules of the Biosciences Information Service (Biosis) or those of the Liste d’abréviations de mots des titres de publications en série (conforming to ISO 4, Centre international de ISSN, Paris). Words for which no abbreviation is given should be written in full.
Examples are given below of the layout and punctuation to be used in the references. Please use these formats consistently in the manuscript.

Examples are given below of the layout and punctuation to be used in the references. Please use these formats consistently in the manuscript.

In text citation:

(Orwell, 1999) (Adams, 2004; Orwell, 1999; Smith, 2001)
(Orwell and Smith, 2007)
(Orwell et al., 2008)

Article:

Orwell G., 1999. Trees and tree growth at timberline. Ann. For. Sci. 90: 80-95.
Halter M.R., Chanway C.P., Elliott G.W. and Stork J.P., 1993. Growth and root morphology of planted and naturally-regenerated Douglas fir and Jack pine. Ann. For. Sci. 80: 71–77.

Book:

Kramer P.J. and Koslowski T.T., 1960. Physiology of trees, McGraw-Hill, New York, 670 p.

Article in a book:

Halldin S., Gripp H., and Perttu K., 1979. Model for energy exchange of a pine forest canopy. In: Halldin S. (Ed.), Comparison of Forest Water and Energy Exchange Models, Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 59–75.


Illustrations (figures and tables)

Illustrations should be numbered in Arabic numerals for figures and tables, and should be referred to in the text by their number (Fig. 1, Tab. 1). Lettering (symbols, numbers, etc.) should not differ from figure to figure and should be of sufficient size to remain legible after reduction (letters 1-2 mm high after reduction to either one- or two-column format). High-definition electronic figures should be provided with the final accepted version for printing in one of the following formats: JPEG, TIFF, PICT or EPS. Half-tones should contain high-definition pictures and should be originals (i.e. not already reproduced); line drawings should have a white background. Photographs should be high-resolution JPEG files. The figure captions should be explicit so that the illustrations are comprehensible without reference to the text, and should be presented together on a separate sheet at the end of the paper. In the printed version of the journal, figures are in black and white (for colour, authors should make a financial contribution, prices on request), but they appear in colour in the electronic version (pale colours like yellow should be avoided). Tables should not exceed 84 characters per line (140 if in landscape format). The title should be written above the corresponding table. Figures and tables published elsewhere cannot be accepted without the prior written consent of the publisher and the author(s).


Electronic-only material

Electronic-only material is designed to provide supplementary information that is either too voluminous for printing or that is designed specifically for the Web, such as colour illustrations, small videos and large databases. Electronic-only material may include, but is not restricted to: (large) Tables; Appendices; Programs; Images; Videos, etc. This option should be used whenever possible to reduce the length of the printed papers. Electronic-only material must be submitted together with the body of the manuscript for evaluation. For more information on the submission of this material (file requirements, etc.), please contact the production office at: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it


PRODUCTION PROCESS

At the production stage, a PDF file is not sufficient. EDP Sciences requires the “native” electronic files of the text (Word, RTF, Latex, etc.) and of the figures (EPS (preferably), TIFF, BMP or JPEG) for the final processing of the manuscripts. The publication of the text and black and white figures is free of charge. Printing of colour drawings and pictures will be charged to the authors, but colour figures are freely available anyway in the online edition.


PROOFS AND REPRINTS

Proofs will be sent electronically to the corresponding author indicated on the title page. They should be carefully corrected and returned to the publisher within 96 h of reception. If this period is exceeded, the galleys will be proofed only by the editorial staff of the publishing house and printed without the author’s corrections. Should substantial changes to the original manuscript be requested, they will be made at the author’s expense. The PDF file of the article is provided free of charge. The file is sent to the corresponding author. Printed copies may be purchased from the publisher at the proofreading stage.


COPYRIGHT

The author returns the signed transfer of copyright and publishing agreement form with the corrected proofs. The electronic version of the published articles will be made freely available 24 months after the date of publication. Immediate open access to the paper may be obtained by paying an additional fee of 550 Euros per article. Authors are allowed to make their articles available on personal sites, or their institution’s website and Open Archive Initiative sites, provided the source of the published article is cited and the ownership of the copyright clearly mentioned. These sites must be non-profit sites. Reprint and postprint may be used (with the publisher’s PDF). Authors are requested to create a link to the published article in the publisher's internet service. The link must be accompanied by the following text “The original publication is available at http://www.afs-journal.org/.”