About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The Archives of Biological Sciences is published quarterly in an open-access electronic format. The journal uses open-source software for the management of peer-reviewed academic journals, the Open Journal System created by the Public Knowledge Project and released under the GNU General Public License. Instructions for the submission using OJS are available on the following link https://openjournalsystems.com/ojs-3-user-guide/submitting-an-article/

The Archives of Biological Sciences does not charge authors an article processing charge (APC).

Submitted manuscripts should be original research articles, excluding short communications, comments, notes, technical reports, data articles, and case reports.
The Archives of Biological Sciences is a multidisciplinary journal that covers original research in subjects in life science, including biology, ecology, human biology, and biomedical research. The journal features research articles in genetics, botany, zoology, the ecology of higher and lower terrestrial and aquatic plants and animals, prokaryote biology, algology, mycology, entomology, biological systematics, evolution, biochemistry, molecular and cell biology, including all aspects of normal cell functioning, from embryonic to differentiated tissues and in different pathological states, molecular physiology, chronobiology, thermal biology, cryobiology, radiobiology, neurobiology, immunology, human biology, including the molecular basis of specific human pathologies, genotyping of disease, disease management.
Subjects that fall under life sciences but do not contain sufficient interest include articles on in silico biology not supported by laboratory experiments, articles in agronomy, field research in agriculture, forestry, silviculture, soil science, technical reports containing chemical characterizations with no research into a biological explanatory mechanism, veterinary science, oral medicine, topics in food technology, descriptions of technological processes, experimental methods, solutions, instrumentation, patient case studies, short faunistic or floristic notes, checklists of limited geographical areas, description of a single new species in a genus containing many.
Unsolicited scientific review articles
A review article should critically examine published literature in a specific field as an authoritative research analysis. It should organize, evaluate, and identify patterns and trends, synthesize the literature, identify research gaps, and recommend new research areas. Before submission, the author must provide the title, a detailed reason for the review, and its contents, including section titles and a list of references. A review will only be considered if written by a verified expert with extensive knowledge based on original research in a particular subject area, backed by self-citations of research in the field reviewed. Like original research articles, unsolicited review articles will go through a peer review process, where experts will evaluate the article for its contribution, accuracy, and relevance.
Review articles must comply with the Manuscript Template, though some sections should be excluded. Submission of a scientific review article must include ITEMS I, III as required, IV, and V.
Note that sources for tables/figures must be stated in the legends. This is crucial for maintaining transparency and integrity in research. By citing the sources, authors give proper credit to the original creators, allowing readers to verify the data and assess its reliability. Clear attribution enhances the credibility of the research and aids in the reproducibility of results, enabling others to explore the original studies or datasets. Comprehensive figure legends that include source citations contribute to a more robust and trustworthy scientific discourse.

Peer Review Process

When a manuscript is submitted to the Archives of Biological Sciences, it undergoes a malware scan followed by prescreening by the Editor-in-Chief to determine whether the submission conforms to the journal's specifications and if the paper fits the scope of the journal. If the manuscript meets the journal’s standard for publication, the paper will undergo the review process.

The Archives of Biological Sciences conducts a single-blind peer review process. In the main review phase, the Editor-in-Chief sends the received papers to two or three experts in the field. The reviewers’ evaluation form contains a checklist to help referees cover all aspects that can decide the fate of the publication. In the final section of the evaluation form, the reviewers must include observations and suggestions for improvement that are sent to the authors, without the names of the reviewers.

All the reviewers of a paper remain anonymous to the authors and act independently before, during, and after the evaluation process. They have different affiliations, and they are not aware of each other’s identities. If the decisions of the two (or three) reviewers are not the same (accept/reject), the paper is rejected. 

Publication Frequency

The Archives of Biological Sciences is published quarterly in open-access electronic format.

Open Access Policy

Articles published in the Archives of Biological Sciences will be Open-Access articles distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which lets others distribute and copy the article; create extracts, abstracts, and other revised versions, adaptations, or derivative works of or from an article (such as a translation); include it in a collective work; even used for commercial purposes, as long as they credit the Author(s), provide a link to the license and indicate if changes were made. However, this is not allowed to be done in a way that suggests the licensor endorses the use, nor is it allowed to modify the article in such a way as to damage the Author's honor or reputation.

License CC BY-NC-ND was active by 2022, Volume 74, Issue 2. License CC BY is active from 2022, Volume 74, Issue 3. Older PDFs and articles will stay under primary license CC BY-NC-ND.

Copyright

Authors retain the copyright of the published papers and grant to the publisher the right to publish the article, to be cited as its original publisher in case of reuse, and to distribute it in all forms and media.
All rights of a published article are transferred by the Serbian Biological Society, the publisher of the Archives of Biological Sciences to the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY) license. When submitting the work, the corresponding author has to complete the License Agreement

Authors retain the copyright of the published papers and grant to the publisher the right to publish the article, to be cited as its original publisher in case of reuse, and to distribute it in all forms and media. Articles published in the Archives of Biological Sciences will be Open-Access articles distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Privacy Statement

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The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Editorial Process

When a manuscript is submitted to the Archives of Biological Sciences, it undergoes an initial prescreening by the Editor-in-Chief and appropriate members of the Editorial Board to determine whether or not the paper fits the scope of the journal. If the Editorial Board establishes that the manuscript meets the journal’s minimum standards for publication, the paper will then undergo the review process.

After completion of the peer review process, which is described above, the manuscript enters the editing phase and is sent to the layout editor. If any additional corrections are required, the manuscript is returned to the author. After any minor technical corrections that do not require further peer review, the article obtains a DOI and is uploaded to the doiSerbia webpage (http://doiserbia.nb.rs/journal.aspx?issn=0354-4664).

Publishing Ethics

The Archives of Biological Sciences strives to ensure the accurate, timely, fair, and ethical publication of a scientific paper. Therefore, it has adopted clear and strict guidelines for all parties involved in the publication of a scientific paper: the author, the editor, the peer reviewers, and the publisher.

Authors' Responsibilities

Authors must certify that their manuscripts are their original work.
Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere.
Authors must certify that the manuscript is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere.
Authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.
All Authors mentioned in the paper must have significantly contributed to the research.
Authors must state that all data in the paper are authentic.
Authors must notify the Editors of any conflicts of interest.
Authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscripts.
Authors must report any errors they discover in their published paper to the Editors.
Each author must disclose if another party had the right to review the paper before its circulation.

Reviewers' Responsibilities

Reviewers should keep all information regarding articles confidential and treat them as privileged information.
Reviews should be conducted objectively, with no personal criticism of the author.
Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.
Reviewers should also call to the Editor-in-Chief's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the articles.

Editors' Responsibilities

Editors have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article.
Editors are responsible for the contents and overall quality of the publication.
Editors should guarantee the quality of the articles and the integrity of the academic record.
Editors should publish errata pages or make corrections when needed.
Editors should base their decisions solely on the articles' importance, originality, clarity, and relevance to the publication's scope.
Editors should not reverse their decisions nor overturn the ones of previous editors without serious reason.
Editors should preserve the anonymity of reviewers.
Editors should ensure that all research material they publish conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines.
Editors should act if they suspect misconduct, whether a paper is published or unpublished, and make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem.
Editors should not reject articles based on suspicions, they should have proof of misconduct.
Editors should not allow any conflicts of interest between staff, authors, reviewers, and board members.

Publisher’s Responsibilities

All submitted articles are subject to a peer-review process by at least two reviewers that are experts in the area of the particular paper.
The factors that are taken into account in the review are relevance, soundness, significance, originality, readability, and language.
The possible decisions include acceptance, acceptance with revisions, or rejection. If authors are encouraged to revise and resubmit a submission, there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted. Rejected articles will not be re-reviewed.
The paper acceptance is constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.

Conflict of Interest

When submitting a manuscript, the corresponding author has to disclose any actual or perceived conflicts of interest on the part of any author. A declared conflict of interest does not imply any unethical behavior. A declared conflict informs all parties about relationships that could affect scientific judgment. Potential conflicts of interest include affiliations, financial relationships, personal relationships, or funding sources that could be perceived as influencing an author’s objectivity regarding the content of the manuscript. A conflict of interest disclosure is published at the end of the article.

Procedures for dealing with unethical behavior

The editor is responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal will be published. The editor is guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. Articles that have been published shall remain extant, exact, and unaltered as long as it is possible. However, very occasionally, circumstances may arise where an article is published that must later be retracted. The main reason for withdrawal or retraction is to correct the mistake while preserving the integrity of science; it is not to punish the author.

Article Withdrawal

The editor is responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal will be published. The editor is guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. Articles that have been published shall remain extant, exact, and unaltered as long as it is possible. However, very occasionally, circumstances may arise where an article is published that must later be retracted. The main reason for withdrawal or retraction is to correct the mistake while preserving the integrity of science.
Article withdrawal is only used for OnLine First articles which are early versions of articles and sometimes contain errors. Occasionally but less frequently, the articles may represent infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, and fraudulent use of data.

Retraction policy

Legal limitations of the publisher, copyright holder, or author(s), infringements of professional ethical codes, scientific misconduct such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, or the like require retraction of an article. Occasionally a retraction can be used to correct errors in submission or publication. Several libraries and scholarly bodies have developed standards for dealing with retractions, and this practice has been adopted for article retraction by the Archives of Biological Sciences.
In the electronic version of the retraction note, a link is made to the original article. In the electronic version of the original article, a link is made to the retraction note where it is clearly stated that the article has been retracted. The original article is retained unchanged, save for a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”
Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by several library and scholarly bodies, and this practice has been adopted for article retraction by the Archives of Biological Sciences.

Self-archiving Policy

Authors can deposit Author's Pre-print, Author's Post-print (accepted version), and Publisher's version/PDF in an institutional repository and non-commercial subject-based repositories, such as PubMed Central, Europe PMC or arXiv, or publish it on the author's website and departmental website, at any time after publication. The copyright and source must be acknowledged for deposit of the Author's Post-print or Publisher's version/PDF, and a link must be made to the article's DOI.

OnLine First

After copyediting is completed, manuscripts obtain DOI and are published online as OnLine First on the doiSerbia web page (http://doiserbia.nb.rs/journal.aspx?issn=0354-4664). These articles are pre-print versions of the submission.

Indexing

SCI(JCR)
Biosis Previews
DOAJ
Zoological Record

1.4

2023CiteScore

 

 

44th percentile

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Journal Impact Factor:

0.700 (2023)

0.800 (2022)

0.856 (2021)

0.956 (2020)

0.719 (2019)

0.554 (2018)

0.648 (2017)

0.352 (2016)

0.367 (2015)

0.718 (2014)

0.607 (2013)

0.791 (2012)

0.360 (2011)

0.356 (2010)

0.238 (2009)

Publication Charges

The Archives of Biological Sciences does not charge any manuscript processing and/or publishing fees.

Cover Design

The cover page has been designed by Ms Milica Simonović. The cover page illustrations are solicited from authors of accepted papers published in the current issue.

Disclaimer

The views expressed in the published works do not express the views of the Editors and Editorial Staff. The authors take legal and moral responsibility for the ideas expressed in the articles. Publisher shall have no liability in the event of issuance of any claims for damages. The Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any compensation claims.

Ethics Statement

Studies involving animals (live vertebrates) must be performed in strict accordance with internationally-accepted standards and regulations. Authors must obtain prior approval from their Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee or equivalent Institutional Ethics Committee at submission as a separate supplementary file. The Ethics Statement must be declared in the manuscript under the first heading of the Materials and Methods section.

For experiments (biochemical research) involving human subjects, authors must present an Institutional Review Board (IRB) statement. Authors must identify the committee approving the experiments and include with their submission a statement confirming that Informed Consent was obtained from all subjects. This must be declared in the manuscript under the first heading of the Materials and Methods section.

Sponsors

• Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia
• Institute for Biological Research "Siniša Stanković", University of Belgrade
• Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade
• Department of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Novi Sad
• Institute for the Application of Nuclear Energy (INEP)
• Institute of Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering, University of Belgrade

Journal History

The Archives of Biological Sciences continues Arhiv bioloških nauka ISSN 0375-8575.

Former Editors of the Journal:

Božidar Ćurčić, Ph.D. (2005-2014)

Maksim Todorović, Ph.D. (1993-2005)