How to get published in Heredity Mike Bruford (Ed-in Chief) Rebecca Vickerstaff (NPG)

1. How to get published in Heredity Mike Bruford (Ed-in Chief) Rebecca Vickerstaff (NPG)

2. Heredity: official journal of the Genetics Society, publishes original research broadly in the areas of population, evolutionary and quantitative genetics, animal and plant breeding and cytogenetics. Primary research, Reviews, News and Commentary articles keeping researchers and students abreast of hot topics. Some Facts First published in 1947 Diverse editorial board (biogs now featured) 12 issues a year @ 10-ish papers/issue Impact Factor 4.11 (5-year ave: 4.37) rank 39/161 in ISI (Gen&Hered) 470 submissions received last year, 60% rejected One or two special issues per year – current issue is a free special on recent advances in quantitative genetics (guest editor Bruce Walsh) Ecological, Population and Evolutionary Genetics remain the most common types of articles submitted and accepted Social Media… Podcast (available on iTunes) Makeover!!

3. SCOPE Heredity is a Genetics Society journal and its remit is to be broad. Papers must address conceptual or applied issues of interest to the journal's broad readership. The journal encourages submissions in the following areas, but we are looking to refine the scope somewhat, and would value your input: -population genetics (including human) -genomics, functional genomics and proteomics -biometrical and statistical genetics -ecological and evolutionary genetics -animal and plant breeding -cytogenetics Heredity's original articles cover theory and primary empirical research. The journal also publishes regular reviews and news & commentary articles.

4. Special issues Web collections (can include other NPG journals • Upcoming special issues/collections • Genomic Imprinting in wild populations • Evolution and Plasticity • Environmental Genomics • Seedsource (fragmentation and mating systems in plants)

6. OPEN ACCESS • Heredity offers open access: • Fee is £2,000/£2,100 (reduced for Gen Soc members) • Final version automatically deposited into PubMed Central • Choose one of two creative commons licences

7. Pointers for acceptance • Findings of broad interest – not too specialised • Innovative approaches (experimental / analytical) • Rigorous analysis (reviews are often very detailed and undercooked analysis is a common error)… • Although the remit is broad, at least 50% of Reject Without Review decisions are due to unsuitable research • Handling Editors have an especially strong influence on the outcome given the broad nature of the journal.. • Hence, really pay attention to their comments when carrying out revisions!

8. If you have an Editor preference – say so..

9. The peer review process Upon submission your manuscript will follow the following Procedure: The E-in-C will determine, often with the help of a board member if the manuscript is suitable for review If it is, a Subject Editor is assigned and the reviewer selection procedure begins The board member receives the reviewer’s comments and then makes a recommendation to the Editor The Editor will communicate the final decisions As of this year, Subject Editors are no longer anonymous and will be selectable (initially in the Cover Letter)

10. What do we expect of reviewers? • Your opinion, supported by clear arguments (recommendation and ‘scoring’ are helpful, but less important) • NOT detailed language editing • NOT a précis • DO say what is most interesting, to whom and why • DO identify major issues and make recommendations for improvement • DO list minor scientific issues • DO be constructive and polite! • DO review on time • (it is better to say No quickly than to say Yes and then delay)

11. On acceptance All manuscripts are checked for plagiarism Data archiving is mandatory (data-specific repository, e.g. GenBank, or Dryad: datadryad.org) Colour figures must be paid for…

12. The production process • Accepted manuscripts are passed to the production team • A production editor will ensure your paper meets Heredity’s house style: • Check punctuation, grammar, and consistency of terminology • Check pharmaceutical names and abbreviations • Check references • Figures and tables are formatted and the manuscript is typeset • Reasons for delays to starting work on a paper: • Artwork in wrong format • Licence To Publish form not complete • Open access payment form not received • Page proofs are e-mailed to the corresponding author within 8 weeks of acceptance – corrections to be made to a .pdf version. • Once paper is returned a Document Object Identifier (DOI) number is assigned and paper is ‘queued’ for advanced online publication (AOP).

13. Referee 2 Comments: This is a perfect paper on a very important topic which is ready for publication. • Referee 3 Comments: • XXXX present individual-based simulations of a population that lives on an environmental gradient. Analysis of the deterministic case suggests (surprisingly) that such populations will always be able to adapt to steep gradients, by generating sufficiently high levels of genetic variance. The key question posed by XXXX is whether this remains true when the population is finite. • XXXX show that although extinction is more likely at lower population density, this is not because genetic variance is lost by drift: rather, it seems to reflect the effects of demographic stochasticity. However, this distinction is not made very clearly, and the support for the conclusion is not entirely convincing. Most important, there is virtually no comparison with theoretical expectation, even though there is a definite prediction here from the deterministic case. (The only quantitative comparison is in Table S1). • The simulations are presented thoughtfully, and the question is an interesting one. However, a major revision is needed, as suggested below. • In the abstract, it is stated that "Range limits are associated with migrational load", and later (p4), it is said that B2001 shows that species can spread across arbitrarily steep gradients. The implication is that collapse through migrational load is a consequence of finite population size. But that is not so: though the deterministic analysis shows that populations can adapt to steep gradients (as seen in these simulations), they do so at the cost of increased genetic variance, which reduces growth rate at low density. Thus, the deterministic analysis predicts a definite collapse at a critical genetic variance (see Equation in Supp Inf), such that the population declines even at low density. In a balance between gene flow and stabilising selection, the genetic variance is known (it is proportional to gradient squared), and so there is a simple prediction for the critical gradient. • And so on for another 5-6 points

14. Comments: There a number of things in the paper that need to be cleaned up. The design is good but the implementation is poor. I hope you revise it appropriately. ABSTRACT Page 2 Line 27 - insert comma after Myotis lucifugus; rewrite suggestion: "...Myotis lucifugus, to create the consensus sequences (delete which were) used to..." INTRODUCTION Line 31 -change "non-Myotis" to "other" Page 3 Line 41 -insert comma after global distribution Line 43 -omit the in "...the Vespertilionidae is..." Line 44 -omit "and diverse", a google search recovers Muridae as the most diverse mammal family and Phyllostomidae are the most diverse bat family. I disagree with the usage of diverse in this context. Diverse refers to variety or differences, whereas in this context it appears to reference number of species. Line 45 -omit therefore Line 46 -insert comma after migration Line 52 -insert comma after time consuming Line 58 -insert comma after genera Line 61 -On the contrary, loci developed in Thyropteridae have amplified in both Furipteridae and Vespertilionidae (Vonhof et al. 2001). Line 72 -omit in which Lines 77-79 -citations of which resources would be beneficial and I recommend including them … and so on for several pages!

15. General comments. The tone of the ms is overly aggressive and highly critical of previous studies. One example is found on page 8 (lines 330-354). This section deals with previous studies that are based on silver staining, the authors claim that silver staining is "less accurate" than automated systems, and that this might have caused differences in results between the authors findings and previous studies. While this argument might have some bearing the authors fail to recognize problems with their own study. For instance, the present ms is based solely on juvenile fish while previous studies used adult fish. The differences in heterozygosity measured at a specific microsatellite locus (line 347 - 349) could be caused by their exclusive use of juveniles who's genetic variability is only partly representing the populations (c.f. Allendorf and Phelps 1981) and not related to silver staining. The Introduction and Discussion reviews only a small amount of the available literature about kin biased distribution in fishes. For instance, the salmonid literature is largely lacking. Detailed comments Lines 81-85 and 94-95. I do not agree that previous studies have not used "sufficiently informative markers" or that that "none of these studies has really been powerful enough...". There are several studies on kin association of wild fish that have used sufficiently informative markers and have been powerful enough to detect biological significant contributions of kin association. I strongly suggest that the author investigate the available literature on salmonids. Line 104. How do guppies differ in their reproductive strategies? There is also a need for a reference here. Lines 117-124. The criticism of previous studies belongs in the discussion. Line 134-135. This is a very important statement. But what are the downsides of using only juveniles? Perhaps, your samples are tainted with family effects (c.f. Allendorf and Phelps 1981) and the genetic variability found in the juveniles might not be an accurate representation of the entire population. … etc

16. 2012 Impact Factor Heredity’s 2012 Impact Factor is 4.110* and the journal ranks 25/136 in Ecology,13/47 in Evolutionary Biology and 38/161 in Genetics & Heredity. A major reason for the decline in Heredity’s Impact Factor (from 4.597 in 2011) was the large increase in the denominator of 154 articles in 2011 compared to 118 in 2010 (a response to a backlog that accumulated at the time).  If the journal had kept to 118 articles in 2012 and had attracted the same number of citations the IF would have increased to 4.737. Cumulative % was 1.59% in the ½ Life Analysis – adjusts to 4.661..