Information For Authors

Updated 10 January 2023

  • IMPORTANT - The journal is free to authors and to readers; there are no article processing charges for authors. Peer Review Policy
  • NEW (April 6, 2022) Manuscripts should be submitted online on the submission platform
  • TIPS - We recommend that you look up the instructions for authors available hereafter or by downlaoding the document "Instructions for Authors.pdf"
  • USEFUL - Output styles for Zotero and Endnote bibliography management softwares are available for downloading

The Revue d’élevage et médecine vétérinaire des pays tropicaux (journal on tropical/Mediterranean livestock science) is a scientific journal published by the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD). It has an international peer review committee and publishes original articles/reviews in French or English, since 2023 on a continuous basis. It is free of charge for authors and readers.

NEW - From January 2023, the publication model of the Revue d’élevage et de médecine vétérinaire des pays tropicaux is changing to allow continuous publication - More information

Journal objectives and areas of interest

The Journal aims to further knowledge on livestock production, animal products, animal health, animal and livestock breeders’ environments, related to tropical, subtropical and Mediterranean regions, by promoting original research, debates and reviews. It encompasses all species of animals reared in these regions, i.e. native, exotic, wildlife and aquaculture species. Areas of interest include the various fields of animal science, e.g. physiology, nutrition, genetics, production and reproduction, veterinary science, systemic and holistic approaches such as analysis of farming systems, value chain analysis, epidemiological and ecopathological studies, and environmental analysis. Five categories cover all these fields: i) Livestock farming systems and value chains, ii) Environment and territories, iii) Animal production and animal products, iv) Feed resources and animal feeding, and v) Animal health and epidemiology.

Types of publication

Any manuscript may be submitted if it meets the criteria in the ‘Ethics’ section below and if it fits into one of the following types:

  • Original scientific articles  describing an experiment, a survey or holistic analysis of the above-mentioned areas of interest. The maximum number of references is 40. The maximum number of words is 7000, excluding the summary, references, figures and tables.
  • Meta-analyses  corresponding to compilations of data already published to produce a different vision. The number of references is not limited. The maximum number of words is 7000 excluding references, figures and tables. For articles and meta-analyses, the following structure should be adhered to: title and summary (in French and English), introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, conclusion, acknowledgments (if applicable), references, figures and/or tables. Further information may be published as supplementary material.
  • Short articles  corresponding to limited-range tests, clinical cases, or descriptive analysis results. A short article has the same sections as those of an article mentioned above, but ‘Results and Discussion’ are merged into one section. The number of references is limited to 20. The number of figures and/or tables combined is limited to three. The total number of words is limited to 3000, excluding summary, references, figures and tables.
  • Reviews  exploring the literature on a current topic or developing an opinion piece on scientific themes generating debate. This may be an editor’s request to an author renowned for his or her knowledge of a given subject. The section headings are left to the discretion of the authors. The number of references is not limited.
  • Proceedings of scientific meetings  including a selection of results presented at scientific events (e.g. conferences or workshops) may be judged to warrant a thematic issue by the event organizers or at the invitation of the editors. These contributions are treated as original articles and undergo the same peer-review process. Their structure should be identical to that of articles. Exceptions can be made to this rule if the subject is not suitable for this structure.

Ethics

The authors certify that they have complied with the Publishing Ethics detailed on https://revues.cirad.fr/index.php/REMVT/publishing_ethics, in particular:

  • they have not already published all or part of the text submitted (i.e. self-plagiarism). However, preliminary results of the studies described may have been presented at scientific meetings, and this must be stated in the manuscript.
  • The manuscript submitted to the Journal or a text presenting the same results is not being evaluated by another journal. Likewise, they undertake not to submit the text elsewhere throughout the entire review process.
  • They have limited as much as possible the quotation of excerpts from already published texts. If such excerpts are included, they are clearly identified in the manuscript (quotation marks, reference to the original text). Plagiarism or self-plagiarism are not tolerated. The Journal uses iThenticate from CrossRef Similarity Check for its detection.
  • They have respected intellectual property rules and ownership of results.
  • The study complied with animal experimentation regulations in the country where the experiment was conducted and/or has been approved by the appropriate ethics committee, and has therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments.
  • All participating persons have accepted of their own free will to be included in the study and remain anonymous unless they explicitly agreed to be cited.
  • The use of chemicals, equipment or any source that contain unusual hazards has been specified in the manuscript.
  • They have read and approved the submitted text.
  • All the persons involved in data collection, sample and data analysis, and writing of the text are coauthors, unless they expressly specified otherwise.

Authors are asked to certify each of these points upon submission of their text.

Preparation and submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts may be written in French or English, according to the authors’ preference. The title and summary must be written in both languages and must contain the same information. Before submitting articles to the journal, every manuscript must be reviewed by a person of the same language as that in which the manuscript was written. Authors must select the most appropriate category for their article (see the above section ‘Journal objectives and areas of interest’) when submitting their manuscript.

Manuscripts should be submitted online on the submission platform in Word format, or in an open source format such as OpenOffice or LibreOffice, along with figures uploaded separately.

Evaluation of manuscripts

During the initial assessment, the subject editors may reject any manuscript not corresponding to the Journal’s field of interest or any manuscript not respecting the rules of presentation and writing described in the present “Instructions to Authors”.

Texts that meet these first criteria are then evaluated by two or three specialist reviewers in the field dealt with by the article. During the submission process, authors are invited to suggest competent reviewers in the field relevant to their manuscript but they must not have published an article with them for a period of at least three years. The editors identify relevant reviewers who are not member of the editorial staff, and may or may not take into account those suggested by the authors. The reviewers’ identity remains anonymous (single-blind process).

Texts considered to be badly written, of poor scientific quality or which require major editing will be rejected. If a rewrite is required, it must be submitted within a maximum period of three months.

If only minor revisions are necessary, the revised text must be submitted within one month. All reviewer recommendations are taken into account. In the event of a disagreement with a reviewer’s remarks, the author must clearly state the reasons why the recommended modifications should not be incorporated into the text. A letter summarizing all the modifications made in response to reviewers’ recommendations is included with the revised text.

Presentation of manuscripts

Text is written with 1.5 line spacing. Lines and pages are numbered. Times New Roman 12 font is used. The title and subtitles are presented as follows:

1. INTRODUCTION [title, capital letters, boldface]

2. MATERIALS AND METHODS

2.1. Laboratory analyses [subtitle, boldface]

2.1.1. Protein analysis [subtitle, italic and boldface]

2.1.1.1. Electrophoresis [last allowed subtitle level, lightface]

2.1.1.2. Cristallography

2.1.2. Immunoglobulin analysis

2.2. Statistical analyses

3. RESULTS [etc.]

N.B. subtitles are not mandatory and are limited to three levels (see above last level allowed). For any given level, there should be at least two subtitles, e.g. 2.1.1. and 2.1.2.

Abbreviations and acronyms are explained on their first appearance in both the summary and the body of the article. Past or imperfect tenses should be used where events took place in the past (particularly in the ‘Materials and Methods’ and ‘Results’ sections). The passive voice is preferred: for instance, do not use “We measured body temperature at the start of the experiment,” but rather “Body temperature was measured at the start of the experiment.”

TITLE AND AUTHORS

The title should be concise, explicit and reflect the content of the article. It contains a maximum of 150 characters or spaces. A running title is added and does not exceed 60 characters or spaces.

The title and running title are written in both French and English. The first name is typed in lower case and is followed by the author’s FAMILY NAME in upper case. Each author’s family name is followed by a superscript number corresponding to his or her affiliation and full address (use the same numbers for the same addresses). The corresponding author is indicated by an ‘*’ and his or her professional telephone number and email address are given. It is not necessary to state the function or status of the authors.

[example: Innocent OUEDRAOGO1, Mary Clarissa MILLER2, Jean-Michel BARBEUC3, Odile NDIAYE1*]

SUMMARY

The summary is to be written in French and English. It does not exceed 200 words for a short article and 300 words in all other cases. It reminds the reader of the study, experiment or investigation, provides the main results and ends with a concluding sentence.

KEYWORDS

Five to seven keywords, indexed in FAO’s Agrovoc Thesaurus, separated by commas, are required to facilitate referencing in international databases. First enter the animal studied and end with the country where the study took place.

[example: swine, pork, cysticercosis, Taenia solium, surveillance, slaughterhouse, Madagascar]

INTRODUCTION

The introduction aims to clarify the motive and objectives of the study. It should be relatively short and should not initiate a discussion, nor should it expand on generalities. For instance, if the article is devoted to the milk composition of a given species, it is useless to evoke the importance of the species in the world or in the country where the study took place, but it should provide information on the issue of milk composition for this particular species. It is vital to identify research questions that are to be answered in the paper. The last sentence should introduce the experiment, e.g. “We investigated the influence of nitrogen supplementation on ingestion, milk production, and composition of camel milk.”

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This section should describe the animals studied and the techniques and methods used: animal, farm or study area characteristics (a map may be provided if necessary), study setup, equipment used, analyses (or reference or, if the reference cannot be found, the author must provide the necessary details for the text to be understood by the reader) including statistical analyses, and software used. Where appropriate, the approved protocol for experimentation on the animals is cited. Statistical analyses should be clearly explained (objectives, methods and tools).

RESULTS

This part does not contain any reference unless fused with the discussion in the case of short articles. It gives the most significant results in the text and refers the reader to tables or figures for more details. Apart from these particularly significant results, the text should not duplicate tables and/or figures. Significant decimal digits are accepted, otherwise it is necessary to round off numbers. Moreover, statistical values (including differences and correlations) must be specified, if significant.

DISCUSSION

The discussion focuses on the results of the study, which are also compared to those in the literature. Crucially, it suggests interpretations of the results, it is not limited to comparisons with results of other authors. It includes a critical analysis of the results described in the previous section or published by other authors, and attempts to explain any discrepancies. The discussion must also state the limitations of the study and/or conversely its pioneering features. Do not repeat detailed results, except as part of a comparative discussion.

CONCLUSION

The conclusion is not a summary or a review of the results, except in order to give an overall vision of the study. It opens up new perspectives and indicates the extent or significance of the results. It should avoid sentences such as “further studies are needed to ...” but instead suggest specific topics for further study.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

If necessary an ‘Acknowledgments’ section is included for technical or institutional contributors. All financial providers and contracts should be specified, as well as their involvements in the study other than financial if there are any.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

This section is also mandatory and it either states “The study was carried without any conflict of interest”, or all potential conflicts of interest (which may concern, among others, employment, consultancies, grants or other funding) are clearly listed.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS STATEMENT

The Author Contributions Statement is included at the end of the manuscript before the References. All authors must have read and approved the manuscript in its current form. To include as authors persons who have not contributed significantly to the manuscript or who have not approved it in its current form is a breach of deontological rules. Each author is designated by his/her initials and briefly specifies his/her contribution to the study and to the writing of the manuscript, based on the following steps:

  • Conception or design of the work
  • Data collection
  • Data analysis and interpretation
  • Drafting the article
  • Critical revision of the article

[example: AL and GST participated in the conception and design of the study; AL collected data and drafted the first version of the ms; OP participated in the design; OP and HV performed statistical analyses; GST and HV critically reviewed the manuscript.]

Any other type of contribution is included in the Acknowledgments (e.g. contribution of persons who provided technical assistance, of editors and proofreaders, of translators, or of higher-ranking persons who provided general support).

REFERENCES

Please read first

Citations must not only focus on the importance of previously published results but also on the quality of the methods used. Referenced and peer-reviewed articles should be preferred. Overuse of citations for a specific point is uncalled-for. Preference is given, where possible, to quoting other authors rather than multiplying self-quoting. References should be retrievable. The original article should be cited, not the article of other authors who cite the original article. Reviewers and/or editors reserve the right to request the deletion of references that are misquoted, or come from unreliable sources (including predatory publishers; see CoopIST information sheet from CIRAD).

Output styles for Endnote and Zotero

The bibliographic style of the Journal is available through Zotero* and Endnote**.

*Download Zotero style file (right click and save the file). In Zotero, follow the menus and tabs Actions>Preferences>Cite>Styles, add the style by clicking on ‘ + ’ and indicate the file location.

**Download Endnote style file and save it in the ‘Styles’ folder of Endnote directory. Once in Endnote, select ‘Edit’ tab then ‘Output Styles’ and ‘Open Edit Manager’. In the new window, select style Rev_Elev_Med_Vet_Pays_Trop

Requirements for reference contents and format

References are cited in the main text as “(Bastianelli, 2018)” for one author, “(Faye and Bengoumi, 2017)” for two authors, and “(Balança et al., 2018; Duteurtre et al., 2017)” for more than two authors without italics for ‘et al.’ and with a semicolon to separate multiple citations. They are listed in the References section in alphabetical order, then by increasing years of publication for the same authors. Mention the first seven authors, beyond use ‘et al.’. If there are two references or more from the same authors in the same year, the reference is worded with a letter after the year “(Goutard et al., 2018a; Goutard et al., 2018b)”. Journal titles are abbreviated according to ISO standards, available on the List of Title Word Abbreviations (LTWA) (www.issn.org/services/online-services/access-to-the-ltwa/), volumes are boldface and followed by the issue number lightface and in brackets.

DOI (digital object identifier, www.doi.org/): regardless of the type of document, if a DOI is present it must be added at the end of the reference, including unpublished papers accepted for publication elsewhere cited as ‘in press’.

All references cited in the main text must be present in the list and vice versa.

The articles submitted for publication are considered unpublished. They are cited solely in the main text, e.g. “(Taylor, personal commun.)”, “(Taylor et al., unpubl. data.)”. The articles from the gray literature (internal reports, workshop communications, technical sheets, all types of unpublished documents) are not acceptable insofar as reviewer and future readers will have great difficulties to obtain them and check their contents.

 Use the following examples in every detail for content and presentation.

  • Journal articles

Cesaro J.-D., Porphyre V., Duteurtre G., 2018. Influence of the industrialization of pig farming on the diversification of mixed livestock integration in Vietnam. Rev. Elev. Med. Vet. Pays Trop., 71 (1-2): 7-13, doi: 10.19182/remvt.31277

Hemida Maged G., Elmoslemany A., Al-Hizab F., Alnaeem A., Almathen F., Faye B., Chu Daniel K.W., et al., 2017. Dromedary camels and the transmission of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Transbound. Emerg. Dis., 64 (2): 344-353, doi: 10.1111/tbed.12401

Ramirez-Barrios R., Reyna-Bello A., Parra O., Valeris R., Tavares-Marques L., Brizard J.-P., Demettre E., et al., 2019. Trypanosoma vivax infection in sheep: Different patterns of virulence and pathogenicity associated with differentially expressed proteomes. Vet. Parasitol., 276, suppl.: 100014, doi: 10.1016/j.vpoa.2019.100014

  • Conference communications with proceedings

Bonnal L., Pot D., Rami J.-F., Hoarau J.-Y., Malvoisin P., Bastianelli D., 2015. Prediction of the composition of large Poaceae: can multi-species calibrations be used for extrapolation to new species? In: Proc. 17th Int. Conf. Near Infrared Spectroscopy, Foz do Iguassu, Brazil, 18-23 Oct. 2015, 137-140, doi: 10.17648/nir-2015-34310

  • Conference communications without proceedings

Batonon D.I., Houndonougbo F., Chrysostome C.A.A.M., Duteurtre G., Bastianelli D., Lescoat P., 2013. Dynamics of the egg supply chain in the Southern Benin. International Congress on Advancements in Poultry Production in the Middle East and African Countries, Antalya, Turkey, 21-25 Oct. 2013

  • Books

INRA, 2018. Alimentation des ruminants (coord. Noziere P., Sauvant D., Delaby L.). Quae, Versailles, France, 728 p.

  • Book chapters

Marcelino I., Holzmuller P., Stachurski F., Rodrigues V., Vachiéry N., 2016. Ehrlichia ruminantium: The causal agent of heartwater. In: Rickettsiales (Ed. Thomas S.). Springer, Cham, Switzerland, 241-280, doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-46859-4_13

  • Theses

Delma B.J., 2016. Co-conception et accompagnement de projets d’élevage familiaux innovants dans l’Ouest du Burkina Faso. Thèse Doct., Université polytechnique de Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, 12 p.

  • Websites

Heuzé V., Tran G., Bastianelli D., Hassoun P., Renaudeau D., 2017. Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) tubers. Feedipedia, INRA, CIRAD, AFZ, FAO, www.feedipedia.org/node/745 (accessed 14 Feb. 2019)

  • Online multimedia materials

Montoroi J.-P., Hachicha M., 2017. Face à la salinisation des terres cultivées. Le côté obscur de l’irrigation. Sciences au Sud (84), www.ird.fr/la-mediatheque/journal-sciences-au-sud/les-numeros/n-84/dossier-recherches/face-a-la-salinisation-des-terres-cultivees (accessed 14 Feb. 2019)

FIGURES

Each figure (i.e. graphic, photo, map or other type of illustration) is sent in a separate file. The number of the figure is added onto the figure itself and to its file name. Figures are numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals and their location is indicated in the main text: “ … (Figure 1)... (Figure 2).” They may be in color. Their legends are placed below them. They must be clear and understandable on their own (i.e. independently from the main text). All acronyms, abbreviations and symbols are defined. There must not be any overlap between figures and tables.

Each figure is sent in its original source (input) file so as to i) ensure the highest quality in the published article, and ii) enable the Journal to access their contents when necessary: do not save figures in Word (or in any type of word processing software) as fixed images cannot be edited and lose much in quality following layout software processes. Thus:

  • For graphics, the preferred source file format is Excel or the open access spreadsheet OpenOffice Calc or LibreOffice.
  • For slides the preferred source file format is Powerpoint or OpenOffice Impress or LibreOffice.

The Calibri font is used for all characters (words, numbers...) in the graphs and in all the figures where some text is present.

The figures must not be too large in relation to their contents. All the words, symbols (circles, squares, diamonds…) or other elements must be clearly legible when the figure width is reduced to 85 mm, i.e. the final width of most figures in the Journal.

Photos are saved in jpg, tiff or eps with the best possible definition, based on the following two reference models: for a width of about 85 mm, photo resolution files will be about 1200 pixels and at least 300 dpi; for a width of about 180 mm, photo resolution files will be about 2500 pixels and at least 300 dpi. Do not provide files optimized for the screen (e.g. GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG) because the resolution is too low.

To use figures published elsewhere, permission from the relevant publishers or authors (depending on their rights) is essential.

TABLES

Tables are constructed using the Table function of MS Word or OpenOffice or LibreOffice. Each entry must be in a separate cell; do not use line breaks within cells. Significant decimal digits are accepted, otherwise it is necessary to round off numbers. All the tables are gathered at the end of the article after the references but their locations are indicated in the main text, and they are numbered consecutively in Roman numerals: “… (Table I)... (Table II).” Titles are placed above the tables. They are sufficiently clear to enable their understanding independently for the main text. All abbreviations or acronyms must be defined. There should not be any redundancies between tables and figures.

Supplementary Material

Elements non-essential to understanding the text but which the authors feel may be of interest to readers may accompany the article; they are added separately as ‘Supplementary Material’. They may be:

  • datasets generated in the article (otherwise the journal recommends their deposit in a research data repository),
  • illustrations, maps or pictures,
  • a list of references used in a meta-analysis.

These supplementary materials are indicated in the text thus: “… (Supplementary Material I [Suppl. Mat. I)])... (Suppl. Mat. II)...” They are examined by the reviewers along with the main text. Reviewers may refuse an item or request changes. Reviewers may also suggest that one or more tables or figures be provided as supplementary material.

Supplementary material is not edited and is presented as is; it must be clear and intelligible. It is not an integral part of the article text but it is available on the site in a separate pdf file.

Proofs and individual copies

Proofs of accepted texts are emailed to the corresponding author. They should be carefully read and returned to the editors within a short specified time period. After publication, the pdf articles serve as reprints and are available on the Journal’s website.

Author’s rights – Creative Commons License Attribution (CC-BY) – Publication conditions

Once a manuscript has been accepted for publication the “Author’s rights - Creative Commons License - Publication conditions” form is filled out and quickly returned to the editorial office.