Guidelines

Aims and Scope

Article Types

Contact Information

Getting Started

When preparing a manuscript, it is important to review the editorial policies. For full details, please visit the Publication Ethics and Editorial Policies page. Karger Publishers is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Karger journals aim to adhere to the COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines.

The presentation of manuscripts should follow the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). We recommend preparing the manuscript using the dedicated article template for the manuscript type.

Only papers written in English are considered. The articles should be comprehensible to a reader who is fluent in English and should be edited prior to submission to ensure that standard English grammar and usage are observed. Use of a professional language editing service prior to submission can help avoid delays with the review process.

Karger recommends the use of original images and materials whenever possible. If a submitted manuscript contains third-party copyright material(s), it is the authors’ sole responsibility to obtain permission from the relevant copyright holder for reusing the material(s), including any associated licensing fee. The copyright and usage information needs to be checked carefully to avoid copyright infringement. The author(s) is and will remain personally liable for any copyright infringements.

Most publishers offer a quick and easy way to clear permissions for their content via the built-in website application RightsLink or via https://www.copyright.com/get-permissions/. Another widely used licensing tool is PLSClear. Please check the publishers’ websites for the available options and user instructions.

The authors agree that their name, affiliation with their institution and contact details will be available to third parties after the article has been published. Those third parties may be placed within or outside of the European Economic Area.

Research and Publication Ethics

When preparing a manuscript, it is important to review the editorial policies, including those on research ethics, consent, conflict of interest, data sharing and citation, text reuse and plagiarism, reproducibility and more. For full details, please visit the Publication Ethics and Editorial Policies page.

Karger Publishers is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Karger journals aim to adhere to the COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines. Our policies on reporting and investigation of suspected misconduct in manuscripts and articles and how we handle potential errors in published articles can be found on the Publication Ethics and Editorial Policies page. Concerns regarding a manuscript in review or a published article should be raised to the Research Integrity and Publication Ethics team at Publication Ethics.

Statements

All submitted manuscripts must contain a statements section after the main body of the text, but before the reference list. A summary of the required information is given below, for full details please refer to the article templates and visit the Publication Ethics and Editorial Policies page.

Statement of Ethics

The Statement of Ethics must provide detail about the ethical approval process for the study reported in the manuscript, including the name and affiliation of the committee who approved the study and the decision reference number. For studies involving human participants, information must be provided about the consent provided to participate in the study. If information is included in the submission that may identify and individual or groups of individuals, specific consent to publish this information must be obtained and reported in the Statement of Ethics.

For complete information on our policies on Studies Involving Human Subjects, Identifiable Materials or Data or Studies Involving Animals, please see here.

Conflict of Interest Statement

Authors are required to disclose any relationship that could be perceived as a conflict of interest in the Conflict of Interest Statement. All forms of support and financial involvement which took place in the previous three years should be listed, regardless of their potential relevance to the paper. Nonfinancial relationships that may potentially influence the writing of the manuscript should also be declared. If there is no potential conflict of interest to report, please state this.

For complete information on our Conflict of Interest policy, please see here.

Funding Sources

Authors must give full details about the funding of any research relevant to their study, including sponsor names, written in full providing any associated grant numbers, and explanation of the roles of these funders in the study design, execution and analysis, and manuscript conception, planning, writing and decision to publish. If the sponsor or funder had no role in any of the above or if no funding was received for the study, please state this.

For complete information on our Funding Sources policy, please see here.

Author Contributions

In the Author Contribution statement, a short statement detailing the contributions of each person named as an author should be included. The CRediT taxonomy is a useful framework for preparing this section. Contributors to the submission who do not fulfil the ICMJE Criteria for Authorship should be credited, with their consent, in the Acknowledgement section.

For complete information on our Authorship and Contributorship policy, please see here.

Data Availability Statement

Authors are required to provide a Data Availability Statement that details whether data are publicly available and where the data supporting their study can be accessed. The journal’s data sharing policy strongly encourages authors to make all datasets on which the conclusions of the paper rely available to editors, reviewers and readers without unnecessary restriction wherever possible. In cases where research data are not publicly available on legal or ethical grounds, this should be clearly stated along with any conditions for accessing the data.

For complete information about our Data Sharing policy, please see here.

Further Conditions

Peer Review

Peer Review Policy

All Karger journals employ a rigorous peer-review process to confirm the validity and ensure scientific accuracy of published articles. Independent researchers with relevant expertise assess submitted manuscripts to help journal editors determine whether a manuscript should be published in their journal. All articles, except for Editorials and some Correspondence articles, are externally peer reviewed, typically by at least two individuals with expertise in the manuscript content area and/or research methods, before a final decision is made about acceptance for publication.

Peer Review Type and Process

Microbial Physiology uses a single-blind peer review system where reviewers know the names of the authors, but the authors do not know who reviewed their manuscript. For full details, including information about peer review policies and appeals process, please visit the Peer review – Karger Publishers page.

Formatting

• The preferred word processing program for manuscripts is Microsoft Word. Page and line numbering should be activated, and the level of subheadings should be indicated clearly.
• Footnotes should be avoided. When essential, they should be numbered consecutively and appear at the foot of the appropriate page.
• Abbreviations (with the exception of those clearly well established in the field) should be explained when they are first used both in the abstract and in the main text.
• Units of measurement should be expressed in SI units wherever possible.
• Generic names of drugs (first letter: lowercase) should be used whenever possible. Registered trade names (first letter: uppercase) should be marked with the superscript registration symbol ® or ™ when they are first mentioned.
• The manuscript text, tables and figures must be submitted in separate files. Figure legends should be included at the end of manuscript text, not in the figure file. Table headers should be included above or below the table in the table file.

For full technical specifications, including those regarding tables, figures, and illustrations, please refer to Karger’s Technical Instructions to Publish a Paper.

Further Formatting Instructions

Manuscript Arrangement

Page Charges/Article Processing Charges

Online Supplementary Material

Illustration Charges

Copyediting and Proofs

Manuscripts accepted for publication by Karger Publishers will undergo basic proofreading to check for obvious spelling and grammar mistakes. If you would prefer a more in-depth language editing service to improve clarity and style, please consult a service provider prior to submission. Please note that the use of a language editing service before submission is not a requirement for publication in the journal and does not guarantee that the manuscript will be considered for peer review or accepted.

Karger Publishers’ house style is based on internationally recognized standard manuals, including The Chicago Manual of Style.

Proof Central

An email containing a link to access the proofs will be sent to the contact author. The authors should check the document and respond to any questions that have been raised during copyediting within 48 hours. A provisional PDF can be viewed for an impression of the final layout of the manuscript.

Corrections to the text and tables should be made directly in the template. Changes to figures are discouraged but can be indicated with comments. Final layout and typesetting take place at a later stage.

Alterations made to proofs, other than the correction of errors introduced during production, are subject to review and may require editorial approval which could delay the publication of your manuscript

Please note that the revised proofs are not sent to the authors prior to typesetting and online publication unless there are exceptional circumstances. The article layout will be created according to the Karger standard.

DOI Number

Online First Publication

Licenses and Copyright

Articles published in Microbial Physiology are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, unless otherwise agreed with Karger Publishers. When sharing or reusing any article, attribution must be given to the original source, using the statement "The final, published version of this article is available at http://karger.com/?doi=[insert DOI number]" (e.g., http://karger.com/?doi=10.1159/000365070). Reuse for commercial purposes requires permission from the publisher. 

More information is available on the Karger website.

The copyright of the article is retained by the authors. The authors grant S. Karger AG, Basel, an exclusive unlimited license to publish the article under a Creative Commons license and identify S. Karger AG as the original publisher. Submission of a manuscript for publication implies the authors’ consent to publication under the applicable Creative Commons license and the terms and conditions of the Publisher’s Licensing Agreement.

Please note that metadata – essentially, data tags about article information such as authors and keywords that helps make articles discoverable by, for example, search engines – is governed by a separate policy. Refer to the FAQ on our Open Access web pages for details.

Archiving and Self-Archiving

All articles are archived in Portico. Articles may also be archived in PubMed Central if the journal is indexed there. Karger permits authors of Open Access articles to post the Version of Record (VOR) of their articles in Open Access repositories or on other websites. Preprints may be shared without restriction. Re-posted Open Access articles must follow the terms of the relevant Creative Commons license. 

To ensure citations are credited to the Version of Record, Karger encourages authors to link to the published article on karger.com and include the following statement: "The Version of Record of this article is available at http://karger.com/?doi=[insert DOI number](e.g. http://karger.com/?doi=10.1159/000365070)."

Manuscripts to be archived in PubMed Central due to NIH funding requirements will be submitted by Karger on the authors’ behalf, as outlined under Funding Organizations.

Karger policies on Open Access, licensing and self-archiving can also be found at Sherpa Romeo. 

Funding Organizations

Cover Letter

In your cover letter, please describe the gap in knowledge that this manuscript addresses, and discuss the implications, significance and novelty of your research for the Editor. Furthermore, please emphasize the unique and important contributions that your manuscript makes to our understanding of the field. If your submission is part of a special issue of the journal, please refer to the specific name of the special issue in your cover letter and specify who invited the submission where appropriate.

Manuscript Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online via the Microbial Physiology submission and peer review system by the manuscript’s corresponding author. The corresponding (submitting) author will automatically be the contact person for the manuscript for the peer review and production process. For fee payment and license signing, the contact author will be the first listed corresponding author.

The corresponding (submitting) author is solely responsible for managing all communication between the journal and all co-authors and acts on behalf of all listed authors. This ensures that all correspondence reaches a unique contact and thereby secures swift communication in particular throughout the submission, peer review and production process. Articles can be published with more than one corresponding author (usually limited to three), but only the submitting author can be accommodated during the submission, peer review and production process.

The corresponding (submitting) author’s specific responsibilities include:

• Ensuring all the listed authors have approved the manuscript submission to the journal and agreed to all of the content including the author list, including the Submission Declaration
• Handling the revision(s) and re-submission(s) of the manuscript until acceptance
• After acceptance, manuscript proof reading and approving the final proof
• Acting as the point of contact for queries about the published article. It is their responsibility to inform all co-authors of any matters arising in relation to the published article including questions relating to publication ethics, availability of data, materials, etc.

Where there are multiple corresponding authors, the first listed corresponding author’s specific responsibilities include:

• Upon acceptance, ensuring that all listed authors agree to the license agreement
• Arranging for payment of Page Charges/Article Processing Charges where required. The affiliation of the corresponding author will be used to determine eligibility for discounted or waived charges including discounted or waived APCs under read and publish/offsetting/OA agreements

Please note that the author names entered into the manuscript submission and peer review system should be identical to the information presented on the title page of the manuscript, including the sequence of authorship. The author names submitted should reflect the official publication names. It is the submitting (corresponding) author’s responsibility to ensure the accuracy of all content in the proof, including the names of co-authors, addresses and affiliations.

Before submission, please read the Submission Guidelines in full for specific requirements for manuscript preparation.

Submission Declaration

Documents

Submission Declaration (PDF, 89 KB)