Integrative Systematics

The natural history journal Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Naturkunde (aus dem Staatlichen Museum für Naturkunde in Stuttgart) was founded in 1957, edited by Karl Wilhelm Harde, also the editor of the famous monographic series Die Käfer Mitteleuropas. Harde, who was curator of beetles and head of the entomology department at the Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History, stayed at the helm of the journal until 1980, with brief editorial help from Helmut Zwölfer in the early 1970s. In 1973, the journal became Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Naturkunde Serie A (Biologie), following the creation of sister-journal Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Naturkunde Serie B (Geologie und Paläontologie). Harde was succeeded as editor by Psocoptera specialist Wolfgang Seeger, who was replaced upon retirement in June 2003 by dipterist and Tachinidae specialist Hans-Peter Tschorsnig. Articles in the Stuttgarter Beiträge were published throughout the year as individual printed issues, ending with N. 708 in 2007. In 2008, the journal underwent a change in format from single reprints to yearly volumes printed in a larger format with the text in two columns. This change came with a slight adjustment of the name, to Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Naturkunde A (Neue Serie), and with the establishment of an editorial board of scientists from the Stuttgart Museum and other international institutions. After Tschorsnig’s retirement in 2017, the journal underwent another name change to the English Integrative Systematics (Stuttgart Contributions to Natural History). Under its current name, the journal was edited by Museum entomologists Lars Krogmann (2018), Arnold Staniczek (2019–2020), and Daniel Whitmore (2021–ongoing).

Since its foundation, the journal has had a strong tradition for publishing insect systematics research, influenced early on by the succession of entomologist editors and by the contributions of several productive Stuttgart-based entomologists such as Erwin Lindner, Willi Hennig, Dieter Schlee, Benno Herting, and Harde. Indeed, over eighty percent of the 253 articles published during the first fifteen years of the journal were on insects. A large proportion of these articles were on the order Diptera (true flies), with charismatic figures such as Lindner and Hennig paving the way for contributions by many of the leading dipterists of that time, such as Harold Oldroyd, Curtis Sabrosky, George Steyskal, Brian Stuckenberg, Louis Mesnil, Kenneth Spencer, Boris Rohdendorf, and Fritz Zumpt. Hennig himself, one of the most influential evolutionary biologists and the founder of phylogenetic systematics, published some thirty papers in the Stuttgarter Beiträge, including pioneering works on fossil insects preserved in amber. Oskar Sebald (botany) and Ernst Schüz (ornithology) also contributed several papers to the journal early on, as have Wolfgang Schawaller (Coleoptera), Helmut Schmalfuss (Isopoda), Tschorsnig, and Ronald Fricke (ichthyology) in more recent years.

Integrative Systematics is an Open Access peer-reviewed journal that publishes original articles of general biological interest, including research articles, review articles, and short communications. Individual articles are first published online following an issue-in-progress model, in compliance with the 2012 Amendment of Articles 8, 9, 10, 21 and 78 of the International Code for Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) and Articles 29 to 31 of the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants. Articles are collected once yearly in a printed volume published at the end of each year, which is distributed broadly through the Museum's library exchange programme (e-mail to bibliothek(at)smns-bw.de).

Research articles typically include taxonomic revisions and phylogenetic studies, preferably with a link to morphology. Studies combining different methodological approaches are particularly welcome, as are studies of material housed in the Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History. Comprehensive checklists or catalogues of a well-circumscribed fauna, flora or other topic (e.g., host-parasite catalogues) will be considered for publication. Review articles must provide a global, comprehensive overview of the proposed topic. Short communications (up to five published pages) must provide new and properly-documented information that is key to a better understanding of a species and/or of its relationship with the environment or other species; these include, e.g., newly-discovered associations/interactions between species, new behavioural observations, or new distributional information of relevance. Other article types include editorials and obituaries. Supplementary volumes on a special topic are possible and must be discussed with the Editor-in-Chief.

Copyright of articles published in Integrative Systematics: Stuttgart Contributions to Natural History is with the publisher (Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart) unless otherwise stated. By submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors tacitly agree to transfer copyright to the publisher unless otherwise agreed upon. Transfer of copyright becomes effective if and when the article is accepted for publication. All material copyrighted by the publisher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Editor-in-Chief:

Dr. Daniel Whitmore
Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart
Rosenstein 1
70191 Stuttgart,
Germany

Email: daniel.whitmore(at)smns-bw.de
Phone: +49 (0) 711 89 36 - 215
Fax: +49 (0) 711 89 36 – 100

Associate Editors:

• Dr. Ursula Eberhardt
• Dr. Arnaud Faille
• Dr. Arnold Staniczek
• M.Sc. Jonah Ulmer
• M.Sc. Dominic Wanke

(all Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart)

Editorial Board:

• Andrew Austin, University of Adelaide, Australia (Entomology)
• Alexander Fürst von Lieven, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany (Invertebrate Zoology)
• Markus Koch, Universität Bonn, Germany (Invertebrate Zoology)
• Alexander Kupfer, Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, Germany (Vertebrate Zoology)
• Reto Nyffeler, University of Zurich, Switzerland (Botany)
• Marco Oliverio, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy (Invertebrate Zoology)
• Thomas Pape, Natural History Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen (Entomology)
• Hossein Rajaei, Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, Germany (Entomology)
• Annarita Rossi, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy (Vertebrate Zoology)
• Christiane Weirauch, UC Riverside, USA (Entomology)

All manuscripts, including short communications, undergo a strict single-blind peer-review process by two or more expert reviewers selected by the Editor or by members of the Editorial Board. Reviewers are typically granted one month’s time to complete their review, but a longer interval may be granted for larger manuscripts.

All articles published by Integrative Systematics are subject to rigorous checks concerning ethical standards, according to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ (COPE) Core practices and following the DOAJ’s Principles of Transparency & Best Practice. The Editors and Editorial Board act in accordance with COPE’s International Standards for Editors. All submitted manuscripts are immediately screened by the Editorial Board for plagiarism and other forms of misconduct. The journal endorses the European Code of Conduct on Research Integrity. Any suspected misconduct will be investigated by the Editors together with the Editorial Board and, if confirmed, will result in rapid rejection of the manuscript and will be reported to the European Network of Research Integrity Offices and/or other relevant authorities. Authors are asked to declare any conflicts of interest in their cover letter upon submission. During the editorial and peer-review process, the Editors and peer reviewers are also required to disclose any possible conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest (also referred to as dual commitments or competing interests) arise when, e.g., an individual’s financial or personal interests may inappropriately influence their judgement, therefore creating a bias. Publication of research results including any identifiable personal data (e.g., of participants in a study or of a patient in a medical case study) requires informed consent of the individual(s) involved, a copy of which may be requested by the Editors before the editorial decision is made. Authors presenting results of experimental research involving human subjects or laboratory animals must indicate whether their research was carried out in compliance with the Helsinki Declaration (2013 amendment) and World Medical Association guidance on animal research ethics, respectively, and in accordance with local and national regulations. It is the responsibility of the Editors to ensure that author and reviewer confidentiality are respected at all times during the editorial process leading to publication.

Integrative Systematics follows COPE’s retraction guidelines, whereby published articles will be considered for retraction in cases where content is unreliable (e.g., due to major errors or falsification), constitutes plagiarism, contains evidence of copyright infringement, or the author(s) failed to disclose a major conflict of interest. Once a decision to retract an article has been made by the Editors together with the Editorial Board, a retraction notice will replace the HTML version of the article on the journal’s BioOne webpage and the PDF of the article will be watermarked as retracted on every page.

Publication of errata and corrigenda

Small errors in a published article can be corrected through publication of an erratum. Errata are published at the end of a volume and contain a full reference to the original article. On the BioOne webpage of the journal, errata are placed at the end of the most recent issue and assigned a separate DOI from that of the original article. The PDF of the original article is uploaded again, with the erratum added at the end of the article.

A corrigendum should be published when significant errors in a published article need correcting, such as changes in authorship or errors affecting nomenclatural acts. Corrigenda represent a separate publication from the original article and are assigned their own DOI.

The decision to publish errata or corrigenda is taken by the Editors in consultation with the authors.

The latest articles published in Integrative Systematics can be found here:

https://bioone.org/journals/integrative-systematics-stuttgart-contributions-to-natural-history/current

Integrative Systematics (2018– )

Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Naturkunde Serie A (Biologie) (1973–2017)

Stuttgarter Beiträge zur Naturkunde (1957–1972)