Instruction to authors
Journal of Protistology
March 2022
General information
Journal of Protistology (JP) is an open access journal officially published by the Japan
Society of Protistology (JSP). JP aims to publish original research related to any field ofprotistology and to provide a forum for scientists to discuss broad aspects of protists.
All papers accepted by JP are peer-reviewed and published online only. No publication
charges are levied.
JP was launched in January 2018 as an international journal following an overhaul ofThe Japanese Journal of Protozoology, the former official journal of the JSP that wascontinuously published since 1968.

Manuscript types
JP publishes Regular Articles, Reviews, and Commentaries. Regular Articles report
unpublished findings that are not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
Reviews summarize specific aspects of previous research in protistology. Commentaries
are designed to discuss recently published topics or to present new and challenging
ideas. Although manuscripts submitted under all three categories should be writtenconcisely, there are no restrictions on the word count, the number of figures, or theamount of supplementary data.
All submitted manuscripts will be reviewed by two or more experts in the field, evenwhen the manuscript is an invited article. The editors will make a final decision basedon the judgments of the reviewers. Manuscripts will be returned to authors without
undergoing peer review if they are not prepared appropriately e.g., if their subject
matter falls outside the focus of the journal or if their layout does not conform to thejournal format.

License
Authors will be asked to agree to publish their article under the terms of the Creative
Commons license, CC-BY.

Use of genetic resources
Based on the Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) of the Convention on BiologicalDiversity (CBD), authors are required to comply with international laws regarding theuse of genetic resources and the laws of the country from which the specimens werecollected. It is also recommended that evidence of proper compliance with ABS
regulations (e.g., official document code numbers, contact information for localinstitutions, etc.) is included in the manuscript. If necessary, the ABS Advisory Editor
will make suggestions and recommendations regarding the correct compliance withethical responsibilities carried out by the authors.

Manuscript preparation and submission
Articles must be submitted in English only and prepared following theinstruction below. Manuscripts that do not follow the instructions will bereturned without review. It is the authors’ responsibility to ensure that theirmanuscript is clearly written and grammatically correct. The editors strongly
recommend non-native English-speaking authors ask an English-speaking colleague toproofread their manuscript or use a professional English editing service prior tosubmission.
For the initial submission of a manuscript, authors must prepare a single PDF filecontaining the manuscript text, tables, and figures. The file size should be less than 10MB. Each figure should be provided with its legend on the same page. Authors maysubmit supplementary information as separate files in PDF, TXT, JPEG, TIFF, MOV,MP4, or MPG format. Each file should be less than 50 MB. For the final submission ofa revised manuscript, authors must prepare a Microsoft Word file containing themanuscript text, tables, and figure legends, and separately prepare high-quality figure
files in TIFF, JPEG, EPS, or PDF format.

The PDF file for the initial submission should be emailed as an attachment to theEditor-in-Chief, Dr. Satoshi Shimano, at the following address: journal@protistology.jp.
Supplementary information files larger than 10 MB should not be sent by e-mail. Upon
request, the editors will offer several ways to submit such files using web storage
applications. When submitting a Regular Article, the authors can briefly discuss theimportance of their article in the e-mail.

Ethical responsibilities of authors
Authors should follow the guidelines Section IV (Presenting Research Results) issuedby the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS; https://www.jsps.go.jp/jkousei/data/rinri_e.pdf)

Manuscript organization and formatting
Authors should prepare text using 12-point font, double line spacing, a margin of 2.5 cm
on all sides, and a page size of A4. All pages and lines of text should be numberedsuccessively.
A Regular Article should be organized as follows: (1) Title, Author(s), Affiliation(s) andAddress(es), Running Title, and Keywords; (2) SUMMARY; (3) INTRODUCTION; (4)MATERIALS AND METHODS; (5) RESULTS; (6) DISCUSSION; (7)ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; (8) REFERENCES; (9) TABLES; (10) FIGURES andFIGURE LEGENDS, and (11) SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION (optional). Theauthors may modify this organization if necessary to clarify the presentation. There areno restrictions concerning the style of Reviews and Commentaries.
The first page of the manuscript should include the Title, Author(s), Address(es), aRunning Title (50 characters or less, including spaces), Keywords (3–10 words orphrases that are not included in the title), details of the corresponding author (name,telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address), and any footnotes. Authors withdifferent affiliations should be identified using a superscript number linking the nameand affiliation.
The SUMMARY should be a single paragraph not exceeding 250 words on the second
page of the manuscript.

References
Each reference must be cited in the text using the surname(s) of the author(s) and theyear of publication.
ExamplesTwo authors(Numata & Watanabe, 1982) or Numata and Watanabe (1982)
More than two authors(Numata et al., 1985) or Numata et al. (1985)
More than one paper from the same author(s) in the same year(Numata et al., 1985a), (Numata et al., 1985b)
Unpublished materials, manuscripts in preparation, or manuscripts submitted but not yet
accepted(Numata, personal communication) or (Numata, unpublished data)
URLs(http://protist.i.hosei.ac.jp/index.html)

In the REFERENCE section, all references cited in the text should be listed according tothe American Psychological Association (APA) style. Do not refer to unpublishedsources and URLs in the reference list.
ExamplesJournal articles
Numata, O., Sugai, T., & Watanabe, Y. (1985). Control of germ cell nuclear
behaviour at fertilization by Tetrahymena intermediate filament protein. Nature,314, 192-194.

Journal articles with more than seven authors
Kushida, Y., Takaine, M., Nakano, K., Sugai, T., Vasudevan, K. K., Guha,M., ...Numata, O. (2017). Kinesin-14 is important for chromosome segregation
during mitosis and meiosis in the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila. J. Eukaryot.
Microbiol., 64, 293-307.
Addition of a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is recommended if available
Niikura, M., Inoue, S.-I., Mineo, S., Asahi, H., & Kobayashi, F. (2017). IFNGR1
signaling is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes during infection withmalaria parasites. PLoS ONE, 12, e0185392. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0185392
Manuscripts accepted for publication but not yet published
Author name(s) (in press). Article title. Journal title.
Author name(s) (year). Article title. Journal title. Advance online publication.
doi:xxxxxxxxx.
Articles in books
Blackburn, E. H. (1986). Telomeres. In J. G. Gall (Ed.), The molecular biology ofciliated protozoa (pp. 155-178). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
BooksBeale, G. H. (1954). The genetics of Paramecium aurelia. London: Cambridge
University Press.
Journal titles should be abbreviated according to NCBI (ISOAbbreviation; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals). Authors are
responsible for the accuracy of the references.

Technical expressions• Write species names (scientific names) in italic typeface. Common names oforganisms, if used, must be accompanied by the correct scientific name where they
appear first in the text.
• Do not italicize Latin terms other than species name (e.g., in vivo, de novo).
• Italicize gene names, but write the protein product of a gene in Roman typeface. The
names of genes and their products should be written properly according to the rules
governing the genetic nomenclature of each organism.

• Use units of measure according to the International System of Units (SI) available athttps://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/index.html.
• Leave a space between mathematical symbols and numbers (e.g., 1 + 2, 1 < 2). Do notleave a space in the following cases: 2×TBE, −85°C, 10%, 360°, and 1–100.
• Use 1,000, not 1000.