About Ciencias Marinas

A bilingual open-access publication, Ciencias Marinas (CM) is an international peer-reviewed journal that contains original research findings in all areas of marine science. It is published on a rolling basis by the Autonomous University of Baja California, Mexico, and all its contents are publicly available on our journal website. 

CM was conceived in 1973 as part of an academic project aimed to entice local researchers to publicly disclose their findings by adopting the culture of peer-review publishing. This academic project evolved into an international journal after accepting papers from researchers in the United States and, eventually, other parts of the world. Because of the diversity in authorship, CM issues were initially published in either Spanish or English, and occasionally in both languages. It was not until 1984 when CM included both language versions of all its contents, and it then became the fully bilingual journal it still is today. At CM we believe our inclusive format allows us not only to address a wider range of submissions from international authors but also to make published findings available to a wider international audience.

So whether you are looking for information on the redfish in Icelandic waters or the physical and biological properties of the Gulf of California, feel free to peruse CM contents. You may find them to provide source material for your research.

Focus and outreach

We aim to disseminate sound knowledge on marine life and its environment at an international level by publishing, via open access, original peer-reviewed papers on research in all disciplines in the field of marine science. Our goal extends to publishing authors from different parts of the world and to make their findings available to a wide community by publishing contents in two of the top spoken languages in the world, English and Spanish. We believe that by making these contents openly available in both languages we will breach language barriers in the science community and enable research findings to reach a wider audience, thus contributing to human and scientific development.

Peer review

All manuscripts submitted for consideration in CM undergo a blind peer-review process. The peer-review process is designed to ensure all published material is grounded on sound original science. It should enrich scientific discussion with positive feedback. CM encourages and enforces positive, impartial, and respectful feedback from reviewers to authors and from authors to reviewers.

Briefly, all submissions are sent out for blind review by one of our associate editors or directly by the editor, depending on the subject area of the reported research. After at least two external peers have returned the manuscript with reviews, the associate editor will analyze the reviews and send a recommendation to the editor. All final decisions are made by the editor-in-chief.

Funding

CM is funded by the Autonomous University of Baja California (Mexico). The National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT, Mexico) has occasionally provided funding through project grants.

Publication frequency

CM is published on a rolling basis, and manuscripts are available as articles immediately upon publication, which is done soon after editing is completed. Special issues may be published upon request of recognized scientific institutions or organizations and after acceptance by the editorial board.

Open access

CM is an Open Access journal published on a rolling basis. Its contents are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). With this license authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows others to share and adapt the work, as long as they give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. You will need to seek permission from copyright holders for use of material not covered by this license. The journal title is protected by copyrights and not subject to this license.


Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository), as long as they acknowledge its initial publication in this journal as stated by the CC BY 4.0 license.

Writing style and format

For general presentation matters, our in-house writing style and format generally follow authoritative international standards such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International System of Units. Many of those standards are synthesized in the Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers (8th edition), the style guide published by the Council of Science Editors (CSE) and our primary reference. However, since CM is a bilingual journal, with contents issued in English and Spanish, our writing standards conform to individual language norms for matters concerning grammar and orthography. For English, we use standard American English and abide primarily by the Merriam–Webster Dictionary, the CSE style guide, and the Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition); for Spanish, we primarily abide by the dictionary and language standards published by the Real Academia Española. Please keep this in mind if you are considering CM as your publishing platform.

Submission policy

By submitting a manuscript to CM, you acknowledge and/or declare that you are submitting to a bilingual, international, open-access journal and that your manuscript

> is of your authorship (if one author) or was equally elaborated by all authors (if more than one author) and that you have the full authority to submit it to CM

> is drafted in English or Spanish

> reports original, ethical research performed by you

> has not been published in another journal, book, or any other form, except in the form of a conference abstract, a part of a lecture, or an academic thesis

> is not under consideration for publication elsewhere

> complies with CM standards

> can be declined anytime during the editorial process if it fails to comply with CM standards and policies

> will be submitted to a blind peer-review process

> will not automatically be accepted for publication

> may be screened for duplication at any time during the editorial process

> if accepted, has every author’s approval for publication in CM

> if accepted for publication, needs to be translated to either English or Spanish, depending on the language of submission, and that the translation will be provided by either you or, if you accept to pay the corresponding fees, by our in-house translator*

> if accepted for publication, will be edited along with all its components (e.g., figures, tables, appendices, supplementary material) by our in-house editors to conform to CM writing, reporting, and presentation guidelines

> if accepted, will be published and will be freely available in its final published form and in the final translated version to the general public under our open-access policies.

 

While we do promote inclusion and ensure that all manuscripts are processed fairly and equally, the CM team reserves the right to decline any submission that does not meet our guidelines or policies.

*Upon author request.

Publication ethics

At CM we support research integrity and discourage unethical practices and research misconduct by editors, reviewers, and authors. All contributions must be original papers. Plagiarism, duplicate publication, redundant publication, falsification and fabrication, and inappropriate figure manipulation are strongly discouraged. If such unaccepted malpractices are suspected in a submission at any stage of the editorial process or after publication, we will take actions necessary and even decline the submission or retract already-published material. When you submit a paper to CM, you are expected to abide by standard publication ethics.

For more information on publication ethics and research integrity, you may consult the Committee on Publication Ethics (also known as COPE) and the CSE’s White Paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications.

Originality
Originality means that the submission has not been published elsewhere except in the form of an abstract or as part of a lecture or an academic thesis. Submitting uncredited material that is not your own is unaccepted. We briefly describe plagiarism and self-plagiarism, but more detailed information can be found in the CSE's White Paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications and the COPE website.

Plagiarism is the act of taking and using someone else’s work, be it wording, figure, table, data, or other materialized idea, without authorization and without granting rightful attribution. Self-plagiarism (also duplicate publication) is the act of republishing material without acknowledgment of the original source. Any form of plagiarism is inadmissible for CM publications. All manuscripts accepted for publication will be screened for duplicity before publication. Manuscripts found to contain plagiarized material may be declined at any stage during the publication process, even after acceptance. If plagiarism is detected after publication, the published paper will be retracted. In any case involving plagiarized material, it is our ethical obligation to notify the author’s institution and any other party being compromised.

Falsification and fabrication
Falsification and fabrication are forms of research misconduct that will not be tolerated in any way. Detection of such misconduct will be notified to the corresponding authorities and the manuscript can be rejected or, if already published, retracted.

Animal welfare
We advocate for zero unnecessary use of animals in research and for ethical use in studies where the advancement of science calls for the use of animals. Editors may request permissions or evidence of author adherence to the 3Rs principles for use of animals in research. For more on the 3Rs principles, we refer you to the following bibliography: National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (2019) and the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (2015).

Competing interests
Authors are asked to send a statement clearing any potential conflict of interest regarding their manuscript. Potential conflicts of interest must be resolved before publication. You must let the editor know of any competing interest (e.g., financial support that may have influenced your research, potentials reviewers that could be involved in any way in your research). The editor may contact you and any conflicting or influential party to resolve any interest dispute. If you have no competing interests to declare, you must state this in your manuscript. Declarations of competing interests may be published in the corresponding paper.

Authorship
Authors are the individuals who created the reported work and are publicly accountable for it. By created we mean designing and conducting the study and/or interpreting the results. Individuals warrant authorship when they have made a substantial intellectual contribution to the study and the manuscript. Give authorship to those who have the merit and as they merit.

Avoid granting authorship to individuals who did not make a considerable input to the paper. Guest authorship (attributing authorship to an individual who does not merit the title) and ghost authorship (not crediting as author an individual who merits the title) are unethical practices and are strongly discouraged. Editing a figure does not merit authorship. You may credit individuals who made some contribution (e.g., data collecting, text or figure editing, providing study material, etc.), but not so much as to warrant authorship, in the acknowledgments section. For more on authorship, see the CSE’s White Paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications.

The contribution made by each person credited as author must be stated in a letter. The order in which the authors are listed in the original submission should remain unchanged. Any change in this order must be done under a formal written request to the editor-in-chief. This request must be signed by all contributing authors and explain the reasons for the change.

Fees

Publication fees:
As of January 2017, there are no publication fees.

Translation fees:
$1.5 Mexican pesos per word.

Other fees:
$300.0 Mexican pesos per galley page that needs to be reformatted due to requested changes after the galley.

Legal statement

Ciencias Marinas, Volume 50, January-December 2024, is a bilingual (English and Spanish) open access journal that is edited and distributed annually on a rolling basis by Instituto de Investigaciones Oceanológicas at Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Carretera Transpeninsular Ensenada-Tijuana, no. 3917, Fraccionamiento Playitas, C.P. 22860, Ensenada, B.C. Tel. (646) 174-4601, www.cienciasmarinas.com.mx, cmarinas.manager@uabc.edu.mx. Editors in Chief: Sharon Zinah Herzka Llona, PhD, Armando Félix Bermúdez, PhD, Amaia Ruiz De Alegría Arzaburu, PhD and Jose Miguel Sandoval Gil, PhD. Copyright 2023 granted by Instituto Nacional del Derecho de Autor: license No. 04-2017-021012581200-203. Online ISSN: 2395-9053. The latest update was under the editorial managing of Armando Félix Bermúdez, PhD. Latest update: March 22, 2024.

 

 

Copyright 2024 UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA DE BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO
Luis Enrique Palafox Maestre, PhD, Rector; Joaquín Caso Niebla, PhD, General Secretary; Lus Mercedes López Acuña, PhD, vice-rector at Ensenada; Walter Daesslé Heuser, PhD, Director of Instituto de Investigaciones Oceanológicas.

Disclaimer

All organizations mentioned here are only our sources of information and in no way endorse us. Unless otherwise stated in our editorial notes, the contents in the papers published in CM do not, in any way, reflect our beliefs nor those of our sponsoring university. 

 

 

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