Instructions to authors

  1. All submitted materials must be digitized and submitted electronically to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., with the manuscript and legends ideally in Microsoft Word. Tables should be ideally submitted in Microsoft Excel; missing data in tables should be indicated with an emdash for missing, or n/d (not determined) or n/a (not available), depending on the type of missing data. Illustrations (Line drawings (600 dpi or higher) and half tone pictures (300 dpi or higher) should be submitted separately (ideally as tif or psd with layers included), never embedded in Word files. Phylogenetic trees will only be accepted when submitted in an editable format such as Powerpoint files, or in Adobe Illustrator (never as pictures). Fonts in phylogenetic trees are restricted to Arial, Times or Times New Roman, with the minimum font size for leaves 8 points. Lines should be at least 1 point thick, and the tree must fit A4 format (multi-page trees allowed, but trees should then be divided across multiple pages with arrows linking the parts). Very long branches can be shortened but the factor used for shortening should then be indicated on that branch, e.g. 2x for the branch which was halved.
  2. The corresponding author should confirm that: (a) all named authors have agreed to publication of the work; and (b) the manuscript does not infringe any personal or other copyright or property rights.
  3. Papers cited as “in press” should be provided for the benefit of the referees.
  4. The content should be structured as follows: Abstract, Introduction, Materials and methods, Results or Taxonomic Part, Discussion, Acknowledgements and References. Key words (up to five and in alphabetical order) and a Running Head should also be provided.
  5. British-English is preferred, and used for all non-article material. Authors of articles can use American-English, provided that it is consistent within their contributions. Words of non-English origin, like bona fide, prima facie, in vitro, in situ, should be placed in italic, together with scientific names of any rank (e.g. Ascomycota, Dothideales, Mycosphaerellaceae, Mycosphaerella nubilosa).
  6. Common abbreviations are as follows: h, min, s, mL, µL, mg/L, °C, Fig., Figs, d, wk, but also ITS, RAPD, RFLP, rDNA, 18S, etc.

Authorities of fungal taxa should be omitted from the general text, unless novelties and synonymies are listed, or nomenclatural issues discussed.  In these cases, authorities for taxa should follow the list of authors’ names, see speciesfungorum. Journal abbreviations in the text (species synonymies, descriptions, etc.) should follow the International Plant Name Index.

  1. Experimental procedures must be reproducible and must follow Good Cultural Practice (Mycological Research 106: 1378–1379), with sequences lodged at GenBank (NCBI nucleotide database), alignments in public repositories such as Figshare or Zenodo, voucher specimens in Leiden (L), or another recognized on-line herbarium (Index Herbariorum or World Federation for Culture Collections (WFCC) acronym, with accession numbers where allocated, and accompanying ex-type and other cultures in long-term culture collections. For new taxa or names a MycoBank number is required. Typification events should have a MycoBank MBT number.

    Authors are strongly encouraged to deposit their alignments and phylogenetic tree(s) in public repositories such as Figshare or Zenodo and to cite the submission number in the manuscript. The alignment and phylogenetic tree(s)should be processed with Mesquite to ensure consistency. Trees should be labelled with the figure number corresponding to the figure in the text and unpublished trees should be labelled as such.

  2. Collections must be cited as:

Specimens examined: Country, location, substratum, date (e.g. 10 Dec. 1993), collector (e.g. S. Uper & F. Ungus) HERBARIUM number (acronym according to Index Herbariorum), holotype, culture ex-type COLLECTION xxx. (thus, only country in bold and specimen collector italics; everything else in roman type).

  1. Reference citation in text: References in the text should be chronological, and given in the following form: “Smith & Jones (1965) have shown ...”, or, “some authors (Zabetta 1928, Taylor & Palmer 1970, Zabetta 1970) consider that ...”. The names of collaborating authors are joined by an ampersand (&). Where there are three or more authors, names should be cited by the first name only, adding “et al.”, e.g. “Bowie, Black & White (1964)” are given as “Bowie et al. (1964)” or “(Bowie et al. 1964)”. Where authors have published more than one work in a year, to which reference is made, they should be distinguished by placing a, b, etc. immediately after the date, e.g. “Dylan (1965a, b)”. Reference citations in text should be in ascending order of year first, followed by authors’ names. Each reference should include the full title of the paper and journal, volume number, and the final as well as the first page number. In the case of chapters in books, the names of editors, first and last page numbers of the articles, publisher and place of publication are needed. References with more than three authors, should list the first three authors, followed by et al.

Examples for publications, books and dissertations (note than the en-dash symbol is used for ranges):

  • Black JA, Taylor JE (1999a). Article title. Studies in Mycology 13: 1–10. (volume number in bold, journal italics, en-dash to indicate range).
  • Black JA, Taylor JE (1999b). Article title. Mycological Research: In press.
  • Black JA, Taylor JE, White DA (1981). Chapter title. In: Book title (Seifert S, Seifert KA, eds). Press, Country: 11–30.
  • Crous PW, Wingfield MJ, Mansilla JP, et al. (2006c). Phylogenetic reassessment of Mycosphaerella spp. and their anamorphs occurring on Eucalyptus. II. Studies in Mycology 55: 99–131.
  • De Hoog GS, Gerrits van den Ende AHG (1998). Molecular diagnostics of clinical strains of filamentous Basidiomycetes. Mycoses 41: 183–189.
  • Simpson H, Seifert KA (2000). Book title. 2nd edn. Press, Country.
  • White DA (2001). Dissertation title. Ph.D. dissertation. Department, University, Country.

Fonts and lines on photoplates:

  • size of complete plate: 18 cm wide and max. 26.2 cm high; resolution 300 or higher dpi (300 dpi alone is sufficient for a plate of 18 x 26.2 cm)
  • separate pictures should be in RGB with a resolution of at least 300 dpi
  • scale bars: place = bottom right hand side corner; thickness; 6 pixels, 2 mm up and 2 mm to the left of the corner
  • letters: place = bottom left hand side corner; 2 mm up and 2 mm to the right of the corner
  • font = Arial regular capital, size 12 pixels
  • thickness of white lines separating the pictures: 15 pixels
  • Please submit the photoplate as a psd file with unflattened layers (never as an Adobe PDF file)

Examples for software, online databases, and online articles: 

References in Nomenclators:

  • Only book titles in italics (use a simple colon before the page number), all other information in Roman letters. Journals abbreviated according to Hunt (BPH Online).
  • Insert a space after the volume number with colon.