Submission Checklist

1. Accepted file types: For article text: txt, doc, docx (pdf can be accepted only for the first submission) For figures:  tiff, jpg, pdf

2. Text: double-spaced, left aligned, without footnotes, and with consecutive line numbers.

3. Title: no longer than 25 words.

4. Authors: list of authors and affiliations (including email addresses of all authors) with the corresponding author mentioned.

5. Abstract: ≤ 250 words

6. Introduction: (prepared following author Guidelines and Writing tips)

7. Methods: Subheadings are recommended. Try to match the subheadings in the methods with the sub headings in the result section (prepared following Author Guidelines and Writing tips) Statement about ethical treatment/ permissions etc. should be included in the method section

8. Results: With topical subheadings

9. Discussion: succinct and may not contain subheadings.

10. References: formatted according to the journal format following Author Guidelines

11. Acknowledgements: brief, grants or contributions are acknowledged.

12. Author Contributions Statement: For example, "AB and CD designed the experiment, AB and EF conducted the experiment, AB analyzed data and wrote the manuscript, all authors reviewed the manuscript."

13. Competing interests statement

14. Figures and tables: prepared following Author Guidelines

15. A cover letter as stated in policies (Author Guidelines)