About Saline Systems

What is Saline Systems?

Saline Systems is an Open Access, peer-reviewed, online journal considering high quality manuscripts on all aspects of basic and applied research on halophilic organisms and saline environments, from gene systems to ecosystems.

Saline Systems covers a wide array of coastal and inland saline environments, including natural lakes, marshes, springs, lagoons, estuaries, and man-made solar pans. The diverse microflora and macroflora and fauna of these environments present unique opportunities for basic research and biotechnology, while increasing human activities and climate change pose conservation and management challenges. Saline Systems' specific areas of interest include the systems biology, molecular biology, and environmental biology of halophilic and halotolerant organisms; the limnology of salt lakes including microbial ecology, biogeochemical cycling, paleolimnology, and trophic and ecosystem dynamics; the biodiversity, conservation, and resource management of saline environments; and biotechnological applications of saline environments, including aquaculture.

To date, no single journal has addressed the specific publication needs for research opportunities and conservation/management challenges presented by coastal and inland saline environments. Rapid progress in the molecular biology and microbial ecology of halotolerant/halophilic organisms and the sensitivity of many saline environments warrant an online journal with fast turnaround times. Many threatened saline environments are located in developing countries and the need for an Open Access journal to address the dissemination and sharing of knowledge with regard to their conservation and management is compelling. This journal provides an interdisciplinary forum for scientists working within all relevant fields.

Content overview

Saline Systems considers the following types of articles:

• Research: reports of data from original research.
• Book reviews: short summaries of the strengths and weaknesses of a book. They should evaluate its overall usefulness to the intended audience.
• Commentaries: short, focused and opinionated articles on any subject within the scope of the journal. These articles are usually related to a contemporary issue, such as recent research findings, and are often written by opinion leaders.
• Database articles: describe a new database or a substantial improvement of an existing database.
• Methodology articles: present a new experimental method, test or procedure. The method described may either be completely new, or may offer a better version of an existing method.
• Short reports: brief reports of data from original research.
• Reviews: comprehensive, authoritative, descriptions of any subject within the scope of the journal. These articles are usually written by opinion leaders that have been invited by the Editorial Board.

Peer review policies

All manuscripts submitted to Saline Systems will be peer-reviewed by at least two experts who are internationally recognized in the specific field(s) featured in the manuscript. Reviewers' reports will be received by the Managing Editor who will decide on whether the manuscript should be: accepted, accepted after minor revisions, accepted after major revisions, or rejected. The final decision to accept or reject a manuscript will be taken by the Editor-in-Chief.

Edited by Shiladitya DasSarma, Saline Systems is supported by an expert Editorial Board.

Publishing in Saline Systems

All articles are listed in PubMed immediately upon acceptance (after peer review), and are covered by PubMed Central, CAS, Embase and GeoRef.

Articles in Saline Systems should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. However, because articles in this journal are not printed, they do not have page numbers. Instead, they have a unique article number.

The following citation:

Saline Syst 2004, 2:1

refers to article 1 from volume 2 of the journal.

As an online journal, Saline Systems does not have issue numbers. Each volume corresponds to a calendar year.

To keep up to date with the latest articles from Saline Systems, why not register to receive alerts? Registration also enables you to customise your subject areas of interest, store your searches, and submit your manuscripts.

Submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to Saline Systems using the online submission system. Full details of how to submit a manuscript are given in the instructions for authors.

General journal policies

Saline Systems is published by BioMed Central, an independent publisher committed to ensuring peer-reviewed biomedical research is open access. That means it is freely and universally accessible online, it is archived in at least one internationally recognised free access repository, and its authors retain copyright, allowing anyone to reproduce or disseminate articles, according to the BioMed Central copyright and licence agreement. Saline Systems however, has taken this further by making all its content open access.

Saline Systems's articles are archived in PubMed Central, the US National Library of Medicine's full-text repository of life science literature, and also at INIST in France and in e-Depot, the National Library of the Netherlands' digital archive of all electronic publications. The journal is also participating in the British Library's e-journals pilot project, and plans to deposit copies of all articles with the British Library.

BioMed Central is working closely with Thomson Reuters (ISI) to ensure that citation analysis of articles published in Saline Systems will be available.

Saline Systems is able to deliver summaries of frequently updated content via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. These are accessible via the orange "XML" button at the top of the list of recent articles or the list of most accessed articles. For more information about RSS feeds see our publisher's website.

For further information about general policies please see the instructions for authors.