Guidelines to Authors of BARCODE Data Release Papers for Submission to PLoS ONE

The Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) urges participants in major DNA barcoding initiatives to consider submitting “BARCODE data release papers” for possible publication by the Public Library of Science in PLoS ONE(1). The following suggestions will be of use to authors as they prepare their manuscripts for submission and review by PLoS.

Definition. A BARCODE data release paper is a short manuscript that announces and documents the public release on a member of the International Nucleotide Sequence Data Collaboration (INSDC, which includes GenBank, EMBL, and DDBJ) of a significant body of data records that meet the BARCODE data standards(2).

Contents. BARCODE data release papers are meant to announce and document the public availability of a significant body of new DNA barcodes. The barcode records should therefore be a coherent and noteworthy set of records that provides noteworthy new research capabilities for a taxonomic group, ecological assemblage in a specified geographic region. Authors should explain the rationale for creating a comprehensive library of BARCODE data for that taxonomic group, ecological habitat, and/or geographic region. If the data have been collected as part of a larger, longer-term research project, the manuscript should explain the wider project and their planned use of the data for taxonomic, biogeographic, evolutionary, and/or applied research, or for other purposes.

The manuscript should describe:

• The scope of taxonomic, ecological, and geographic coverage;
• The sources of voucher specimesn;
• The sampling and laboratory protocols used; and
• The processes used to identify the species to which voucher specimens belong.

The manuscript should provide summaries of data density and quality such as those shown in the following table:

Average number of records per species
Range of records per species	Min-Max
Average sequence length (and Min/Max)
Range of intraspecific variation (3)	Min-Max
Median variation within species (3)	X%
Range of divergence between closest species-pairs (4)	Min-Max
Median divergence between closest species-pairs (4)

Manuscripts should also include an Appendix with a table that presents

• The taxonomic identification (a formal species name or a provisional species label in a public database);
• The collecting locality to a reasonable level of precision;
• The voucher specimen identifier in the format required in the BARCODE data standard;
• The accession number in GenBank, EMBL or DDBJ; and
• The BOLD record number (optional).

Review Criteria. PLoS will conduct an independent peer review of each submitted manuscript. CBOL suggests that authors anticipate that reviewers will use the following evaluation criteria:

1. Data quality. All data records should meet the BARCODE data standards agreed to by CBOL and INSDC. The manuscript should demonstrate the effectiveness of the BARCODE records in distinguishing species, as well as pointing out limitations of the BARCODE data for species identification.
2. Significance of the data records. The data records being released should represent a significant addition to the public knowledge base. The manuscript should demonstrate the significance of the new records relative to the previously released BARCODE data for that combination of taxonomic group, ecological habitat, and geographic region. Manuscripts that announce the release of the first BARCODE records representing a higher proportion species in a taxonomic group will have higher significance.
3. Relevance to other research programs and societal applications. BARCODE data release manuscripts will be considered more relevant if they treat taxonomic groups, ecological habitats, and geographic regions that are connected with other basic research programs in evolutionary biology or ecology, or are components of applied research for socioeconomic reasons (e.g., agriculture, food safety, conservation, environmental monitoring, public health).
4. Documentation and accessibility. The voucher specimens and their associated data and metadata will be valuable resources for the research community. The data table in the Appendix must provide links to the voucher specimens and taxonomic identification, as well as the INSDC Accession Numbers. Reviewers will evaluate the degree to which voucher specimens are available in permanent repositories (as opposed to private research collections) and taxonomic identifications are documented in published and/or online resources. Provisional, non-Linnean taxonomic labels may be used, but they should be linked to online databases that document the author’s concept of the taxonomic unit.