PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOUTH DAKOTA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE

INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS--2025

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Editorial Policy: The South Dakota Academy of Science is a forum for the promotion of scientific teaching, research, and service in the state of South Dakota. The South Dakota Academy of Science meets each spring for the purpose of annual business, awards, and the interchange of ideas, information, and results from scientists and students of science. The minutes of the annual meeting and the abstracts of presentations are published annually in the Proceedings of the South Dakota Academy of Science. In some cases, authors choose to submit a full manuscript of their presentation, which is published in lieu of the abstract. Deadlines for submission of full manuscripts are July 15 each year. To submit manuscripts, please adhere to the Manuscript Submission Procedure described below.

Information on page and reprint charges will accompany the page proofs sent to the corresponding author. The following guidelines provide instructions for authors submitting manuscripts to the Proceedings. Be aware that these guidelines may vary from year to year, so please try to format your manuscript so that it meets the conventions described below.

• Authorship Policy: The following is the policy on authorship of abstracts and manuscripts to be published in the Proceedings:
  
  1) All papers published in the Proceedings of the South Dakota Academy of Science will include all authors that were shown on originally submitted abstracts or manuscripts.
  
   2) Any request to change authors after a submission has been made to the Proceedings must be accompanied by a brief letter of explanation sent to the editor that includes the original signature of all authors (including authors removed from or added to the authorship list).
  
  3) The deadline for requesting changes in authorship is 30 August of the year of submission.
• 4) At least one author must be a member of the South Dakota Academy of Science. Undergraduates must have a senior Academy member as a corresponding author.

Manuscript Submission Procedure: Manuscripts of full papers submitted for publication in Proceedings must be accompanied by two technical reviews. Authors are required to solicit reviewers that have expertise in the topic area of the manuscript. Co-authors of manuscripts are not considered reviewers. Each reviewer must provide their name, title, address, and phone number along with a brief review of the manuscript. In turn, authors must provide a brief reconciliation letter describing how reviewer comments were addressed along with a final, revised copy of the manuscript. Thus, the submission package must include the following: 1) two technical reviews (Peer Review Forms), 2) written reconciliation from authors, and 3) revised manuscript. All file names should begin with the corresponding author’s last name. Failure to adhere to the submission procedure will result in manuscripts being returned to authors.

Submission of abstracts for publication in the Proceedings do not need to be peer-reviewed.

All abstracts and manuscripts must be submitted electronically as attachments to an email sent to Robert Tatina, Editor, at robert.tatina@dwu.edu. Manuscripts should be saved as Microsoft Word files (not PDFs) that include tables and/or figures. Reviewer comments and the author(s) reconciliation statement must be submitted as separate files (MS Word preferred) along with the manuscript. Manuscript illustration files that have the extension .BMP, .GIF, .EPS, .JPG, .TIF, or .PCX are acceptable. IMPORTANT: Begin all file names with the corresponding author’s last name (e.g., Chipps_ms.doc, Chipps_review1.doc, Chipps_review2.doc, Chipps_reconcil.doc).

Membership. The author or one co-author of each abstract or paper must be a current member of the South Dakota Academy of Science.

Web Site Address. South Dakota Academy of Science - Home

Format Conventions: All manuscripts and abstracts should be single-spaced throughout including tables and the literature cited section. All pages should be numbered serially in the upper right-hand corner. Use a 1-inch margin all around but do not justify the right margin or hyphenate words on the right margin (i.e., use word wrap). Avoid footnotes in both articles and abstracts. Use metric measurements unless English units are clearly more appropriate, in which case metric equivalents must appear in parentheses. Give scientific names for all species the first time the species' common name is used as follows: Culver's root (Veronicastrum virginicum). Write out numbers under 10, except in a series with numbers >10 or with measurements or percentages. Statistical terms and other measures should conform to the Council of Science Editors Scientific Style and Format (e.g., t = 0.311, df = 33, P = 0.001, note italics, capital P and spaces before and after =).

Manuscript Components:

TITLE PAGE

All manuscripts should include a title page that includes the author name(s), affiliation(s), current mailing address(es), and Corresponding author email. Here are the components and style of the title page:

Microsoft Word

Times New Roman, Font Size = 12, except for the title Font Size = 14

Title: All Caps, Bold, Centered

Authors: Bold, Centered, Single space between title and authors

Affiliations: Centered, no space between authors and affiliations

Abstract: All Caps, Centered, Singe space between Corresponding author line and ABSTRACT

Single space between ABSTRACT and first line of text

Include a brief but informative abstract. The abstract should be a single paragraph of 200-300 words that concisely summarizes the results and conclusions of the study. For authors submitting only an abstract, you may include a few literature citations, but please use sparingly, and enclose them in parentheses within the text of the abstract. See example below.

Historical forests of the Black Hills, South Dakota, USA, determined using General Land Office surveys

Robert Tatina^1* and Brice B. Hanberry²

¹Department of Biological Sciences

Dakota Wesleyan University

Mitchell, SD 57301 USA
²USDA Forest Service

Rocky Mountain Research Station

Rapid City, SD 57702 USA

*Corresponding author: rotatina@dwu.edu

Abstract

Forests in the western United States generally have increased in tree density since Euro-American settlement, particularly through increases in fire-sensitive species, such as spruces, firs, and junipers. Like most areas, the Black Hills region in western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming was logged for forest products and underwent agricultural conversion before historical forests were documented. To supplement historical reconstructions and accounts, we compared tree composition and densities (diameters ≥12.7 cm at 1.37 m above ground height) from historical General Land Office (GLO) records (years 1878 to 1915) and current Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) (Bechtold, W.A, and P.L. Patterson. 2005. The enhanced forest inventory and analysis program—national sampling design and estimation procedures. SRS-80, USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station, Asheville, NC. https://doi.org/10.2737/SRS-GTR-80.) Silviculture of ponderosa pine in the Black Hills: the status of tree surveys (years 2011 to 2016) in the Black Hills Highlands of South Dakota. For composition, ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa P. Lawson & C. Lawson) decreased from 95% to 86% of all trees, with a consequent increase specifically of white spruce (Picea glauca (Moench) Voss) from 1.5% to 6.7% of all trees. Ponderosa pine currently is smaller in mean diameter by 7.4 cm, while white spruce is larger in mean diameter by 2.4 cm than historically. When the 35% of historical survey points without recorded trees were excluded, historical tree densities indicated an overall forested structure of savannas and open woodlands with tree densities ranging from 66 trees ha^-1 to 162 trees ha^-1. However, historical forests of the Black Hills incorporated dense stands. Tree densities have increased two- to more than four-fold, to 311 trees ha^-1 currently. These comparisons provide another source of information, paralleling changes documented in surface fire-dependent pine and oak forests throughout the United States, of transitions in forest composition and structure since Euro-American settlement.

Keywords

(Up five keywords)

INTRODUCTION

The introduction should include sufficient detail to establish the purpose and importance of the work being summarized. It should include pertinent literature related to the study question and end with a statement of the objectives/hypotheses being examined.

METHODS

The methods should include sufficient information for the reader to evaluate the data or repeat the study. It is better to be inclusive (i.e., overly explicit) when describing the methods used, but keep in mind that clarity and conciseness are important.

RESULTS

Results follow the methods section and should include a concise summary of your findings. Be careful not to ‘discuss’ implications of results; reserve these points for the Discussion section. Results that are presented in tables or figures should not be exhaustively discussed in the text. When statistics are presented, they should be explicit (e.g., t = 34.07, df = 48, P = 0.003). (Note use of italics for t statistic and P, but not df.)

DISCUSSION

The common trait among good scientific papers is a well-written discussion section. The discussion section is where you synthesize what has been learned from the study and provide direction or generalities for future studies. The discussion section should not be merely a summary of relevant literature linked to restatements of your results. Rather, it should be an informative essay that advances what is known about the subject area. Be careful, however, not to extend the discussion beyond what can be supported by the data reported in the results.

LITERATURE CITED

All references cited in the text should be listed at the end of the manuscript under the Literature Cited heading. References should be in alphabetical order by the last name of the author(s). If different works by the same author(s) are referenced, references should be in chronological order. Authors cited in the text of abstracts or papers should be indicated in parentheses by last name and year of publication (e.g., Wade 1967; Bremer 1977). When a citation has more than two authors, the last name of the first author followed by et al. should be used (e.g., Seabloom et al. 1978). Where two or more papers by the same author(s) have appeared in one year, the style should be (Stewart 1967a, 1967b). Citations included in abstract only submissions should be complete and included within the text of the abstract.

Examples of Literature Cited

Anderson, R.J., and R.W. Schrier. 2000. Acute renal failure. Pages 1149-1160 in Braunwald, E., K.J. Isselbacher and R.G. Petersdorf, editors. Harrison’s principles of internal medicine. 15^th ed. McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.

Bremer, P.E. 1977. Pelican kill. Loon 49:240-241.

Gipson, P.S., I.K. Gipson, and J.A. Sealander. 1975. Reproductive biology of the bobcat (Lynx rufus). Journal of Mammalogy 56:605-612.

Green, J.C., and R.B. Janssen. 1975. Minnesota birds: where, when, and how many. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN.

Midwest Regional Climate Center. 2002. Historical climate summaries. Available at http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/. [Accessed 12 May 2012]

Svihovec, L.K. 1967. A comparison study of the ecological distribution of small mammals in southwestern North Dakota. Thesis. University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND.

(For Internet citations, include as much information as possible so that readers can access the material cited. Also include “Available at” and then include the URL. Finally, add in square brackets the date you accessed the URL [Accessed 6 June 2010].

Tables, Figures, Illustrations and Photographs. All tables and graphics may be embedded in the text. Each table should begin with a Table number (e.g., Table 1, Table 2, etc…) followed by a descriptive caption which is separated from the table headings and data by a horizontal line. Tables must be referenced in the text.

Figures should be done with black ink on firm quality paper or if computer generated, they should be of camera-ready quality (laser printer) with sharp lines suitable for reproduction. Photographs should be 5x7-inch, sharp, black and white glossy prints. When appropriate, a legend of symbols, etc., scale and a cardinal direction (e.g., North) should be indicated on maps. All figures should be scanned into a Word document. Figure captions should be numbered (e.g., Figure x.) and included below the figure or typed on a separate sheet of paper at the end of the manuscript. Letters, symbols, and legends should be large and clear enough on all figures and photographs to be legible after copy reduction. All figures must be referenced in the text.

A note on deadlines:  If you cannot meet the July 15^th deadline for full papers, you must send the editor a note requesting an extension. You must also request a new due date because extensions are not automatically granted.

PEER REVIEW FORM Proceedings of the South Dakota Academy of Sciences Title: Author(s): Requested by: Date:    Please evaluate this manuscript based on technical content, organization, and scientific merit.   Are objectives clearly stated? Are the methods justified? Were data correctly analyzed? Are figures and tables appropriate? Are conclusions supported by the data? Does the manuscript add to existing knowledge? Is grammar acceptable? Yes No    Please provide any suggestions for improving the manuscript.    Reviewer Information    Reviewed by:    Title:    Affiliation:   Date: