Authorship entails scientific contribution and responsibility for the work submitted. All individuals listed as authors must have approved the submitted version and the order of authorship.

Individual contributions must be declared using the CRediT taxonomy when applicable to the type of contribution.

Artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors and do not replace the responsibility of the individuals who sign the work.

Changes in authorship after submission must be communicated to the editorial team and properly justified.

Authors, reviewers, editors, and other participants in the editorial process must disclose any financial, personal, professional, academic, institutional, editorial, or other interest that could compromise, or could reasonably be perceived as capable of compromising, their independence or impartiality.

The existence of a relationship or interest does not necessarily imply an incompatibility. When a potential conflict exists, it must be communicated to the editorial team so that it can be appropriately assessed and managed.

Authors must disclose applicable conflicts of interest at the time of submission. When no conflicts exist and the relevant section requires an explicit declaration, this must be stated.

Research involving humans must comply with applicable ethical principles and legal requirements and, when appropriate, must have approval from an ethics committee or other competent body.

The manuscript must provide sufficient information to identify the relevant approval and document ethical compliance when applicable.

Research involving animals must be conducted in accordance with animal welfare principles, institutional standards, and applicable legislation.

When appropriate, authors must have approval from the relevant committee or competent body and identify it appropriately in the manuscript.

When research requires informed consent, authors must document that consent was obtained in accordance with applicable ethical and legal requirements.

The publication of information, images, or other materials that could identify an individual requires the corresponding authorisations when applicable.

The privacy, confidentiality, and dignity of participants must be protected throughout the research and publication processes.

RPN promotes responsible biodiversity research and requires appropriate scientific traceability of biological material when it forms part of the research.

Authors must document, as applicable, the identification of the organism, the evidence used to establish or confirm the identification, the provenance of the material, voucher, strain, isolate, material or collection number, applicable permits, and the relationship between specimens, tissues, samples, and sequences.

Consulting a taxonomic database does not, by itself, replace the evidence used to establish an identification. When appropriate, the manuscript must indicate who performed or confirmed the identification and the criteria used, such as morphological or anatomical characters, chemical data, keys, monographs, molecular sequences, or other sources of evidence.

Nomenclature codes and taxonomic authorities

• Algae, fungi, and plants: the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (Madrid Code) must be applied.
• Bacteria and archaea: the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes (ICNP) must be applied within the framework of the International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes (ICSP).
• Animals: the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, administered by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), must be applied.
• Viruses: the current taxonomy of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) and its current official taxonomy must be used.

Recommended taxonomic resources

The resource consulted should be selected according to the biological group and the purpose of the verification. When relevant, authors are encouraged to indicate the resource used and the date of consultation.

• Plants: Plants of the World Online (POWO) and World Flora Online (WFO).
• Fungi: MycoBank and Index Fungorum, as appropriate for the purpose of the consultation.
• Algae: AlgaeBase.
• Bacteria and archaea: List of Prokaryotic names with Standing in Nomenclature (LPSN).
• Animals: International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) and specialised taxonomic resources appropriate to the group studied.
• Viruses: International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV).

Sequences and molecular traceability

When new sequences used for identification or characterisation are generated, they must, when applicable, be deposited in recognised public repositories before publication. The manuscript must provide the relevant accession numbers and allow the sequences to be linked to the corresponding voucher, strain, isolate, or material.

For nucleotide sequences, repositories participating in the international DDBJ/ENA/GenBank collaboration may be used, as appropriate:

• GenBank.
• European Nucleotide Archive (ENA).
• DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ).

Permits, genetic resources, and benefit-sharing

When applicable, authors must declare and document compliance with relevant legislation and permits governing the collection, research, transfer, and use of biological material, as well as applicable obligations concerning access to genetic resources, prior informed consent, mutually agreed terms, and benefit-sharing.

Information whose disclosure could pose a risk to threatened species, vulnerable populations, sensitive biological resources, or other protected assets must be handled with appropriate caution.

Data, images, spectra, chromatograms, results, and other evidence must be presented in an accurate, transparent manner consistent with the research conducted.

Conclusions must maintain a reasonable relationship with the evidence presented. Fabrication, falsification, misleading manipulation, deliberately distorting omission, or inappropriate presentation of data is incompatible with RPN's principles of scientific integrity.

When applicable, authors must provide a data availability statement and document any ethical, legal, or confidentiality restrictions that limit access.

Supplementary material must maintain the same standards of integrity, traceability, and scientific responsibility as the main content of the manuscript.

Artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors of a scientific contribution.

When their use must be disclosed, authors must sufficiently identify the tool used, its purpose, and the scope of the work in which it was involved.

Authors retain full responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, originality, and content of the manuscript, including elements prepared or modified with the assistance of automated tools.

Substantive use of artificial intelligence in research, methodology, programming, data collection, or data analysis may require additional editorial evaluation according to the nature and extent of its use. Its use does not automatically determine acceptance or rejection of the manuscript.

The absence of an artificial intelligence disclosure does not, by itself, constitute evidence of undisclosed AI use.

Reviewers and editors must preserve the confidentiality of the manuscript and its materials when using technological tools during the editorial process. Confidential information must not be uploaded to external services when handling consistent with RPN's confidentiality obligations cannot be ensured.