Instructions for Authors

Version 2, January 2026

Murrillia Editorial Team (murrilliajournal@gmail.com)

Murrillia is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal dedicated to promoting mycological discovery, education, and conservation. The journal welcomes contributions from all kinds of mycological backgrounds, with an emphasis on the amateur/non-professional/non-academic community. Murrillia is dedicated to helping new authors through guidance, mentorship, and consultation. Do not hesitate to reach out for assistance like pre-review, analytical guidance, writing help, etc.

Murrillia accepts many types of mycological submissions including original research articles, short notes, description of new taxa, checklists, methods and resources, conservation proposals, and essays. Topics may include, but are not limited to: taxonomy, ecology, conservation, nomenclature, ethnomycology, and agrimycology. Murrillia is flexible with formatting to allow for a traditionally structured research article as well as brief notes and “fungal planet” style taxonomic descriptions.

Murrillia provides templates to help you draft your manuscript for a traditional research article or a brief note. Most of the specific instructions for formatting and content can be found in the articles, but some broad considerations and general guidelines are provided below:

• Submissions must be original, unpublished, and not under review elsewhere.

• The submitting author has allowed input from all contributing authors and received consent for submission. Authorship must be fair and ethical.

• Received as a clean copy of a .docx file or a Google Doc link based on the provided templates.

• Written in English.

• Figures must be submitted separately as high-resolution, publication-quality files. Captions go on a separate page at the end of the manuscript. The font used inside a figure or panel should be legible and the same font as the manuscript body

• Tables must be editable (not embedded as images) and should be in the manuscript file

• Upload datasets and supplementary files to https://figshare.com/. Cite in the article via doi.org link. These datasets should include a nucleotide alignment and an unedited tree file for phylogenetic data. Additional Specimens Examined or Known Occurrences: may be given in a supplementary file (especially for notes) and should include the standard information included in such a section (e.g., locality, collector,  collection or observation number, herbarium, date).

• All nomenclatural acts must be in accordance with the current rules of the ICN.

• Upload sequences to a public repository when possible (e.g., GenBank).

• Authors retain copyright but grant Murrillia rights to publish under CC BY-ND and register with a doi (digital object identifier).

Submission and Review Process

1. Email your manuscript, figures, and a cover letter to: murrilliajournal@gmail.com, Submission: First Author’s  Last Name/Publication title (ie Cook/Pluteus xxxx).

   1. Templates for standard articles, brief notes, fungal planet style descriptions, and a cover letter form are provided.

2. Preliminary editorial review for formatting, clarity, and completeness. Incomplete submissions may be returned for revision before peer review.

3. Review by at least two peers (may be one peer and one editor for brief notes and fungal planet-style manuscripts at editors’ discretion). Target review period:

   1. Brief notes, fungal planet-style manuscripts 1–4 pages - 1 week

   2. Manuscripts 5–9 pages - 2 weeks

   3. Manuscripts >10 pages - 3+ weeks

4. Review Guidelines:

   1. The reviewer carefully reads the manuscript and examines all associated figures and data (including supplementary files).

   2. Reviewer completes review form and returns annotated manuscript (if necessary).

   3. Review provides recommendation and feed back directly to the editor as well as including specific constructive and supportive feedback aimed at building scientific capacity and rigor.

5.  Editor compiles review and provides instructions to author depending on outcome:

   1. Accepted without revisions - No response from author(s) required. Proceed to step 7: article proofs

   2. Accepted with minor revisions - Author(s) are required to correct specific deficiencies or errors in the manuscript but are minor in nature typically regarding formatting, grammar, and clarity.

   3. Accepted with major revisions - Author(s) are required to correct general and specific deficiencies and errors in the manuscript of major nature that would require new or redone analyses, further research, or significant rewriting.

   4. Rejected - While hopefully avoided as much as possible, occasionally some submissions will need to be rejected as either out of scope and/or not appropriate for publication in Murrillia. When possible, the editors will provide specific steps to be taken which would make the work suitable for publication in Murrillia and encourage the author(s) to resubmit.

6. Author(s) address review comments and submit revisions to the editor.

   1. Author(s) carefully considers each specific comment and question raised by the reviewers and either incorporates revisions or provides a justification for not doing so on a point by point basis.

   2. Author(s) submits revised version of manuscript files with changes tracked (“reviewing” or “track changes” enabled).

   3. Editor reviews response. Editor may consult reviewers for assistance with specific points.

   4. If revisions are still deficient, editor will provide additional detail on required revisions and reassess once another version is submitted by the author(s).

7. Editor creates and sends proofs to submitting author for approval

   1. Proofs will be in the manuscript and figures in the final publishing format as it will appear when published online by Murrillia (with the exception of a few fields like “Date Published”).

   2. This is the final opportunity to make any changes to the manuscript that were not raised before in the review process.

   3. Once approved, the editor(s) will publish a final version. Congratulations!