About the Journal

Aims and Scope

SOCIOBIOLOGY publishes high-quality articles that significantly contribute to the knowledge of Entomology, with an emphasis on social insects. Articles previously submitted to other journals are not accepted. SOCIOBIOLOGY publishes original research papers and invited review articles on all aspects related to the biology, evolution, and systematics of social and pre-social insects (Ants, Termites, Bees, and Wasps). The journal is currently expanding its scope to incorporate the publication of articles dealing with other arthropods that exhibit sociality. Articles may cover a range of subjects such as ecology, ethology, morphology, population genetics, physiology, toxicology, reproduction, sociobiology, caste differentiation, as well as economic impact and pest management.

Short notes are also published, but we are more interested in manuscripts that address biology, ecology, sociality, behavior, and genetics, with at least a basic experimental/sampling component and quantitative/statistical analysis. Simplistic notes describing new records of species occurrence will not be accepted.

Articles and short notes which are only of a descriptive or anecdotal kind and local interest will not be accepted.

Peer Review Process

Manuscripts are received by the Associate Editors, and a plagiarism check and an initial evaluation regarding the relevance of their scientific contribution are done. Then, initially approved manuscripts are forwarded to Section Editors and assigned to two ad hoc referees for a double-blind peer review.  The referees must conclude their evaluation within four weeks of the assignment.

Editors are not involved in decisions about manuscripts submitted by themselves or work colleagues or which refer to products or services in which the editor has an interest. Just so you know, submissions included in this situation are subject to the regular journal's review policies, without any privilege related to the relevance of the editor role for the journal. 

Accepted articles will be submitted for copyediting and proofreading by the Associate Editors and the author. The publication is expected to occur in the upcoming issue. The whole time from submission to publication is expected to last about six months.

Since February 2021, articles have been published continuously immediately after the final acceptance. Thus, we expect to reduce the time from submission to publication to four months on average.

Publication Frequency

Quarterly (in March, June, September, and December)

Publication Fees

 Sociobiology does not charge APCs or submission fees.

Open Access Policy

Sociobiology is financially supported by a public state university that receives endowments from the State Treasure. The costs of editing and printing the journal are entirely covered by public money. Furthermore, editors are spending part of their work hours funded by public money on journal management. Therefore, if the financial support comes from public funds, the authors and readers have to benefit from this. The editorial board considers that scientific knowledge financed by public money can not be appropriated in a private fashion at any step of the editorial business chain.

That is why this journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that publicly funded scientific knowledge must be freely available to the public to support a greater global exchange of knowledge.

All content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles or use them for any other lawful purpose without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This follows the BOAI definition of open access.

Indexing and abstracting

Sociobiology is indexed and abstracted by:

Web of Science; SCOPUS; CAB Abstracts; Biological Abstracts, Zoological Records, Google Scholar, WorldCat among others.

Journal History

The journal SOCIOBIOLOGY was founded in 1975 by Dr. David Kistner and published by California State University, Chico, aiming to provide a more timely publication of quality papers by researchers of social animals. The serial has grown substantially since it was first published, and due to the growth in computer-based technologies, quality improvement has also been made. Over the years, the majority of the papers have dealt with, but are not limited to, the various aspects of the biology of social insects such as bees, wasps, termites, and ants, along with many of the insects associated with them.

Commencing with Volume 60 (2013), the editorial and production offices were located at Feira de Santana State University in Bahia, Brazil. SOCIOBIOLOGY relies on the principles of peer-review manuscript evaluation, scientific excellence of published articles, free-of-charge publication, and open access to all published articles.

Impact Factor (JCR 2021) = 0.863