Authorship of a manuscript submitted to the Annals of Agriculture and Life Sciences Journal (AALSJ) should be based on substantial contributions to the research and manuscript. All individuals listed as authors must have made meaningful contributions to the work and must be able to take responsibility for their contributions.

A person should be listed as an author when they have substantially contributed to one or more of the following aspects of the research:

1. Research conception and design, including development of the research question, experimental design, study planning, field or laboratory investigation, or methodological development.

2. Acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data, including field observations, laboratory investigations, experimental work, statistical analysis, modelling, or interpretation of research findings.

3. Preparation of the manuscript, including drafting the manuscript or critically revising it for important scientific or intellectual content.

4. Final approval, including review and approval of the final version of the manuscript before submission and publication.

5. Accountability, including agreement to take responsibility for the accuracy and integrity of the work and to cooperate in addressing and resolving any questions concerning the research or manuscript.

All authors should have sufficient knowledge of their contributions to the research to participate appropriately in the review and resolution of issues related to the integrity of the work.

Authorship Responsibilities

The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that:

• All individuals who qualify for authorship are appropriately included as authors.

• No person who does not meet the authorship criteria is listed as an author.

• All authors have approved the submitted manuscript.

• All authors agree with the order of authorship before submission.

• The contributions of each author are accurately reported.

• Any changes to the authorship list after submission are appropriately justified and approved by all affected authors.

Contributions That Do Not Normally Qualify for Authorship

The following contributions, when provided alone, do not normally constitute authorship:

• General administrative or departmental supervision.

• General supervision of a research group.

• Obtaining funding without substantial involvement in the research or manuscript.

• Routine technical assistance.

• Routine data collection without substantial intellectual contribution.

• Provision of equipment, facilities, materials, or institutional resources alone.

• General proofreading or language editing alone.

• Administrative support.

Individuals who have made valuable contributions but do not meet the authorship criteria may be recognized in the Acknowledgements section, with their permission.

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Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools in Manuscripts

AALSJ recognizes that authors may use artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted tools during the preparation, analysis, or presentation of research. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and scientific validity of their manuscripts.

Authors should disclose the use of AI-assisted tools when such tools have made a substantive contribution to the preparation or development of the manuscript.

Disclosure of AI Use

Where AI-assisted tools have been used for:

• Writing or language assistance;

• Translation or editing;

• Data analysis;

• Coding or statistical procedures;

• Generation or modification of figures, images, or other research materials; or

• Other substantive aspects of the research or manuscript,

the authors should provide an appropriate disclosure describing how the tool was used.

For language or writing assistance, the disclosure may be included in the Acknowledgements or another appropriate section of the manuscript.

For AI-assisted data analysis, coding, modelling, figure generation, or other research procedures, the use of the tool should be described in the Materials and Methods or the relevant methodological section.

AI Tools as Authors

AI tools, including ChatGPT and other generative AI systems, cannot be listed as authors or co-authors.

Authorship requires human responsibility for the research, manuscript, accuracy, integrity, originality, and final published work. AI tools cannot accept such responsibility.

Author Responsibility

Authors remain responsible for all content generated or assisted by AI tools.

Authors must:

• Carefully review and verify AI-assisted content.

• Correct inaccurate, incomplete, misleading, or biased information.

• Verify scientific statements, references, data, calculations, and interpretations.

• Ensure that AI-assisted content does not introduce plagiarism or inappropriate reuse of copyrighted material.

• Ensure that the manuscript complies with applicable research integrity and publication standards.

• Take full responsibility for the final submitted manuscript.

AI-assisted writing or content must not replace the authors' scientific judgment, interpretation, or responsibility for the research.

Authors should not present AI-generated material as independently verified scientific evidence without appropriate verification.

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Authorship in Multicenter and Collaborative Research

For research involving multiple institutions, departments, laboratories, research groups, or collaborating organizations, authorship should reflect genuine scholarly contributions to the research and manuscript.

All individuals listed as authors must satisfy the authorship criteria described above.

In large collaborative or multicenter research projects, the individuals responsible for the manuscript should be clearly identified, and their respective contributions should be documented.

Merely:

• Providing funding;

• Providing facilities or equipment;

• Providing general supervision;

• Providing administrative support;

• Collecting data without substantial intellectual contribution; or

• Providing routine technical assistance

does not, by itself, qualify an individual for authorship.

Individuals who make substantial scientific or intellectual contributions should be appropriately recognized as authors.

Contributors who do not meet the authorship criteria should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgements section rather than listed as authors.

Acknowledged individuals should be informed and should provide permission to have their names included.

Authorship Contribution Statement

AALSJ may require authors to provide a statement describing the contribution of each author to the research and manuscript.

Contributions may include:

• Conceptualization;

• Research design;

• Methodology;

• Field investigation;

• Laboratory investigation;

• Data collection;

• Data curation;

• Statistical analysis;

• Data analysis;

• Interpretation of results;

• Software or modelling;

• Visualization;

• Manuscript drafting;

• Manuscript review and revision; and

• Final approval.

The corresponding author should ensure that the contribution statement accurately represents the work performed by each author.

Changes in Authorship

Authors should finalize the authorship list and order before submitting the manuscript.

Any request to add, remove, or change the order of authors after submission must be accompanied by a clear justification and approval from all authors concerned.

The Editorial Office may request additional documentation or written confirmation from the authors before approving an authorship change.

AALSJ reserves the right to investigate authorship concerns where there is evidence of disputed, inappropriate, honorary, guest, gift, or other forms of improper authorship.

Corresponding Author

The corresponding author acts as the primary contact with the journal throughout submission, peer review, revision, and publication.

The corresponding author is responsible for:

• Communicating with the Editorial Office.

• Ensuring that all authors have approved the manuscript.

• Confirming the accuracy of the authorship and contribution information.

• Coordinating responses to editorial and reviewer comments.

• Ensuring that required declarations and disclosures are provided.

• Communicating relevant decisions and publication information to all co-authors.

• All authors share responsibility for the integrity and accuracy of their contributions to the manuscript.