Plos Biology

PLOS Biology (plos-biology)

Journal positioning

PLOS Biology is the flagship journal of the Public Library of Science (PLOS) and one of the most prominent fully open-access journals in general biology. It publishes significant, rigorous advances across the biological sciences — from cell and molecular biology to ecology, evolution, neuroscience, and systems biology — judged on scientific rigor and completeness, with a strong editorial culture around data sharing, reporting transparency, and methods reproducibility. The readership is the broad biological research community, and the journal's open-access mandate means papers are accessible worldwide without institutional subscription. This skill is a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool. It does not replace the journal's current official submission guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live author instructions on journals.plos.org/plosbiology.

When to trigger

• The author names PLOS Biology or PLOS Biol as the target venue.
• A manuscript has clear biological significance but benefits from an open-access outlet with strong transparency and data-sharing norms.
• A manuscript spans multiple biological disciplines or uses computational/quantitative methods alongside experimental data.
• The author needs PLOS Biology's desk-reject risks, reporting-guideline expectations, and a credible routing alternative.

Scope & topic fit

• Cell and molecular biology, genetics, genomics, and systems biology with clear mechanistic or conceptual insight.
• Evolutionary biology, ecology, and organismal biology — PLOS Biology publishes both fundamental and quantitative ecological work.
• Neuroscience and computational neuroscience at the level of significant biological insight.
• Methods and resources are published when the new tool, dataset, or approach offers clear and broadly applicable biological utility.
• Interdisciplinary work bridging quantitative/computational approaches with experimental biology is well-suited.
• Community-page and primer articles (invited or commissioned) complement research articles — these are not the route for unsolicited reviews.

Method & evidence bar

• Significance bar is high: a paper must represent a substantial advance in understanding, not merely an incremental addition to an existing paradigm.
• Data availability is non-negotiable: underlying data for all figures must be deposited in a public repository or provided as supporting files; PLOS enforces this at acceptance.
• Reporting guidelines must be applied: ARRIVE for animal studies, CONSORT for trials, STROBE for observational studies, MIQE for qPCR — a checklist submission is expected.
• Statistical reporting: PLOS Biology actively recommends against sole reliance on p < 0.05 thresholds; effect sizes, confidence intervals, and sample-size justifications are expected.
• Code and computational pipelines must be made publicly available; scripts and analysis code deposited in Zenodo, GitHub, or equivalent.

Structure & house style

• Research articles use a standard IMRAD structure with an unstructured abstract; a separate Author Summary (plain-language summary; re-check the current length limit) is required — this is PLOS Biology-specific and distinct from the abstract.
• The Author Summary must be written for a scientifically literate non-specialist audience; it is published prominently alongside the article.
• Figure panels must be accompanied by underlying data ("source data files") for all quantitative displays.
• Supporting information (supplemental figures, tables, methods) is hosted alongside the paper under the same open-access license.
• PLOS Biology uses a transparent editing process where editors' decisions and reviewers' identities (if they consent) can be published.

Official-submission checklist

• Before giving submission-ready advice, read ../../resources/source-basis.md and ../../resources/official-source-map.md; start from the official source anchors for this journal family, then cite the current journal-specific page you checked.
• Search the live site for "PLOS Biology submission guidelines" and follow the current version at journals.plos.org/plosbiology.
• Re-check required reporting checklists (ARRIVE, CONSORT, STROBE, or equivalent) and confirm all applicable guidelines have been completed and attached.
• Confirm data availability statement and deposition: all primary data underlying figures must be accessible; deposition in an approved repository (Zenodo, Dryad, GEO, SRA, etc.) is expected.
• Re-check code availability: all analysis scripts, pipelines, and software must be publicly available with an appropriate open-source license.
• Verify Author Summary requirements and format; confirm article processing charge (APC) or fee-waiver eligibility under current PLOS policy.
• Check competing-interests, funding acknowledgment, AI-use disclosure, and preprint posting policy (PLOS actively supports preprints).
• If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.

Pre-submission self-check

• One sentence articulating why this paper advances biological understanding for the broad PLOS Biology readership, not only for specialists in one subfield.
• The Author Summary is drafted (plain language; re-check the current length limit) for a non-specialist audience.
• All primary data are deposited or ready for deposition; source data files are prepared for each quantitative figure.
• Applicable reporting guidelines (ARRIVE, CONSORT, etc.) have been completed and the checklist is ready to attach.
• Code and computational workflows are in a public repository with documentation sufficient for reproduction.

Common desk-reject triggers

• Insufficient significance: incremental advances that refine an established finding without conceptual or mechanistic novelty.
• Missing or incomplete data availability — PLOS Biology editorial staff check for deposited data or source files at submission; absence is a desk-reject risk.
• Reporting checklist absent or incomplete for animal/human/clinical studies.
• Manuscripts framed as clinical research without appropriate reporting compliance (CONSORT, trial registration).
• Reviews or opinion pieces submitted as unsolicited manuscripts — PLOS Biology does not publish unsolicited narrative reviews.

Re-routing decision

• Flagship-level conceptual advance → nature, science, cell, or pnas.
• Prefer eLife's Reviewed-Preprint model and public reviews → elife.
• Genomics and computational biology are the primary focus → genome-biology.
• Clinical/translational emphasis → plos-medicine or nature-medicine.

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] PLOS Biology
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest topics>
[Method/evidence] <does the advance and evidence clear PLOS Biology's significance and transparency bar?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <reporting checklist / data deposition / code availability / Author Summary / APC / ethics>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>

Source: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills → English-NaturalScience-Journal-Skills/skills/plos-biology/SKILL.md