Effective Date: January 2026

Purpose and Scope

Science is a team sport. The Dutton Lab welcomes collaborations that advance our understanding of ecological systems, microbiome dynamics, robotics, and automation technologies. We strive to be transparent, fair, and reliable partners.

This policy establishes clear and equitable standards for determining authorship on all scholarly outputs from this laboratory, including peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, preprints, datasets, and software. All laboratory members—faculty, postdoctoral researchers, graduate students, undergraduate students, visiting scholars, and technical staff—must adhere to these guidelines to ensure appropriate attribution of credit, accountability for research integrity, and transparent collaboration^[1, 2, 3]^. This policy aims to prevent authorship disputes by establishing expectations early and documenting agreements throughout the research process^[4, 5, 6]^.

Authorship Policy Flowchart Click on the flowchart above to view it in full size.

Models of Engagement: Using Lab Resources

When external researchers wish to use our laboratory’s specialized equipment (e.g., sequencing platforms, robotics, analystical instruments, computational resources), the relationship will generally fall into one of two categories. The specific model must be agreed upon prior to access.

1. The Service & Access Model (Acknowledgment Only)

  • Definition: The collaborator requests access to equipment or resources but operates them independently. The Dutton Lab provides the “hardware” but not the “headware.”
  • Requirements:
    • Independence: The collaborator uses standard protocols and performs their own data analysis without significant technical input from our lab.
    • Financials: The collaborator is responsible for all consumables (reagents, kits, etc.) and may be charged a usage fee to cover equipment maintenance and wear-and-tear.
    • Attribution: The Dutton Lab and the specific funding source for the equipment must be recognized in the Acknowledgments section of any resulting publications.
  • Authorship Status: Authorship is not warranted under this model.

2. The Collaborative Model (Authorship Warranted)

  • Definition: The project requires the unique technical expertise of Dutton Lab members to succeed. This includes modifying protocols for novel samples, designing custom hardware, developing new code, or interpreting complex datasets.
  • Requirements:
    • Intellectual Partnership: Because the equipment cannot be used effectively without our specific know-how, lab members effectively become intellectual partners in the research.
    • Opportunity to Contribute: Lab members involved in the technical work must be afforded the opportunity to contribute intellectually to the study design and data interpretation.
  • Authorship Status: If lab members contribute intellectually and participate in drafting or revising the manuscript, co-authorship is warranted and expected, consistent with ICMJE guidelines.

Core Principles

Authorship in this laboratory is governed by three principles: merit-based attribution ensuring that authorship reflects genuine intellectual contribution; accountability requiring all authors to take responsibility for the integrity of published work; and transparency through early discussion, written agreements, and clear documentation of individual contributions^[1, 2, 7, 8]^. Authorship confers both credit and responsibility, and the two cannot be separated^[9, 10]^.

Authorship Criteria

For projects operating under the Collaborative Model, this laboratory follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria, which are widely recognized across scientific disciplines and required by many journals^[1, 2, 11, 12, 13]^. To qualify as an author, an individual must meet all four of the following criteria:

  1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data;
  2. Drafting the manuscript or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content;
  3. Final approval of the version to be published; and
  4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work, ensuring that questions related to accuracy or integrity are appropriately investigated and resolved^[1, 2, 11, 12, 13]^.

Individuals who do not meet all four criteria should be recognized in the Acknowledgments section rather than as authors^[1, 11, 14]^.

Important Note: These criteria are not intended to disqualify individuals who otherwise meet criterion #1 by denying them the opportunity to participate in criteria #2 or #3. Therefore, all individuals who meet the first criterion should be given the opportunity to participate in reviewing, drafting, and final approval of the manuscript^[1]^.

Contribution Roles and CRediT Taxonomy

To enhance transparency and reduce ambiguity about individual contributions, this laboratory uses the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT), which defines 14 standardized roles including conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing (original draft and review/editing), visualization, supervision, project administration, and funding acquisition^[15, 16, 17, 18, 19]^. Authors will document their specific contributions using CRediT categories for all manuscripts, and these contribution statements will be included in submitted publications^[15, 17, 18, 19]^. CRediT is a tool for clarifying contributions and does not replace the ICMJE authorship criteria; all listed authors must still meet all four ICMJE requirements^[15, 17, 20]^.

Prohibited Practices

The following authorship practices are strictly prohibited:

  1. Guest, gift, or honorary authorship: Inclusion of individuals who have not made substantial intellectual contributions to enhance prestige, increase publication likelihood, or as professional courtesy^[21, 22, 23, 24, 25]^.
  2. Ghost authorship: Intentional exclusion of individuals who have made substantial contributions, including appropriation of student or trainee work by faculty without proper attribution^[23, 24, 26, 27, 47]^.
  3. Coercive authorship: Demanding authorship based solely on position, financial support, or the provision of equipment/resources, without a corresponding intellectual contribution to the work^[28]^.
  4. AI Authorship: Listing artificial intelligence tools (e.g., LLMs) as authors. Authorship requires human accountability; AI tools should be disclosed in the methods or acknowledgments^[29, 30]^.

These practices undermine scientific integrity and may constitute research misconduct or violations of integrity standards^[21, 22, 23, 24, 28]^.

Author Order and Position-Specific Responsibilities

In ecology and related fields, author order typically follows a first-last author emphasis (FLAE) convention^[31, 32, 33]^.

  • First Author: The individual who contributed most substantially to the research, typically leading study design, data collection and analysis, and manuscript preparation^[31, 32, 34, 35]^.
  • Last Author: Generally the senior investigator or principal investigator who provided conceptual guidance, supervision, funding, and laboratory resources, and who bears ultimate responsibility for the integrity of the work^[31, 32, 33, 34, 35]^.
  • Middle Authors: Individuals who made specific, substantial contributions in areas such as methodology, data generation, analysis, or interpretation, typically listed in descending order of contribution^[34, 35]^.
  • Corresponding Author: Responsible for manuscript submission, managing revisions, ensuring all co-authors meet criteria and approve the final manuscript, and serving as the point of contact for post-publication inquiries^[31, 32, 33, 34, 36]^. In this laboratory, the first author will serve as corresponding author unless circumstances make the senior author more appropriate^[31, 32, 33]^.

Authorship Discussions and Agreements

Authorship must be discussed openly at the beginning of each project, before substantial work begins^[2, 7, 8, 37, 38, 39]^. The principal investigator or project leader is responsible for initiating these discussions. For projects involving multiple contributors, a written Authorship Agreement will be created and signed by all parties, documenting the proposed author list, specific CRediT roles, and decision-making processes^[37, 38, 39, 40, 41]^. This agreement is a living document that should be revisited at key project milestones^[37, 38, 39, 41]^.

Authorship Agreement Template

Authors Departing the Laboratory

Individuals who leave the laboratory before manuscript completion retain their right to authorship if they have met the ICMJE criteria through their contributions to date^[42, 43]^. However, the following expectations apply:

  1. Communication: Departing authors must provide updated contact information and remain responsive to communications regarding the manuscript.
  2. Manuscript Review: Departing authors must fulfill their obligation to review and approve the final manuscript (ICMJE criterion #3) within a reasonable timeframe (typically 2-4 weeks for initial drafts, 1-2 weeks for revisions).
  3. Continued Contribution: If substantial additional work is required after departure that fundamentally changes the scope or conclusions of the study, authorship order may be re-evaluated in consultation with all contributors.
  4. Opt-Out: Any author may opt out of authorship for any reason by notifying the corresponding author in writing. In such cases, their contributions should be acknowledged appropriately.
  5. Timely Completion: Lead authors who leave the laboratory are expected to complete manuscript preparation within a reasonable timeframe (typically 6-12 months after departure, depending on the project’s stage). If the lead author cannot complete the manuscript, the lab may reassign lead authorship to ensure timely publication, with the original lead author becoming a co-author if they have met ICMJE criteria.

Rights and Responsibilities of Trainees

Graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and undergraduate researchers have the right to authorship on publications to which they have made substantial intellectual contributions meeting ICMJE criteria^[42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47]^. Students are presumed to have primary authorship of work arising from their thesis or dissertation research, provided they lead the manuscript preparation. Faculty may not appropriate student work without proper attribution^[42, 43, 45]^. Faculty are responsible for mentoring trainees on responsible authorship practices and must not penalize trainees for raising legitimate concerns^[42, 43, 44, 45]^.

Early-Career Researcher Protections: Undergraduate students and technicians who make substantial intellectual contributions meeting ICMJE criteria must be included as authors^[47, 48]^. Merely performing routine technical work (e.g., media changes, running standard assays) does not warrant authorship, but students and technicians who contribute to experimental design, data interpretation, or manuscript preparation must be recognized appropriately^[47, 48]^.

Preprints and Early Dissemination

This laboratory supports the posting of preprints to accelerate scientific communication and establish priority of findings. Decisions about preprint posting should follow these guidelines:

  1. Consensus Required: All authors must agree to preprint posting before submission to servers such as bioRxiv, medRxiv, or EcoEvoRxiv^[49]^.
  2. Timing: Preprints may be posted at any time before or during journal submission, subject to co-author approval and journal policies.
  3. Updates: Corresponding authors are responsible for updating preprints with links to the published version upon acceptance^[49]^.
  4. Authorship Changes: Author lists on preprints should match the intended journal submission. If authorship changes between preprint and publication, updates to the preprint should note these changes.
  5. Acknowledgment: Preprint DOIs should be cited in related presentations and grant applications where appropriate.

Data, Code, and Research Materials Authorship

Authorship on datasets, software packages, and other research products should follow the same ICMJE criteria as traditional manuscripts^[50]^:

  1. Data Papers: Individuals who make substantial contributions to data collection, curation, quality control, and documentation may warrant authorship on data descriptor manuscripts.
  2. Software and Code: Authors of computational tools should include those who contributed substantially to design, implementation, testing, documentation, and ongoing maintenance.
  3. Repositories: Data and code deposited in repositories (e.g., NCBI, GitHub, Dryad) should include appropriate attribution in metadata and README files, even if formal authorship is not applicable.

Collaborative and Multi-Institutional Projects

For external collaborations, authorship agreements should be established at the outset and explicitly reference dispute resolution processes^[4, 5, 8]^. Multi-institutional consortia should list individual authors who meet ICMJE criteria rather than the consortium name alone, although consortium names may be listed separately^[51, 52]^. Co-senior authorship (“these authors contributed equally”) should be documented in the authorship agreement and indicated in the publication^[31, 32]^.

Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools

The use of AI tools in research and writing is acceptable but must be disclosed transparently:

  1. No AI Authorship: AI tools cannot be listed as authors, as they cannot take responsibility for the work^[29, 30]^.
  2. Disclosure Requirements: The specific AI tools used, their version/date, and their application (e.g., “ChatGPT-4 was used to improve the clarity of the abstract”) must be described in the Methods or Acknowledgments section^[2, 29]^.
  3. Author Responsibility: Authors remain fully responsible for all content, including AI-generated text, figures, or code. All AI outputs must be carefully reviewed and verified^[2, 29]^.
  4. Data Analysis: AI tools used for data analysis should be described in the Methods section like any other analytical tool, with version numbers and key parameters specified.

Post-Publication Responsibilities and Corrections

All authors share responsibility for the published work and must respond appropriately to post-publication inquiries:

  1. Corrections and Errata: If errors are discovered after publication, authors must work collaboratively to submit corrections or errata through the journal’s established processes^[53]^.
  2. Retractions: In cases of serious errors that invalidate the conclusions, or research misconduct, authors must support retraction. The corresponding author coordinates this process with the journal editor^[53]^.
  3. Correspondence and Inquiries: All authors should be responsive to reasonable inquiries about methods, data, and interpretations. The corresponding author serves as the primary contact but may delegate specific queries to co-authors with relevant expertise^[36]^.
  4. Data and Materials Sharing: Authors must comply with journal policies and funder mandates regarding data and materials sharing. Unreasonable refusal to share may constitute research misconduct^[50]^.

Dispute Resolution

Authorship disputes should first be resolved through direct, collegial discussion among the involved parties^[2, 4, 5, 54, 55]^. If resolution cannot be achieved within the research group:

  1. The matter should be escalated to the Department Chair or an uninvolved senior faculty member for mediation^[4, 5, 54, 55]^.
  2. If mediation is unsuccessful, the matter may be referred to the College Dean or the University Ombuds.
  3. In cases that cannot be resolved through these steps, the principal investigator (in consultation with the Department Chair) will have final authority to determine authorship.

Note: Allegations of research misconduct (fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, or serious deviations such as ghost authorship) are distinct from standard disputes and will be referred to UF Research Integrity, Security & Compliance (RISC) and the Research Integrity Officer (RIO)^[4, 5, 26, 54]^.

Acknowledgments

Individuals who contributed to the research but do not meet all four ICMJE authorship criteria must be acknowledged in the manuscript’s Acknowledgments section with their permission^[1, 2, 11]^. This includes funding acquisition, general supervision, administrative support, technical assistance, or writing assistance (including AI tools) without intellectual contribution. Acknowledged individuals must consent to being named^[1, 2]^.

Compliance and Review

This policy aligns with ICMJE recommendations, CRediT taxonomy, Ecological Society of America guidelines^[31, 56]^, and UF research integrity standards. All laboratory members are required to read and acknowledge this policy upon joining. Violations may result in internal consequences and investigation under UF’s Research Misconduct Policy where applicable.

Principal Investigator Signature: _________ Date: _____

Policy Acknowledgment: All laboratory members must read, sign, and date an acknowledgment of this policy upon joining the laboratory and annually thereafter.

References

  1. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors.
  2. Northeastern University. Standards for the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Research at Northeastern. 2023.
  3. Yale University. Guidance on Authorship in Scholarly or Scientific Publications. 2016.
  4. University of North Carolina Charlotte. Authorship Policy and Resolution Procedures. 2021.
  5. Washington University in St. Louis. Dispute Resolution in Authorship. 2009.
  6. Penn Graduate Council. Fairness of Authorship Credit in Collaborative Faculty-Student Publications. 2022.
  7. Harvard Medical School. Authorship Guidelines.
  8. Duke University. Duke University Policy on Authorship. 2008.
  9. Rennie D, Yank V, Emanuel L. When authorship fails: a proposal to make contributors accountable. JAMA. 1997;278(7):579-585.
  10. Venkatraman V. Conventions of scientific authorship. Science and Engineering Ethics. 2010;16(2):375-394.
  11. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. 2024.
  12. The Embassy of Good Science. Authorship criteria. 2021.
  13. University of Hong Kong. ICMJE Recommendations: Authorship Criteria. 2016.
  14. American Medical Writers Association. ICMJE Authorship Guidelines and Acknowledging Non-author Contributions. 2023.
  15. Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT). https://credit.niso.org/
  16. Wikipedia. Contributor Roles Taxonomy. 2024.
  17. Frontiers. Frontiers adopts CRediT to enhance clarity in research authorship. 2023.
  18. Wiley Author Services. CRediT (Contribution Roles Taxonomy).
  19. Elsevier. CRediT author statement. 2023.
  20. Taylor & Francis Author Services. CRediT at Taylor & Francis. 2025.
  21. Nature Spinal Cord. Gift, honorary or guest authorship. 2018.
  22. The Embassy of Good Science. Honorary or gift authorship. 2021.
  23. UK Research Integrity Office. Good practice in research: authorship.
  24. eContent Pro. What is Ghost, Guest, and Gift Authorship in Research? 2024.
  25. Council of Science Editors. 2.2 Authorship and Authorship Responsibilities.
  26. Office of Research Integrity. Plagiarism and Authorship Disputes. 2025.
  27. Stanford DoResearch. On Academic Authorship. 2025.
  28. Ohio State University. Office of Research Authorship Guidelines. 2021.
  29. Oxford Academic GigaScience. Authorship Guidelines. 2025.
  30. Nature Ecology & Evolution. Authorship.
  31. Weltzin JF, Belote RT, Williams LT, Keller JK, Berry EC. Authorship in ecology: attribution, accountability, and responsibility. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 2006;4(8):435-441.
  32. Fox CW, Ritchey S, Paine CET. Last and corresponding authorship practices in ecology. Ecology and Evolution. 2017;7:8876-8887.
  33. Dynamic Ecology. Last and corresponding authorship practices in ecology: Part 1. 2016.
  34. Brown University. Guidelines on Authorship in Scholarly or Scientific Publications. 2024.
  35. Northeastern University. Authorship/Assignment of Credit. 2020.
  36. Ecology Research. Responsibilities of Authors.
  37. Appalachian State University. Authorship Agreement Form (template).
  38. UNSW Sydney. Authorship Agreement Form. 2025.
  39. UNC Charlotte. Authorship Agreement. 2024.
  40. University of Pittsburgh. Authorship Agreement (template).
  41. Purdue University. Authorship Agreement Template: Engineering, STEM. 2025.
  42. Penn Graduate Council. Fairness of Authorship Credit in Collaborative Faculty-Student Publications.
  43. Roberts LW et al. Reducing Tensions and Expediting Manuscript Submission Via an Authorship Agreement Form. Academic Psychiatry. 2021.
  44. University of Colorado Boulder. Graduate Student Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.
  45. Office of Research Integrity. Authorship in Faculty-Student Collaborations. 2025.
  46. Duke ScholarWorks. Copyright Concerns of Graduate Researchers. 2018.
  47. Science. Don’t make early career researchers ‘ghost authors.’ Give us the credit we deserve. 2021.
  48. Northeastern University. Authorship/Assignment of Credit.
  49. Council on Undergraduate Research. Contributions Made by Undergraduates to Research Projects. 2025.
  50. Ecological Society of America. ESA Manuscript Preparation Guide. 2022.
  51. Oxford Academic GigaScience. Authorship Guidelines - Group Authorship.
  52. Abdill RJ, Blekhman R. Meta-Research: International authorship and collaboration across bioRxiv preprints. eLife. 2020;9:e58496.
  53. NIH Office of Intramural Research. NIH IRP Authorship Conflict Resolution Policy. 2023.
  54. Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Guidelines on Authorship and Acknowledgement. 2022.
  55. U.S. Department of the Interior. Frequently Asked Questions Regarding Authorship in Scientific and Scholarly Work Products.
  56. Ecological Society of America. Code of Ethics.