To protect the lawful rights of publishing institutions and article authors, this agreement is hereby established in accordance with the Open Access and Copyright Transfer Policy of the Journal of Tropical Biology (Chinese and English) (Version 2025.12.01). The authors voluntarily transfer all rights related to the article to the Editorial Board of the Journal of Tropical Biology (Chinese and English) (hereinafter referred to as "the Editorial Board"). The parties hereby agree as follows:

1. Originality and Confidentiality Commitment: The author confirms this is an original work with no confidentiality breaches or duplicate submissions. Should any infringement, disclosure, or duplicate submissions occur, the author shall bear full legal responsibility. The editorial board reserves the right to claim all resulting damages and will publicly disclose the incident in this journal and its partner platforms.

2. Authorship Agreement: The authorship and order of names in the article shall not be changed in principle once determined. If it is necessary to change, a written statement signed by all authors must be submitted and stamped with the official seal of the first author or corresponding author's institution. All consequences arising from disputes over authorship rights shall be borne by the authors.

3. Copyright Transfer: The author voluntarily and permanently transfers all property rights of the article—including compilation, distribution, reproduction, translation, and information network dissemination rights—to the editorial department. This includes, but is not limited to, the right to authorize domestic and international literature retrieval systems and databases to include the work, publish and disseminate it in any medium or language (in compliance with Chinese laws and regulations), and submit it for archiving to institutions such as the National Library of China. The author retains personal rights such as the right to attribution and the right to protect the integrity of the work, as well as other rights stipulated in this agreement.

4. Open Access Statement (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0): As the copyright holder, the editorial department publishes articles under the Gold Open Access model and licenses public use under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). This license allows any user to:

(1)  Reproduction and distribution: reproduction and distribution of the work in any form and on any medium;

(2)  public performance: public display, broadcast, performance, or transmission of the work through the internet.

Subject to the following restrictions:

(1)  Attribution (BY): Proper attribution must be provided, including a link to this license agreement and a statement of any modifications to the original work. Attribution may be given in any reasonable manner, but must not imply endorsement of the licensor's use.

(2)  NonCommercial (NC): The work may not be used for commercial purposes.

(3)  NoDerivatives (ND): The original work may not be modified, adapted, or used to create derivative works.

(4)  NoAdditionalRestrictions: No legal or technical restrictions may be imposed to limit actions permitted under this license.

This license is a global, royalty-free, and irrevocable agreement, valid until the copyright protection period expires.

5. Special terms of authorization

As the copyright holder, the editorial department licenses the public under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. The editorial department also grants the author exclusive rights to exercise their rights within the following scope to ensure academic flexibility (this license does not apply to third parties):

• Institutional archiving: The final version of the article can be stored in the basic research knowledge base of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the institutional knowledge base of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and other non-commercial funding institutions or the institutional knowledge base of the host institution.

• Academic Research: The findings of this paper may be cited, summarized, or expanded in research projects I lead, or new studies may be conducted using its methodology. However, if derivative works involve patent applications or technology transfer (where intellectual property rights belong to the authors or their affiliated institutions), direct replication of core content (e.g., data, methods, conclusions) is prohibited. Only the viewpoints may be cited with proper attribution.

• Personal sharing: You may share articles on your personal homepage or non-commercial academic platforms (e.g., ResearchGate, Institutional repositories), but not on commercial content platforms (e.g., Baidu Wenku).

• Subsequent use: The content of this article may be cited, excerpted, or compiled into teaching materials for classroom use in future academic publications or articles. However, the core viewpoints, data, or conclusions of the article must not be adapted, and no additional permission is required (though the original source must be credited in the publication).

Special Note: The aforementioned rights are exclusively granted to the author and cannot be sublicensed to any third party. When exercising these rights, the author must clearly credit the original article as published in Journal of Tropical Biology (Chinese and English). Third parties must strictly comply with the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. The author is not authorized to grant additional rights beyond those stipulated in the CC license on behalf of the editorial board.

6. Royalty and Agreement Effectiveness: After the article is published, the editorial department will pay the author a one-time royalty, which includes the copyright transfer fee. If the article is not accepted by this journal, this agreement will automatically expire, and the copyright remains with the author.

This agreement shall come into force upon the signature of all authors. It is made in duplicate, with each party holding one copy. The scanned copy of the signature shall be uploaded to the submission system or sent to the email of the editorial department (rdsw2020@hainanu.edu.cn) for archiving.

7. Dispute Resolution: In case of any inconsistency between these terms and the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license, the external validity of the CC license shall prevail. The author's exercise of rights under these terms shall not infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of the editorial department under the copyright transfer terms. Other matters not covered herein shall be resolved through mutual consultation; if no agreement is reached, the matter shall be handled in accordance with relevant laws and regulations.

Editorial Board of the Journal of Tropical Biology (Chinese and English)