Publication Guide
The Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE) is a small publisher by title count and a large one by influence. It owns exactly two journals - Molecular Biology and Evolution (MBE) and Genome Biology and Evolution (GBE) - and between them they define the venue landscape for molecular evolution, phylogenetics, population genetics and evolutionary genomics. Both are published on the society's behalf by Oxford University Press, and both are fully open access.
The society's origins go back to a June 1982 symposium at Stony Brook, where Masatoshi Nei gathered molecular evolutionists to launch a new journal. MBE published its first issue in December 1983 under founding editor Walter Fitch. For its first decade the enterprise was essentially a journal with an editorial board attached; members voted in 1992 to turn it into a proper society, and SMBE was formally activated on 1 January 1993 with Fitch as its first president. GBE followed in 2009 to absorb the surge of genome-scale evolutionary work. The society runs an annual meeting - SMBE 2026 was held in Copenhagen - and its business office is in Glen Allen, Virginia.
Which SMBE journal fits your paper?
The two journals overlap, and the editors will sometimes suggest a transfer between them. The rough division is methodological rigour and general significance (MBE) versus genome-scale scope and breadth (GBE).
| You're most likely to... | Choose this journal |
|---|---|
| Report a new evolutionary inference method, model or software with strong validation | Molecular Biology and Evolution - MBE is the field's reference venue for methods in phylogenetics, molecular clocks, selection inference and population genetics. |
| Present a molecular-evolution result of broad significance across taxa | Molecular Biology and Evolution - higher selectivity, wider readership, 2025 Journal Impact Factor around 6.4. |
| Publish a genome-wide comparative or genome-assembly-driven evolutionary study | Genome Biology and Evolution - explicitly scoped to genome-wide evolutionary investigation at all taxonomic levels and for all forms of life. |
| Need a fast, predictable decision on a solid genomics paper | Genome Biology and Evolution - GBE commits to a first decision in roughly six weeks and accepts direct transfers from bioRxiv. |
| Have a shorter descriptive genome resource or focused comparative analysis | Genome Biology and Evolution - a better fit than MBE for work whose value is the resource or the taxon rather than the method. |
What SMBE actually publishes
- Molecular Biology and Evolution (est. 1983) - 12 issues per year. Original research and methods across molecular evolution, phylogenetics, evolutionary genomics, population and comparative genomics, and evolutionary systems biology. Also publishes Reviews and Perspectives. Fully open access; 2025 Journal Impact Factor approximately 6.4 (June 2026 JCR release).
- Genome Biology and Evolution (est. 2009) - fully open access from launch, publishing research at the interface of evolutionary biology and genomics. Article types include Research Articles, Genome Resources, Letters and Reviews. 2025 Journal Impact Factor approximately 3.3.
Both titles are indexed in Scopus, Web of Science and PubMed/PMC. Neither publishes books, conference proceedings or preprints - SMBE's preprint relationship is with bioRxiv, from which manuscripts can be transferred directly into the submission systems.
Open access and APCs
This is the part that most often catches authors out. There is no subscription route at SMBE any more. GBE has been Gold OA since it launched. MBE switched: articles accepted from 1 August 2020 publish open access, and the journal has been fully OA in the reader-facing sense since 1 January 2021. If your paper is accepted, an APC applies unless it is waived or covered by an agreement.
| Route | What you pay | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Standard open access charge | ~$3,625 base charge per article | Applies to MBE and GBE; varies by article type; OUP revises annually |
| SMBE member rate | 20% discount on the charge | Membership is inexpensive relative to the saving - join before acceptance |
| OUP Read & Publish agreement | $0 to the author | Institution or consortium pays; check the ESAC registry or your library |
| LMIC programme | Full waiver or steep discount | OUP's Low and Middle Income Countries initiative, administered with SMBE |
| Discretionary waiver | Case by case | Both journals state a deliberately inclusive waiver policy for authors unable to pay |
Papers publish under CC BY or CC BY-NC, depending on the licence you select and your funder's requirements. Plan S and NIH-style mandates are satisfied by the CC BY option. Always confirm the live figure on the journal's open-access charges page before you budget - the numbers above are the 2026 base rates and are explicitly subject to change.
Peer review
Both journals use single-anonymized peer review: reviewers know who the authors are, authors do not learn reviewer identities. Manuscripts typically go to two reviewers after an editorial triage stage, and desk rejection is common at MBE given its selectivity. Associate editors handle papers within subject areas, and transfers between MBE and GBE - carrying reviews with them - are routine when a paper is sound but better matched to the other title's scope.
How to submit
- Choose the journal using the scope distinction above; if you are unsure, submit to MBE and accept a transfer offer if one comes.
- Read the journal's author guidelines - MBE and GBE have separate instructions, article-type limits and data-deposition requirements.
- Prepare the manuscript. SMBE journals use the MBE author-year citation style; SciSpace has formatting templates for both titles.
- Deposit your data and code. Sequence data belong in INSDC databases, and analysis code should be in a public repository with a persistent identifier.
- Submit through ScholarOne - mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mbe or mc.manuscriptcentral.com/gbe. GBE also accepts direct transfer from bioRxiv.
- Settle the APC after acceptance. Apply for member discount, R&P coverage or a waiver at this stage.
Ethics and integrity
SMBE journals follow COPE guidance on authorship, competing interests, corrections and retractions, and are handled under Oxford University Press's publication-ethics framework. Expectations that matter in this field specifically: alignment sequences, trees and parameter files must be deposited so that phylogenetic results can be reproduced; new software must be publicly available with a licence; and undisclosed use of generative AI in manuscript preparation must be declared. Preprinting on bioRxiv is permitted and encouraged at both journals.
