Submitted to: Phytochemistry
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/18/2025
Publication Date: 5/22/2025
Citation: Rering, C.C., Broadhead, G.T., Beck, J.J. 2025. Guidelines and practical considerations for liquid or gas chromatography tandem mass spectrometry-based studies in Phytochemistry Ecological Biochemistry and Chemistry article types. Phytochemistry. 238,11453. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.phytochem.2025.114553.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.phytochem.2025.114553

Interpretive Summary: The proper reporting of scientific results in peer-reviewed journals is a duty of each scientist and is a commitment to the scientific community that the quality of the data is true, accurate, can be cited with confidence. As available instrumentation for plant-based chemical ecology studies becomes more prevalent, sensitive, and accessible to more researchers, Associate Editors for peer-review journals periodically provide in-depth guidance to supplement journal author guidelines in the form of peer-reviewed article with that journal. USDA-ARS researchers in Gainesville, FL provide guidelines, standards, and thoughts regarding volatile collection systems, background controls, biological replicates, chromatographic columns and methods, retention indices and tentative identities, peak integration and quantitation, volatile authentication, and statistical analyses as related to results generated from gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy, plant-based chemical communication studies. Laboratories that consistently report high quality data increase the reputation of their laboratory’s, their institution, and the peer-reviewed journal their results are published.

Technical Abstract: Plants are foundational to all life on earth. As such, they and their metabolites are central to research spanning many disciplines and interests. Phytochemistry is dedicated to exploring the stunning array of plant metabolites and their impacts on other organisms. The Phytochemistry article type Ecological Biochemistry and Chemistry welcomes research articles reporting results of plant-based chemical ecology studies that explore chemically mediated interactions between plants, the environment, microbes, and/or insects. This may include studies involving plant adaptation to biotic and abiotic stressors via defense metabolites, attraction or facilitation of mutualists with rewards, and chemical communication between organisms. In this Editorial Comment we provide guidelines for future Ecological Biochemistry and Chemistry-article type authors, with particular focus on gas and liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry detection, to ensure Phytochemistry articles remain reproducible, of high-quality, and highly cited. Our commentary covers the entire analytical workflow, including experimental design, sample collection and extraction, instrumental methods, chemical data analysis, statistical analyses, and reporting.