Correct identification in sequence studies: role of the editor and reviewer

[Barry Roth]

Should journal editors insist that authors of papers for which DNA sequences were newly obtained deposit voucher specimens in a museum or herbarium of their choice?  Such vouchers being specimens that are identifiable by morphological means which are state-of-the-art as currently practiced by taxonomists working on the group in question?

I suppose an editor could not make the same request with respect to papers that utilize only publicly available sequences from previous studies.  But an editor or reviewer could request that authors provide some measure of confidence in the taxonomic identification of the sequence -- not just, "well, it was there, so we used it."


Barry Roth



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