Outlets for alpha taxonomy

[Bill Shear]

OK, OK, I admit it--I'm an alpha taxonomist who gets a great kick out of
discovering and describing new species and arranging them into taxa (and who
sometimes even includes cladograms).

I'm finding that there are fewer and fewer outlets for the publication of
papers that consist mostly of descriptions of new taxa.  It seems that most
of the ones that are left are proprietary journals of the larger museums.
Not that there's anything wrong with that; I'm a research associate of AMNH
and VMNH and so have access to their series.  But I would like to find other
places that would gladly, not grudgingly, accept alpha taxonomic papers.

I find this somewhat incongruent with the large amount of attention being
given to laments about how little we know of the contents of biological
world.  Tried getting an alpha-taxonomic proposal through NSF lately?

Any ideas?

Bill Shear
Department of Biology
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney VA 23943
(434)223-6172
FAX (434)223-6374
email<wshear at email.hsc.edu>
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