[Taxacom] standards for taxonomic publications

[Pekka T. Lehtinen]

Karin Kiontke wrote:

>Dear Taxacomers,
>
>the Journal of Nematology has appointed a committee to formulate new 
>guidelines for the authors of   taxonomic publications. These new 
>guidelines should account for new methods and new types of data (e.g. 
>molecular data,  perhaps digital vouchers....).
>As a member of this committee, I am collecting ideas from other 
>journals and other taxonomic groups.
>I was wondering whether some of you have such guidelines spelled out 
>and could forward them to me.
>One related question is what kind of characters should be required 
>for a species description. The traditional view in my field seems to 
>be that morphological differences between species must be found. 
>Obviously, such a view creates problems with sibling species which 
>can be recognized by molecular data. I'd appreciate comments on how 
>this is being dealt with in other taxonomic groups.
>
>Thank you very much!
>
>Karin
>  
>
    As a specialist of several groups of terrestrial arthropods I have 
waited for the time, when detailed information about the ultrastructural 
characters will be added to all descriptions of supraspecific taxa, at 
least. I am not speaking here about SEM micrographs of genital organs, 
but especially about the ultrastructural SOMATIC characters. Every group 
of arthropods seems to have their important groups of ultrastructural 
characters, sometimes in the structure of skin, sometimes in different 
types of normal hairs, setae, and spines, sometimes details of several 
sensory organs, etc. I have repeatedly been much embarrassed looking for 
quite recent matrices of even more than hundred characters, BUT THE 
ULTRASTRUCTURAL CHARACTER GROUPS  TOTALLY LACKING, or represented only 
by one or two best known and most striking characters.
    According to my experience, the differences between the 
ultrastrucure of closely related species are seldom useful for  
phylogenetic conclusions, WHILE THE DIFFERENCES OF ULTRASTRUCTURE 
BETWEEN ALL SUPRASPECIFIC TAXA OF ARTHROPODA seem to be usually among 
the most useful character groups.
    Although I have no personal experience about the ultrastructure of 
nematod taxa I believe that
there must be a lot of useful characters, as the surface of nematods, 
too, is hard.
    As to the morphological characters of sibling species I am inclined 
to believe that minor (mainly ultrastructural) differences in some parts 
of the genital organs will be found in many so called sibling species, 
as has already been done at least in some cases of very closely related 
pairs of spider species.
   
    Dr. Pekka T. Lehtinen (retired taxonomist)
    Biodiversity Center for the UNIVERSITY OF TURKU, Finland
    pekleh at utu.fi