[Taxacom] Nature needs names: 60 new dragonflies from Africa

Fri Dec 11 07:00:00 CST 2015

Zookeys registers not only the article, but all the taxa upfront at Zoobank.
It is open access and does really what we need, make the data accessible for everybody in Africa, where all the specimens have been collected.

It seems though that the article is open access, at  least open accessible http://www.osmylus.com/images/own/Downloads/Odonatologica_44-4-low_res.pdf

Cheers
Donat

-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Scott Thomson
Sent: Friday, December 11, 2015 1:46 PM
To: JF Mate <aphodiinaemate at gmail.com>
Cc: Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Nature needs names: 60 new dragonflies from Africa

I am inclined to agree, a better publication would have been good. Zookeys or Zootaxa would have taken care of the Zoobank issue also as they register their publications. Not so sure how Zookeys does this as I have never published there but certainly Zootaxa does. Of course without an author contribution Zootaxa is effectively behind a paywall, however, I believe in the case of self funded research they can waive this, I may stand corrected there. In a world of declining taxonomists I do not think it is a good thing to put up too many walls in front of those willing and able to do this themselves. So long as they are following good practice of acceptable taxonomic and publication methods.

Cheers Scott

On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 10:14 AM, JF Mate <aphodiinaemate at gmail.com> wrote:

> Of all the criticisms the only one that sticks (slightly) is the 
> choice of publication, as something like Zookeys would have been 
> better (accessible with lots of the bells and whistles); although this 
> is understandable considering the affiliation of one of the authors.
>
> The rest I think are somewhat unfair when you consider that the 
> authors are doing this pro bono mostly. When your paycheck comes from 
> other quarters, it is a remarkable and laudable achievement.
>
> Best
>
> Jason
> On 11/12/2015 8:42 PM, "Roderic Page" <Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > Hi Ellinor,
> >
> > While I applaud the effort, and the dragonflies are wonderful, it’s 
> > hard to applaud the way this paper has been published:
> >
> > Does it in an open access journal? No Does the article have a DOI so 
> > that it can be easily cited? No Are the names registered with 
> > ZooBank? No Are the DNA sequences available in GenBank? No Is the 
> > data available for downloading? No* Has the distributional data been 
> > deposited in GBIF? No
> >
> > I don’t wish to take away from what has clearly been a lot of work, 
> > but surely we need to think about the best way to make all this hard 
> > work as widely accessible as possible? A PDF with wonderful pictures 
> > of
> dragonflies
> > and low resolution maps does not represent the best that modern 
> > taxonomic publishing can offer.
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > Rod
> >
> > * The articles says "A list of collection codes and corresponding 
> > BOLD numbers can be down- loaded from the journal website ( 
> > http://www.odonatologica.com)” This is not a link to the data, which 
> > I can’t see anywhere on the web site.
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------
> > Roderic Page
> > Professor of Taxonomy
> > Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine 
> > College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences Graham Kerr 
> > Building University of Glasgow Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
> >
> > Email:  
> > Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk<mailto:Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk>
> > Tel:  +44 141 330 4778
> > Skype:  rdmpage
> > Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/rdmpage
> > LinkedIn:  http://uk.linkedin.com/in/rdmpage
> > Twitter:  http://twitter.com/rdmpage
> > Blog:  http://iphylo.blogspot.com
> > ORCID:  http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7101-9767
> > Citations:
> http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=4Z5WABAAAAAJ
> > ResearchGate https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Roderic_Page
> >
> >
> > On 11 Dec 2015, at 11:14, Ellinor Michel <e.michel at nhm.ac.uk<mailto:
> > e.michel at nhm.ac.uk>> wrote:
> >
> > [posted on behalf of the primary author, Klaas-Douwe 'KD' B. 
> > Dijkstra]
> >
> > 'Dear colleagues,
> >
> > All awareness, conservation and research of nature starts with the
> > question: which species is that? Names introduce species to humanity.
> It’s
> > a biologist’s greatest importance today, but just now nature is 
> > under historic pressure, such research is getting less support.
> >
> > We aim to expose this paradox by naming 60 new dragonflies from 
> > Africa, increasing the number known by almost 10% at once. All are 
> > colourful and conspicuous, representing some of the most sensitive 
> > and beautiful of all
> > biodiversity: freshwater, Earth’s most dense and threatened species 
> > richness — Africa, the continent that will change most in the 21st
> century
> > — and dragonflies, the insects that may be among the best gauges of
> global
> > change.
> >
> > We hope this message will be heard widely, so please share this as 
> > you wish, e.g. on blogs and to the local media, particularly in 
> > Africa
> itself.
> >
> > Press release: https://goo.gl/KGMsyC Info and images: 
> > https://goo.gl/vRoJSL Full publication: 
> > www.osmylus.com/index.php/downloads<
> > http://www.osmylus.com/index.php/downloads><
> > http://www.osmylus.com/index.php/downloads>
> > Watch discovery of new species in DR Congo: youtu.be/Arr2k7dwzSU< 
> > http://youtu.be/Arr2k7dwzSU><http://youtu.be/Arr2k7dwzSU>
> >
> > Best wishes, also on behalf of my co-authors Jens and Nico, who have 
> > both made their exceptional contributions in their free time!
> >
> > Klaas-Douwe 'KD' B. Dijkstra
> > Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, The Netherlands Conservation 
> > Ecology and Entomology, Stellenbosch University, South
> Africa
> > science.naturalis.nl/dijkstra<http://science.naturalis.nl/dijkstra><
> > http://science.naturalis.nl/dijkstra>
> >
> > '
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--
Scott Thomson
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Celebrating 28 years of Taxacom in 2015.