[Taxacom] Nature needs names: 60 new dragonflies from Africa
John Grehan
calabar.john at gmail.com
Fri Dec 11 16:42:23 CST 2015
Every now and then, for one reason or another, a particular taxonomic
contribution will gain greater general attention, perhaps due to the style,
approach, presentation, techniques etc, used by the authors, sometimes
perhaps for other reasons. That's just the way it is. Life never promised a
rose garden.
John Grehan
On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 5:36 PM, Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
wrote:
> Another example, just published, of a less hyped but bigger contribution,
> is
>
> Liebherr, J.K. 2015: The Mecyclothorax beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae,
> Moriomorphini) of Haleakala-, Maui: Keystone of a hyperdiverse Hawaiian
> radiation. ZooKeys, 544: 1-407. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.544.6074
>
> In this case, the new names are ZooBank registered, but, unfortunately, it
> looks like there was a glitch:
>
> http://zoobank.org/References/C5978BD0-145B-40F8-ACDE-B27371B7B9A4
>
> Stephen
>
> --------------------------------------------
> On Sat, 12/12/15, Roderic Page <Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Nature needs names: 60 new dragonflies from Africa
> To: "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Cc: "Ellinor Michel" <e.michel at nhm.ac.uk>
> Received: Saturday, 12 December, 2015, 4:38 AM
>
> Hi Ellinor,
>
> I guess I’d argue that the
> fact we feel the need to celebrate this and the attention it
> brings to taxonomy is in part a consequence of the limited
> reusability of taxonomic publications in the first place. We
> should be aiming for reuse by everyone interested in
> biodiversity data (e.g., the modellers using GBIF data, the
> phylogenetists grabbing sequences from GenBank to build
> trees, and so on). Maximising reuse helps make the case for
> the importance of taxonomy, I would argue it’s a better
> argument than the occasional spectacular monograph of some
> beautiful insects.
>
> Regards
>
> Rod
>
>
> On 11 Dec
> 2015, at 11:59, Ellinor Michel <e.michel at nhm.ac.uk<mailto:
> e.michel at nhm.ac.uk>>
> wrote:
>
> Hi Rod
>
> Your comments are valid, but
> surely directed to the authors! I posted this on their
> behalf, as I have more ready access to Taxacom posting at
> the moment. You might want to broaden the target your
> comments, as the story has been picked up by Science, and a
> number of other outlets. Overall, I'd say its terrific
> that some taxonomic groundwork is being celebrated.
>
> http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/12/explosion-new-dragonfly-species-results-animals-named-after-gorillas-pink-floyd
>
> I'm just guessing, but
> there are likely to be constraints on publishing costs from
> the authors' perspective so that OA was not an option.
> Thus the focus of this kind of very constructive criticism
> on your part should be the administrations of the
> organisations that the authors work for, the science funding
> agencies, and the publishers.
>
> In the meantime, this nice short publicity also
> does a nice job for publicising the topic, with beautiful
> photos
>
> http://africageographic.com/blog/60-new-species-dragonflies-discovered-africa/
>
> Cheers,
> Ellinor
>
> ________________________________
> From: Roderic Page [Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk<mailto:
> Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk>]
> Sent: 11 December 2015 11:42
> To: Ellinor Michel
> Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Nature needs names: 60
> new dragonflies from Africa
>
> 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
> ><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<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><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><
> 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><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><http://science.naturalis.nl/dijkstra
> >
>
> '
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