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

Fri Dec 11 16:59:07 CST 2015

Or perhaps the authors had a proper plan with their public outreach! I applaud any effort, small or large, that shows the public what taxonomy is about and why it is important for our society.

Torbjørn

> Den 11. des. 2015 kl. 23.42 skrev John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com>:
> 
> 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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> Celebrating 28 years of Taxacom in 2015.