[Taxacom] The Timema Discovery Project goes public!

[John Grehan]

I read somewhere that Timema was basal to all other phasmids. Is that the
current opinion or does it have a different placement?

John Grehan

On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 2:18 PM, Doug Yanega <dyanega at ucr.edu> wrote:

> Hi, everyone. Today is the big day for our formal announcement "rolling
> out" a new website for an international biological crowdsourcing effort:
>
> *The Timema Discovery Project (TDP)
> *
>
> /Timema/ is an unusual genus of "stick insects" endemic to the Western US,
> and they have been the subject of a considerable amount of high-profile
> research by a number of people over the last few decades. Bernie Crespi
> (Simon Fraser Univ.), Patrik Nosil (University of Sheffield), Tanja
> Schwander (University of Lausanne), and Victor Soria-Carrasco (University
> of Sheffield) are among the primary investigators, and I'll be assisting
> them and their collaborators by trying to unravel the taxonomy and
> biogeography of this group.
>
> To better accomplish this, we are looking to recruit both professional
> biologists and "citizen scientists" to contribute fresh specimens and/or
> data, to help fill in the many gaps in the existing information on
> genetics, morphology, phenology, feeding habits, and distribution. There
> are several undescribed species, and questions regarding existing species
> boundaries, that simply can't be addressed confidently without more
> specimens and/or data.
>
> If you, or your friends and colleagues, live or do field work in
> *California* or *Arizona* (or bordering regions of Oregon, Nevada, and Baja
> California in Mexico), the odds are good that you can help!
>
> The present (though possibly temporary) home of the website is at
>
> *http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/Timema/AboutProject.html*
>
> and you can go there for more information about the project, the timemas
> themselves, the collaborators, the existing literature, and step-by-step
> instructions for the best way to gather and submit specimens to assist us.
> We were hoping to have the online key and image gallery functional before
> going public, but the /Timema/ season is now starting in the low desert, so
> we can't wait any longer!
>
> PLEASE HELP SPREAD THE WORD!
>
> We are considering creating a project-specific FaceBook page, but as the
> aim is to reach as broad an audience as possible, for the time being we
> hope to use the existing FaceBook pages for *BugGuide* (
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/19833784207/) and *SW US Arthropods* (
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/SWInsects/) as places where people can
> post photos and make information requests. If this proves impractical then
> we will create a stand-alone FB page.
>
> On behalf of myself and the other TDP researchers, we very much appreciate
> any and all contributions to the project!
>
> Peace,
>
> --
> Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
> Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
> phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
>              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
>   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
>         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
>
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