Research Ideas & Outcomes: New open-access journal to publish entire research cycles

Research Ideas & Outcomes (RIO), a new open access journal, is formally announced. The new journal represents a paradigm shift in academic publishing: for the first time, RIO will publish research from all stages of the research cycle, across a broad suite of disciplines, from humanities to science.

Traditional journals accept only articles produced at the end of the research continuum, long after the core work has been completed. RIO will publish ideas and outputs from all stages of the research cycle: proposals, experimental designs, data, software, research articles, project reports, policy briefs, project management plans and more.

The journal takes another step ahead with a collaborative platform that allows all ideas and outputs to be labelled with Impact Categories based upon UN Millennium Development Goals(MDGs) and EU Societal Challenges. These categories provide social impact-based labelling to help funders, journalists and the wider public discover and finance relevant research as well as to foster interdisciplinary collaboration around societal challenges.

These game-changing ideas come packed with technical innovation and unique features. The journal is published through ARPHA, the first publishing platform ever to support the full life cycle of a manuscript: from authoring to submission, public peer review, publication and dissemination, within a single, fully-integrated online collaborative environment. The new platform will also allow for RIO to offer one of the most transparent, open and public peer review processes, thus building trust in the reviewed outcomes.

These features come à la carte: RIO will offer flexible pricing where authors can choose exactly which publishing services fit their needs and budget. All its contents – including reviews and comments, data and code – will receive a persistent unique identifier, will be permanently archived and made available under open licenses without any access embargo.

“RIO is not just about different kinds of submissions, though that is a crucial feature and certainly unique for publishing ongoing or even proposed research: it is also about linking those submissions together across the research cycle, about reducing the time from submission to publication, about collaborative authoring and reviewing, about mapping to societal challenges, about technical innovation, about enabling reuse and about giving authors more choice in what features they actually want from the journal.” said Dr. Daniel Mietchen, a founding editor of RIO.

“I’m proud to pioneer the first journal which can publish research from all stages of the research process,” said Prof. Lyubomir Penev, Co-Founder of RIO and Pensoft. “For the first time, researchers can get formal publication credit for previously ‘hidden’ parts of their work like written research proposals. We can publish all outputs in one journal; the same journal – RIO.”

RIO is scheduled to start accepting manuscripts in November 2015.

The four-letter code: How DNA barcoding can accelerate biodiversity inventories

With unprecedented biodiversity loss occurring, we must determine how many species we share the planet with. This can start in our backyards, but speed is critical. A new study shows how biodiversity inventories can be accelerated with DNA barcoding and rapid publishing techniques, making it possible to survey a nature reserve in just four months. The final inventory of 3,500 species was written, released and published in the Biodiversity Data Journal in under one week.

To assess how quickly and effectively DNA barcoding could aid in quantifying biodiversity on a massive scale, the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario partnered with the rare Charitable Research Reserve, a 365+ hectare land reserve located in Ontario, Canada, in an attempt to expand the reserve’s existing species inventory list. To complement this speed in surveying, the two partners also used cutting edge tools and venues for data release and publishing to rapidly disseminate the results.

Surveys of different habitats on the reserve were conducted over four months and culminated in a bioblitz, at which point delegates of the 6th International Barcode of Life Conference joined the effort. “These experts possess invaluable skills that enabled us to identify so many species,” Angela Telfer, University of Guelph, comments in hindsight. “It was a great chance to marry barcoding data with taxonomic data and further our efforts to build a DNA barcode reference library.”

The use of DNA barcoding to conduct this inventory greatly improved the speed at which the results were made available to the public. For the 3,502 specimens barcoded from the bioblitz, the data were generated at an impressive time scale – samples went through lysis, DNA extraction and PCR, sequencing and validation within 72 hours of their collection. Using the BOLD barcode reference library, taxonomy was applied and these results were uploaded to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) via Canadensys within 96 hours of their collection.

Even the choice of journal for publication contributed to the rapid process. The manuscript preparation and submission took considerably less time due to the online writing platform and pre-submission peer-review offered by the Biodiversity Data Journal, used for the first time in this survey. This allowed the 100+ co-authors of this study to all provide input, and reviewers were able to discuss and comment on the paper during the authoring process. All data are now publicly accessible, through the journal article and the various repositories above, and all specimens have been deposited in the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario’s natural history collection and herbarium.

Over the span of four months, the two-staged survey produced a total of 28,916 specimens barcoded or observed across 14 phyla, 29 classes, 117 orders, and 531 families of animals, plants, fungi and lichens. A total of 1,102 species were recorded for the first time for the nature reserve, expanding its existing inventory by 49%.

The results from this mass data collection uncovered abundant biodiversity in taxa that were previously understudied. For example, there were no previous records of spiders at the reserve, but the team’s efforts added an impressive 181 species to the inventory list, three of which were new to the province.

“The survey at rare Charitable Research Reserve is unique to other studies in that within four months – plus a single day of a concentrated bioblitz – more than 25,000 specimens and 3,500 species were recovered, often by non-experts,” explains Connor Warne, a co-author on the paper and specialist in ants. “This model of assessment has the potential to revolutionize the way we uncover diversity in our world. With a coordinated effort, we could implement this model in parks, conservation areas and reserves across the world and take a much needed step in filling in the blank pages of the story of life on earth.”

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Original source:

Telfer A, Young M, Quinn J, Perez K, Sobel C, Sones J, Levesque-Beaudin V, Derbyshire R, Fernandez-Triana J, Rougerie R, Thevanayagam A, Boskovic A, Borisenko A, Cadel A, Brown A, Pages A, Castillo A, Nicolai A, Glenn Mockford B, Bukowski B, Wilson B, Trojahn B, Lacroix C, Brimblecombe C, Hay C, Ho C, Steinke C, Warne C, Garrido Cortes C, Engelking D, Wright D, Lijtmaer D, Gascoigne D, Hernandez Martich D, Morningstar D, Neumann D, Steinke D, Marco DeBruin D, Dobias D, Sears E, Richard E, Damstra E, Zakharov E, Laberge F, Collins G, Blagoev G, Grainge G, Ansell G, Meredith G, Hogg I, McKeown J, Topan J, Bracey J, Guenther J, Sills-Gilligan J, Addesi J, Persi J, Layton K, D’Souza K, Dorji K, Grundy K, Nghidinwa K, Ronnenberg K, Lee K, Xie L, Lu L, Penev L, Gonzalez M, Rosati M, Kekkonen M, Kuzmina M, Iskandar M, Mutanen M, Fatahi M, Pentinsaari M, Bauman M, Nikolova N, Ivanova N, Jones N, Weerasuriya N, Monkhouse N, Lavinia P, Jannetta P, Hanisch P, McMullin R, Ojeda Flores R, Mouttet R, Vender R, Labbee R, Forsyth R, Lauder R, Dickson R, Kroft R, Miller S, MacDonald S, Panthi S, Pedersen S, Sobek-Swant S, Naik S, Lipinskaya T, Eagalle T, Decaëns T, Kosuth T, Braukmann T, Woodcock T, Roslin T, Zammit T, Campbell V, Dinca V, Peneva V, Hebert P, deWaard J (2015) Biodiversity inventories in high gear: DNA barcoding facilitates a rapid biotic survey of a temperate nature reserve. Biodiversity Data Journal 3: e6313. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.3.e6313

Sir Elton John is the inspiration behind the name of a new coral reef crustacean species

While exploring the remote coral reefs of Raja Ampat in Indonesia, Dr. James Thomas from the Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography, Florida, and his colleagues from Naturalis Natural History museum in the Netherlands, stumbled across a small but extraordinary crustacean living inside another reef invertebrate in a commensal association (without causing any harm, nor benefit to its host).

In his amazement to the amphipod’s unusual form, Dr. Thomas called it L. eltoni after musician and actor Sir Elton John. The research is available in the open access journal ZooKeys.

“I named the species in honour of Sir Elton John because I have listened to his music in my lab during my entire scientific career,” the lead author explains. “So, when this unusual crustacean with a greatly enlarged appendage appeared under my microscope after a day of collecting, an image of the shoes Elton John wore as the Pinball Wizard came to mind.”

Taxonomists, scientists who study and name new species, have the choice to pick names that are relevant to locations, features of the animal, or people the scientist admires.

In an interesting twist L. eltoni is now reported from Hawaiian waters as an invasive species. “Several years ago I was contacted by scientists from the Bishop Museum in Honolulu to help identify an unusual amphipod they had collected,” said Dr. Thomas. It proved to be the same species as the one from Indonesia. The most likely scenario for its introduction into Hawaiian waters was as a hitchhiker inside its host sponge or tunicate that was attached to a large floating drydock transported to Hawaii from Subic Bay, Philippines. Recent studies by Dr. Thomas in the Philippines during a California Academy of Science expedition in 2014 have shown this new species is also found there.

Marine animals can have unknown effects when transported to other ecosystems where they can compete with native species. In most cases these “invasions” go unnoticed. However, because scientists at the Bishop Museum had established a baseline of species over the years the presence of this invasive amphipod was quickly noted.

“Such studies show the importance of regular environmental monitoring, especially in tropical environments,” commented the scientist. He also pointed out that even though their tiny size, crustaceans such as L. eltoni provide crucial information about reef health.

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Original source

Thomas J. D. (2015) Leucothoe eltoni sp. n., a new species of commensal leucothoid amphipod from coral reefs in Raja Ampat, Indonesia (Crustacea, Amphipoda). ZooKeys 518: 51-66. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.518.9340

New Indonesian crayfish species escapes the decor market to become a freedom fighter

With its orange to greenishly orange motley tip, the new crayfish species has been long-confused with its relatives by the tradesmen who have been collecting them for ornamental purposes. Being exported to countries in Europe, East Asia and America C. snowden specimens inevitably landed in the hands of the scientists from Lukhaup’s team who eventually recognised and proved them as a new crayfish species. Their research is available in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

Although the new crayfish species has probably been sold along with its motley relatives under another name for decades, the scientists figured that it is in fact easily distinguishable by its shape of body and colouration. In order to prove it as a separate species, the team used sequence divergence as well.

Having travelled across the world from its so far only known locality, West Papua, New Guinea, the new freshwater crustacean was given the name of the controversial former CIA employee and government contractor Edward Snowden. Its ‘godfather’ is famous for leaking secretive information from the U.S. National Security Agency, which later led him to a continuous search for political asylum. The authors speak of him as an “American freedom fighter” with “achievements in defence of justice, and freedom.”

In their conclusion the authors note that there could be potential threats to the new species. The freshwater crayfish is being collected in large numbers for both the ornamental fish global market and for food for the locals. Asked about the crustacean’s populations, the collectors spoke about a decline in the last few years.

“Clearly, the continued collection of these crayfish for the trade is not a sustainable practice, and if the popularity of the species continues, a conservation management plan will have to be developed, potentially including a captive breeding program,” the researchers comment.

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Original source:

Lukhaup C, Panteleit J, Schrimpf A (2015) Cherax snowden, a new species of crayfish (Crustacea, Decapoda, Parastacidae) from the Kepala Burung (Vogelkop) Peninsula in Irian Jaya (West Papua), Indonesia. ZooKeys 518: 1-14. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.518.6127

Under the wing of science: Two methods for aging nestling Carnaby’s cockatoo species

Multi-year research on two populations of the endangered endemic Carnaby’s cockatoo in southwestern Australia was conducted in order for two separate methods for nestlings aging to be assessed. If accurate enough, Dr. Denis Saunders and his team believe that the results could be vital in the threatened species’ preservation, as explained in the Carnaby’s cockatoo’s recovery plan.

One of the methods they have looked into is based on changes in the physical appearance of nestlings over the 10-11 week nestling period. The other relies on measurements of a nestling’s folded wing length and its comparison with growth curves from measurements of nestlings of known age. In their paper the Australian team also examines the timing and length of the egg-laying season. Their research is published in the open-access journal Nature Conservation.

The researchers point out that accurate nestling aging is essential for many ecological studies. The data could be used in investigating population dynamics, life histories, behaviour, longevity, conservation planning and management. It could also help in scheduling the visits of breeding areas so that the disturbance for the populations is minimised without compromising the results.

The scientists found out that observing the changes in a nestling’s size and feathers is less accurate than measuring the folded wing length. Its main disadvantage turned out to be the lack of distinguishable physical changes once the birds become about nine-week-old. However, “with experience it may be useful for gaining an approximation of the commencement and end of the breeding season without having to handle nestlings to take measurements,” the team says.

Their research on the egg-laying dates concluded that the most effective approach for examining nestlings is to conduct two visits per breeding season. Curiously, their findings showed that in wetter autumns the egg-laying begins earlier.

The team also suggests that their methods could be adopted for aging the currently under-researched closely related Baudin’s cockatoo until more species-specific technique is found.

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Original source:

 

Saunders DA, Dawson R, Nicholls AO (2015) Aging nestling Carnaby’s cockatoo, Calyptorhynchus latirostris, and estimating the timing and length of the breeding season.Nature Conservation 12: 27-42. doi: 10.3897/natureconservation.12.4863

Cave snail from South Korea suggests ancient subterranean diversity across Eurasia

As tiny as 1.7 mm, a snail whose relatives live exclusively in the deep recesses of caves, provided a sensational discovery from the depths of Nodong cave, South Korea, back in 2000 for its collector, J. S. Lee. It is the only cave-dwelling representative of the family of hollow-shelled snails in the whole of Asia with its closest relatives known from as far as Croatia and Northern Spain. The scientists, Adrienne Jochum, Bern University and Natural History Museum Bern, Larisa Prozorova and Mariana Sharyiool from the Far Eastern Russian Academy of Sciences and Barna Páll-Gergely from Shinshu University, published its description in the open-access journalZooKeys.

The Asian species has awaited 15 years to come out of the dark for a name and into the limelight of subterranean biodiversity and conservation awareness. This barely visible snail suggests a former pan-Eurasian distribution of cave-dwelling, hollow-spired snails.

The tiny-shelled treasure, called Koreozospeum nodongense, belongs to a larger group of ancient cosmopolitan air-breathing relatives known to have been amongst the first snail colonisers of land via mangroves about 65 million years ago. Similar to its European relatives from the genus Zospeum, the South Korean snail was also found on muddy cave walls.

Although more than 1,000 caves have been explored in South Korea, Nodong is so far the only one to harbour these beautiful denizens of the dark. Hypotheses made by Culver et. al. in 2006 about the existence of a very narrow, mid-latitudinal ridge of subterranean biodiversity (ca. 42-46°N in Europe and 33-35°N in North America) might clarify this unique find.

A high amount of caves known to exist within these latitudes provide ample habitats for colonisation of life. If this hypothetical ridge were to be extended further East away from Europe, then Koreozopseum‘s gliding along walls in a South Korean cave (33-35°N) makes a strong call for further investigations and discovery of rare biodiversity.

Jochum and her international team described K. nodongense using computer tomographic scans (Nano-CT) in a video film to view and compare the contours and architecture of the very fragile shell. Chemical trace elements, such as aluminum (Al) and silicon (Si) were detected in other scans of the thin diaphanous shell using mineralogical analysis techniques (SEM-EDX). These elements may play a role in the biomineralization (hardness) of the shell or may be contaminants absorbed by the snail from sediment consisting of volcanic ash from former eruptions in the region.

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Original Source:

Jochum A, Prozorova L, Sharyi-ool M, Páll-Gergely B (2015) A new member of troglobitic Carychiidae, Koreozospeum nodongense gen. et sp. n. (Gastropoda, Eupulmonata, Ellobioidea) is described from Korea. ZooKeys 517: 39-57. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.517.10154

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Additional information:

The Naturhistorisches Museum der Burgergemeinde Bern, Switzerland and the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences supported this work.

Brushing off the dust: New snail species found lying in a museum since the 19th century

Having been collected back in the 19th century during an expedition in South America, a rather small snail species has been sitting around on the shelves of Madrid’s National Museum of Natural Sciences ever since. Covered in more than a century-old dust, it was described as new only recently when an obscure specimen placed in the long tail of a historical collection drew the attention of Drs. Breure and Araujo. Their research is now published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

The small snail species, called P. cecepeus, had been staying ‘undercover’ for more than a century and a half among the numerous specimens, that formed a total of 20 new species when they were gathered during the historical ‘Comisión Científica del Pacífico’ expedition in South America. With the average undescribed museum invertebrate’s ‘shelf life’ being 20.7 years, it comes as no surprise that the herein described mollusc attracted the attention of the scientists.

Other than its moderately small size, the new species has been characterised with an irregular shape and narrow reddish-brown streaks running vertically across the shell. The surface is rather glossy and coloured in light chestnut-brown.

Although it has been accepted that the snail was found in Ecuador, the authors argue that the locality is “unfortunately very imprecise,” given the data supplied by the collectors. Therefore, the researchers suggest that additional field work should be done in the area so that the “true home” of their discovery is finally recorded.

“Although description of new species that have remained unnoticed for more than a century remains a rare event, it highlights the need for revisions of museum collections and especially the historical parts of these,” conclude the researchers.

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Original source:

Breure ASH, Araujo R (2015) A snail in the long tail: a new Plekocheilus species collected by the ‘Comisión Científica del Pacífico’ (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Amphibulimidae). ZooKeys 516: 85-93. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.516.10228

Underground gourmet: Selected terrestrial cave invertebrates and their meal preferences

Doubting whether terrestrial cave invertebrates feed on just anything they can find in the harsh food-wise environment underground, Dr. Jaroslav Smrz, fromCharles University, Vinicna, and his international team conducted a research in Slovakian and Romania caves. They tested the hypothesis that these species have rather negligible selection of food. Their microanatomical research into the gut content of several microwhip scorpions, oribatid mites, millipedes, springtails and crustaceans showed, however, that there is an evident meal preference among the species.

The results confirmed that the studied groups can adapt and develop under the pressure of extreme environmental factors. Therefore, the researchers concluded a low level of food competition. The study is available in the Subterranean Biology open-access journal.

The scientists studied the cells and tissues of the selected invertebrates and found out that the gut contents were nearly identical between the representatives of each group. This was the case even when the specimens had been collected from various locations. For instance, all microwhip scorpions proved a preference for cyanobacteria, while the mites favored the bacteria found in bat guano and the millipedes – fungi.

“The limited food offer seems to be used very unambiguously and thoroughly by the invertebrate communities,” the research team explained. “Therefore, the competition for food can be actually regarded as very low,” they concluded.

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Original source:

Smrz J, Kovac L, Mikes J, Sustr V, Lukesova A, Tajovsky K, Novakova A, Reznakova P (2015) Food sources of selected terrestrial cave arthropods. Subterranean Biology 16: 37-46. doi:10.3897/subtbiol.16.8609

Dark and marked: Strikingly colored new fleshbelly frog from the Andean cloud forest

Carrying itself around with a dark brown mask on its face and a broad shapeless white mark on its chest and belly, a frog had been jumping across the Peruvian cloud forests of the Andes unrecognised by the scientific world. Now, this visibly distinguishable species has been picked up by Dr. Catenazzi of Southern Illinois University and his team from its likely only locality, a cloud forest near Cusco in Peru, at 2350 m elevation by Drs. Catenazzi, Uscapi and May. Their research is published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

The new fleshbelly frog species, called N. madreselva, was discovered by Peruvian researcher Vanessa Uscapi in January 2011 amid leaf litter in the humid montane forest of the Andes. Locally abundant and active during the day, the leaping amphibian was found to be small of size and leading a predominantly terrestrial life. It is likely that the new species has restricted distribution, inhabiting the upper watersheds in the valleys adjacent to the locality where it has been discovered.

The name “madreselva”, which translates to “mother jungle” from Spanish, honours the efforts of local conservation initiatives, such as the local ecotourism lodge Madre Selva and the ecological project Sircadia, that aim at protecting the delicate and biologically rich montane forest ecosystems in the region. The new frog is locally abundant in parts of the forest that are protected from logging.

Described by the authors as “striking”, the colouration is what visibly differentiates the new frog species from its relatives. Most noticeably, it stands out with the wide irregularly shaped white mark on black background all across, stretching from the creature’s chest down to its belly. A brown splash on its head forms a distinguishable dark facial mask.

Because of the frog’s limited habitat, the scientists fear that the species is threatened by a large number of risks, including deforestation, diseases and the agricultural activities in the region. However, as for the moment, the frog has been proposed by the researchers to be classified as “Data Deficient” in the IUCN Red List, until new data regarding its distribution become available.

Being often neglected by explorers, small amphibian species like this fleshbelly frog are at high risk of extinction, claim the authors. “It is therefore imperative to document the highly endemic amphibian faunas of wet montane Andean forests as a first step towards designing a network of natural reserves that maximizes protection of amphibian biodiversity,” they insist.

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Original source:

Catenazzi A, Uscapi V, von May R (2015) A new species of Noblella (Amphibia, Anura, Craugastoridae) from the humid montane forests of Cusco, Peru. ZooKeys 516: 71-84. doi:10.3897/zookeys.516.9776

Predator from a tank: New water mite genus from bromeliad phytotelmata

An extensive sampling effort in bromeliad aquatic fauna in Brazilian subtropical area of the Atlantic rainforest, revealed a new water mite genus and a new species in the Atlantic rainforests in São Paulo, Brazil. This research is published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

The scientist chose to name the new genusBromeliacarus after its host and the Latin word for ‘mite’ (‘acarus’). The new species, B. cardoso, is called after its collection point, the State Park of Ilha do Cardoso, São Paulo, Brazil.

The rosette (circular) formation of some bromeliad species traps water and organic matter from the canopy in leaf axils (bromeliad ‘tank’) and harbors many invertebrate animals species. Bromeliads phytotelmata are considered as biodiversity amplifiers in the environments where they occur due to the high number of species in this habitat which prefer it.

“A diverse aquatic arthropod fauna is associated with bromeliad tank, composed mainly of aquatic insect larvae of several groups such as dipterans, beetles and damselflies, but also small non-insect invertebrates, such as ostracods, oligochaetes and mites,” the lead author Vladimir Pešić from the Department of Biology, University of Montenegro explained. “The new species appear to live only in the water-filled leaf axils of the bromeliads where they walk attached to submerged detritus in bromeliads tank or free swimming in water column”.

“In these bromeliad aquatic microcosms water mites, such as the new genus Bromeliacarus, are top predators,” he concluded.

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Original source:

Peši? V, Piccoli GCO, de Araújo MS, Rezende JM (2015) A new genus of water mites (Acari, Hydrachnidia, Wettinidae) from bromeliad phytotelmata in the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest.ZooKeys 516: 27-33. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.516.10179