From 1973 to 2020, Australian zoologist Dr Robert Mesibov kept careful records of the “where” and “when” of his plant and invertebrate collecting trips. Now, he has made those valuable biodiversity data freely and easily accessible via the Zenodo open-data repository, so that future researchers can rely on this “authority file” when using museum specimens collected from those events in their own studies. The new dataset is described in the open-access, peer-reviewed Biodiversity Data Journal.
While checking museum records, Dr Robert Mesibov found there were occasional errors in the dates and places for specimens he had collected many years before. He was not surprised.
“It’s easy to make mistakes when entering data on a computer from paper specimen labels”, said Mesibov. “I also found specimen records that said I was the collector, but I know I wasn’t!”
One solution to this problem was what librarians and others have long called an “authority file”.
“It’s an authoritative reference, in this case with the correct details of where I collected and when”, he explained.
“I kept records of almost all my collecting trips from 1973 until I retired from field work in 2020. The earliest records were on paper, but I began storing the key details in digital form in the 1990s.”
The 48-year record has now been made publicly available via the Zenodo open-data repository after conversion to the Darwin Core data format, which is widely used for sharing biodiversity information. With this “authority file”, described in detail in the open-access, peer-reviewed Biodiversity Data Journal, future researchers will be able to rely on sound, interoperable and easy to access data, when using those museum specimens in their own studies, instead of repeating and further spreading unintentional errors.
“There are 3829 collecting events in the authority file”, said Mesibov, “from six Australian states and territories. For each collecting event there are geospatial and date details, plus notes on the collection.”
Mesibov hopes the authority file will be used by museums to correct errors in their catalogues.
“It should also save museums a fair bit of work in future”, he explained. “No need to transcribe details on specimen labels into digital form in a database, because the details are already in digital form in the authority file.”
Mesibov points out that in the 19th and 20th centuries, lists of collecting events were often included in the reports of major scientific expeditions.
“Those lists were authority files, but in the pre-digital days it was probably just as easy to copy collection data from specimen labels.”
“In the 21st century there’s a big push to digitise museum specimen collections”, he said. “Museum databases often have lookup tables with scientific names and the names of collectors. These lookup tables save data entry time and help to avoid errors in digitising.”
“Authority files for collecting events are the next logical step,” said Mesibov. “They can be used as lookup tables for all the important details of individual collections: where, when, by whom and how.”
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Research paper:
Mesibov RE (2021) An Australian collector’s authority file, 1973–2020. Biodiversity Data Journal 9: e70463. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.9.e70463
The Red List of Taxonomists portal, where taxonomy experts in the field of entomology can register to help map and assess expertise across Europe, in order to provide action points necessary to overcome the risks, preserve and support this important scientific community, will remain open until 31st October 2021.
Insect taxonomists, both professional and citizen scientists, are welcome to register on the Red List of Taxonomists portal at: red-list-taxonomists.eu and further disseminate the registration portal to fellow taxonomists until 31st October 2021.
Within the one-year project, the partners are to build a database of European taxonomy experts in the field of entomology and analyse the collected data to shed light on the trends in available expertise, including best or least studied insect taxa and geographic distribution of the scientists who are working on those groups. Then, they will present them to policy makers at the European Commission.
By recruiting as many as possible insect taxonomists from across Europe, the Red List of Taxonomists initiative will not only be able to identify taxa and countries, where the “extinction” of insect taxonomists has reached a critical point, but also create a robust knowledge base on taxonomic expertise across the European region to prompt further support and funding for taxonomy in the Old Continent.
On behalf of the project partners, we would like to express our immense gratitude to everyone who has self-declared as an insect taxonomist on the Red List of Taxonomists registration portal. Please feel welcome to share our call for participation with colleagues and social networks to achieve maximum engagement from everyone concerned about the future of taxonomy!
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Read more about the rationale of the Red List of Taxonomists project.
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New species named after famous novelist Neil Gaiman, musician and human rights activist Peter Gabriel and singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile are among thirty-three new trapdoor spiders described from across North and South America. Following the discovery, published in the openly accessible, peer-reviewed scholarly journal ZooKeys, the known species in the genus Ummidia increased more than twice.
In a recent revision of the trapdoor spider genus Ummidia completed at the University of California, Davis, co-authors Dr. Rebecca Godwin (Piedmont University, GA) and Dr. Jason Bond (University of California, Davis, CA) described 33 new species found throughout North and South America. Their study is published in the openly accessible, peer-reviewed scholarly journal ZooKeys. A number of these species were named after popular artists, including Neil Gaiman, Peter Gabriel and Brandi Carlile.
“I think anything we can do to increase people’s interest in the diversity around them is worthwhile and giving species names that people recognize but that still have relevant meaning is one way to do that,” says Dr. Godwin.
A male Ummidia brandicarlileae from Yucatán, Mexico
The newly described trapdoor spider Ummidia brandicarlileae is named after singer-songwriter and activist Brandi Carlile, and occurs in Yucatán, Mexico, where Carlile’s annual Girls Just Wanna Weekend Festival is held. The event was created to counter the lack of female representation at mainstream music festivals.
A male Ummidia neilgaimani from Roanoke Co., Virginia, U.S.
Similarly, Ummidia neilgaimani is named after fantasy and horror writer, Neil Gaiman, author of a number of fantasy and horror books with spider-based characters, and a particular favorite of Dr. Godwin.
A male Ummidia gabrieli from Baja California Sur, Mexico
In addition to these pop culture references, Godwin and Bond named several species in honor of various people and places. The Pine Rockland trapdoor spider, found in southern Florida, is named after the critically endangered pine rockland habitat in which it is found. Ummidia paulacushingae is named for Dr. Paula Cushing, long-time collaborator and friend of Bond and friend, and mentor to Godwin.
With the names of the new to science species, the authors were also able to shed light on lesser-known historical figures. Ummidia bessiecolemanae is named for Bessie Coleman (1892–1926), the first African American and Native American woman to obtain her pilot’s license.
Trapdoor spiders are unique compared to most of the spiders that we are familiar with in that they don’t use silk to make a web. Instead, they live in burrows lined with silk and covered with a “trapdoor”.
Trapdoor spiders in the genus Ummidia are actually very widespread—they can be found from Maryland west to Colorado through Mexico and Caribbean as far south as Brazil. However, because they spend most of their lives underground, people rarely ever encounter a trapdoor spider. When trapdoor spiders are young, they leave their mother’s burrow and make one of their own. Females will spend their entire lives (which can be decades) in those burrows if they aren’t disturbed, but when a male spider matures (5 to 7 years of age), they emerge in search of females. This is when people are most likely to see them.
“I am continually blown away by how little we know about what is out there living on this planet with us. Most people don’t even realize they are sharing their space with these creatures literally right under their feet”
Dr. Rebecca Godwin
“Given the fact that these spiders tend to have very limited ranges and have very low dispersal, entire species can be winked out of existence without us ever knowing they were here, and I find that kind of heartbreaking. Documenting the diversity of groups like Ummidia gives us knowledge we need to appreciate and conserve the rich and diverse life that surrounds us.”
Research article:
Godwin RL, Bond JE (2021) Taxonomic revision of the New World members of the trapdoor spider genus Ummidia Thorell (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Halonoproctidae). ZooKeys 1027: 1-165. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1027.54888
Michigan State entomologists have discovered dozens of new beetle species — and named some after iconic sci-fi heroines
The original Star Trek television series took place in a future when space is the final frontier, but humanity hasn’t reached that point quite yet. As researchers like Michigan State University entomologists Sarah Smith and Anthony Cognato are reminding us, there’s still plenty to discover right here on Earth.
Working in Central and South America, the duo discovered more than three dozen species of ambrosia beetles — beetles that eat ambrosia fungus — previously unknown to science. Smith and Cognato described these new species on June 16 in the journal ZooKeys.
The Spartans also selected an unusual naming theme named in deference to the female beetles who have helped their species survive and thrive by boldly going where they hadn’t before.
Many of the new species are named for iconic female science fiction characters, including Nyota Uhura of “Star Trek”; Kara “Starbuck” Thrace from the 2000s “Battlestar Galactica” TV series; and Katniss Everdeen from “The Hunger Games” books and movies.
The wing coverings of the C. katniss come to an arrowhead-like point, which reminded the researchers of Katniss Everdeen from “The Hunger Games,” shown below. “The Hunger Games” image courtesy of Lions Gate Entertainment Inc.
“But overall, our colleagues think it’s a good thing,” Cognato said. “It gives us a chance to talk about taxonomy — the science of classifying organisms — and about diversity.”
Understanding the world’s biodiversity is one of the major drivers of this and related research. Scientists estimate that there are 10 million nonbacterial species in the world and that humans have classified only about 20% of those.
“And some are lost before they’re ever discovered,” said Smith, who is the curator of the A. J. Cook Arthropod Research Collection. When people disrupt native ecosystems with farming and mining, for example, undiscovered species can face extinction before researchers know about them.
For this project, the team did some of its field work in Peru, where illegal gold miners can be particularly devastating to forests. “They’re turning the forest into a wasteland” Smith said. “It may never recover.”
Working in such threatened areas, Smith and Cognato are helping identify beetle species before it’s too late, as well as characterizing a rich variety of physical traits and behaviors.
To be clear, they did this field work long before the pandemic struck, starting around 2008. But it takes time to perform the thorough investigations required to ensure that a species is indeed distinct from its closely related cousins.
“With South America, it can be really hard to know whether a species is new or not, just because the fauna is so poorly studied,” Smith said.
With the stay-at-home orders in effect, she and Cognato had time to focus on projects that had been simmering on the backburner, such as this one that details ambrosia beetles they had collected belonging to the genus Coptoborus.
These tiny beetles make their homes by boring into trees. Once inside, they sustain their nests by cultivating fungus that serves as food. There, a mother produces many female offspring and one or two dwarfed males. The main job of those males is to mate with their sisters, creating a new generation of females prepared to disperse and produce a new brood. This all leads to another reason for studying these beetles: they can become pests.
These females arrive at trees ready to bore inside, start a fungus farm and reproduce. Though most prefer to nest in dead or dying parts of trees, some can attack fully healthy trees that are ecologically and economically important. For example, there are species within the genus known to attack balsa trees in Ecuador, the world’s leading exporter of balsa wood.
And if tree-dwelling beetles find their way into nonnative habitats, they can pose large threats to trees that have no natural defenses against the insects. Michiganders are all too familiar with the emerald ash borer, which has claimed millions of ash trees in the state. Another nonnative species of fungus-farming beetle devastated redbay laurels and avocado trees in the Southern U.S.
By identifying species abroad, in their native habitats, researchers including Smith and Cognato are helping the U.S. better prepare for if and when a new pest shows up here. And, historically speaking, Coptoborus beetles are hardy travelers.
The researchers thought the C. starbuck‘s appearance gave it a tough persona, leading them to name it for Kara “Starbuck” Thrace from “Battlestar Galactica,” shown on the right. “Battlestar Galactica” image courtesy of NBC Universal.
Their ancestors originated about 20 million years ago, likely in Southeast Asia, before emigrating and making homes across much of the tropics.
“That’s one of the reasons we chose to name them after female sci-fi characters. Not to anthropomorphize too much, but you have these adventurous females that were blown off their log or had their wood-encased home thrown into the ocean by a mudslide,” Cognato said. If these mated females made it to a new land, they could start a new population, allowing the species to proliferate.
“Along the way, there were so many ways to die, but they ended up colonizing an entire continent.”
Fast forward to now and there are thousands of ambrosia beetle species, including more than 70 of the Coptoborus genus — and counting. In christening the new beetles, Smith and Cognato got some inspiration by finding similarities between the beetle and its namesake.
For instance, the C. uhura was given its name because its reddish color, reminiscent of the uniform worn by Nichelle Nichols’s Uhura character in the original “Star Trek” TV series.
The C. uhura’s reddish hue reminded the researchers of the uniform worn by Lt. Uhura in the original “Star Trek” television series, shown below. “Star Trek” image courtesy of CBS Studios Inc.
And Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley character in the “Alien” film franchise had a shaved head in the movie “Alien 3.” One of the beetles, now named C. ripley, was also glabrous, or without hair.
The C. ripley is glabrous, which means hairless, reminding the researchers of Ellen Ripley and her shaved head in “Alien 3,” shown on the right. “Alien 3” image courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox.
Other names were selected because the duo just liked the characters and found them inspiring. For example, the C. scully beetle was named after Dana Scully, Gillian Anderson’s character on “The X-Files.”
The character is also behind what’s known as the “Scully Effect.” By showing a successful female scientist on TV, the show helped raise awareness of science, technology, engineering and mathematics — or STEM — professions among young women.
In their paper, Smith and Cognato wrote, “We believe in the ‘Scully Effect’ and hope future female scientists, real and fictional, continue to inspire children and young adults to pursue STEM careers.”
Smith and Cognato also took the opportunity to name some beetles in honor of real-life people who have made an impact on their work and their lives.
For example, the C. erwini, is named after a renowned entomologist and friend Terry Erwin, who passed away in 2020. Erwin helped popularize a technique called canopy fogging to collect beetle specimens living in treetops.
Coptoboruserwini
“Without his dedication to canopy fogging, this species and most of those described in this publication may never have been discovered,” Smith and Cognato wrote in their study, which is part of a special issue in memory of Erwin, who was also editor-in-chief of ZooKeys.
Also, the C. bettysmithae is named after Smith’s grandmother, Catherine “Betty” Smith. Sarah remembers Betty’s incredible strength in battling cancer and her help fostering her granddaughter’s scientific interest.
Some of the beetles were named for real-life inspirations, like the C. bettysmithae, named for Sarah Smith’s grandmother, Catherine “Betty” Smith.
“My grandmother supported me a lot with entomology,” Smith said. “I used to spend many weekends with her, and she’d take me out to catch dragonflies.”
Now, she and Cognato are out catching and characterizing insects that are new to science. In doing so, they’re helping protect native ecosystems, painting a more complete picture of the planet’s bountiful biodiversity and even drawing some attention to the power of naming and classifying things.
“Taxonomy was probably one of the first sciences of humans. You can find evidence of it throughout history and across cultures,” Cognato said.
This naming likely started so humans could easily share information about which plants were safe to eat and which animals were dangerous. This is still valuable information today, but naming has evolved to help us appreciate even more dimensions of life on Earth.
Think about being a kid in a park or backyard, Cognato said, and the innate desire to know and name the animals there, say, robins or squirrels. Classification builds connection.
“It helps us communicate and it helps us live better,” Cognato said. “It helps us understand the world and biodiversity.”
Original source:
Smith SM, Cognato AI (2021) A revision of the Neotropical genus Coptoborus Hopkins (Coleoptera, Curculionidae, Scolytinae, Xyleborini). In: Spence J, Casale A, Assmann T, Liebherr JК, Penev L (Eds) Systematic Zoology and Biodiversity Science: A tribute to Terry Erwin (1940-2020). ZooKeys 1044: 609-720. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.144.62246
Fifty years after presumably becoming extinct as a breeding species in Bulgaria, the Griffon Vulture, one of the largest birds of prey in Europe, is back in the Eastern Balkan Mountains. Since 2009, three local conservation NGOs – Green Balkans – Stara Zagora, the Fund for Wild Flora and Fauna and the Birds of Prey Protection Society, have been working on a long-term restoration programme to bring vultures back to their former breeding range in Bulgaria. The programme is supported by the Vulture Conservation Foundation, the Government of Extremadura, Spain, and EuroNatur. Its results have been described in the open-access, peer-reviewedBiodiversity Data Journal.
Griffon Vultures in Eastern Balkan Mountains. Photo by Hristo Peshev, fwff.org
Two large-scale projects funded by the EU’s LIFE tool, one of them ongoing, facilitate the import of captive-bred or recovered vultures from Spain, France and zoos and rehabilitation centres across Europe. Birds are then accommodated in special acclimatization aviaries, individually tagged and released into the wild from five release sites in Bulgaria. Using this method, a total of 153 Griffon Vultures were released between 2009 and 2020 from two adaptation aviaries in the Kotlenska Planina Special Protection Area and the Sinite Kamani Nature Park in the Eastern Balkan Mountains of Bulgaria.
Griffon Vultures in Eastern Balkan Mountains. Photo by Hristo Peshev, fwff.org
After some 50 years of absence, the very first successful reproduction in the area was reported as early as 2016. Now, as of December 2020, the local population consists of more than 80 permanently present individuals, among them about 25 breeding pairs, and has already produced a total of 31-33 chicks successfully fledged into the wild.
Vulture tagging. Photo byHristo Peshev, fwff.org
“Why vultures of all creatures? Because they were exterminated, yet provide an amazing service for people and healthy ecosystems”, Elena Kmetova-Biro, initial project manager for the Green Balkans NGO explains.
“We have lost about a third of the vultures set free in that site, mostly due to electrocution shortly after release. The birds predominantly forage on feeding sites, where the team provides dead domestic animals collected from local owners and slaughterhouses,” the researchers say.
“We, however, consider the establishment phase of the reintroduction of Griffon Vulture in this particular site as successfully completed. The population is still dependent on conservation measures (supplementary feeding, isolation of dangerous power lines and accidental poisoning prevention), but the area of the Eastern Balkan Mountains can currently be regarded as a one of the only seven existing general areas for the species in the mainland Balkan Peninsula and one of the five which serve as population source sites”.
Vulture adaptation aviary. Photo by Green Balkans, www.greenbalkans.org
Original source: Kmetova–Biro E, Stoynov E, Ivanov I, Peshev H, Marin S, Bonchev L, Stoev IP, Stoyanov G, Nikolova Z, Vangelova N, Parvanov D, Grozdanov A (2021) Re-introduction of Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus) in the Eastern Balkan Mountains, Bulgaria – completion of the establishment phase 2010-2020. Biodiversity Data Journal 9: e66363. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.9.e66363
The United States-Mexico border traverses through large expanses of unspoiled land in North America, including a newly discovered worldwide hotspot of bee diversity. Concentrated in 16 km2 of protected Chihuahuan Desert are more than 470 bee species, a remarkable 14% of the known United States bee fauna.
One of the late-summer desert bees, female Svastra sp. on flower of Verbesina enceliodes. Photo by Bruce D. Taubert
Scientists studying native U.S. bees have long recognized that the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts of North America, home to species with interesting life histories, have high bee biodiversity. Exactly how many species has largely remained speculation. Together with students from Mexico, Guatemala and the United States, the authors made repeated collections over multiple years, identifying more than 70,000 specimens.
Without such intensive collecting, a full picture of the bee diversity would not have been possible. Most of these bee species are solitary, without a queen or workers, which visit flowers over a 2-4 week lifespan and specialize on pollen and nectar from one to a few plants. Furthermore, these desert species experience periodic drought, which the immature stages survive by going into dormancy for years, much like the seeds of the desert plants they pollinate.
One of the spring-active desert bees, female Centris caesalpiniae on flower of Krameria. Photo by Bruce D. Taubert
Additionally, bee diversity is notoriously difficult to estimate and compare among studies, because of differences in the collecting techniques and the size of the studied area. An unexpected benefit of the regular and intensive sampling for this study was the opportunity to test if the observed bee diversity approached the true bee diversity in this region, or if many more species were yet to be found. In this case, the larger San Bernardino Valley area is home to 500 bee species, only slightly above the number of species recovered along the border – an unusually robust confirmation of the researchers’ estimate.
One of the spring-active desert bees, male Centris caesalpiniae on flower of Acacia. Photo by Bruce D. Taubert
What we know about the decline of bees due to human activity, along with that of other pollinators, is based primarily on diversity data from human-modified habitats. Needed is baseline information on native bees from pristine areas to help us assess the magnitude and understand the ways in which humans impact bee faunas. This study from the Chihuahuan Desert is therefore an important contribution towards filling that knowledge gap from one of the bee biodiversity hotspots in the world.
Original source
Minckley RL, Radke WR (2021) Extreme species density of bees (Apiformes, Hymenoptera) in the warm deserts of North America. Journal of Hymenoptera Research 82: 317-345. https://doi.org/10.3897/jhr.82.60895
Scientists from the Ruhr-University and the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology discovered that females of a South American species protrude a Y-shaped organ on their backs to release pheromones and attract males. Found in none of the over 2,500 species of praying mantises worldwide, the behaviour is reported for the first time in the peer-reviewed scientific Journal of Orthoptera Research.
“When I saw the maggot-like structures peeking out from the back of the praying mantis and then withdrew, I immediately thought of parasites that eat the animal from the inside, because that is not really uncommon in insects,”
says Frank Glaw, a reptile and amphibian expert from the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology, who discovered the unusual phenomenon.
How does the Alien Mantis (Stenophylla lobivertex) attract partners?
However, it took specialists in this particular animal group to solve the riddle. Although the experts had seen nothing like this in praying mantises before either, they pointed out that there are other species of mantises, in which mostly unfertilised females release pheromones from a gland in the same part of the body (between the 6th and 7th tergite), in order to attract mates. The Y-shaped organ, which can stretch up to 6 mm in length, is in fact an advanced pheromone gland, which the insect controls with the help of hemolymph.
“We suspect that Stenophylla lobivertex can release the pheromones with the protrusible organ more efficiently and in a more targeted manner than other praying mantises,”
says Christian J. Schwarz, entomologist at the Ruhr-University.
“This can be very important, especially for rare species with a low population density, so that males can reliably find their females.”
Stenophylla lobivertex is a very rare species and lives hidden in the Amazon rainforests. Discovered only 20 years ago, the bizarre-looking and well-camouflaged animal has only been spotted a few times, and apparently only mates at night in the darkness.
Stenophylla lobivertex is a rare praying mantis from the Amazon rainforest. Its ‘true’ face becomes apparent only at second glance (Photo by Christian J. Schwarz)
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Publication:
Schwarz CJ, Glaw F (2021) The luring mantid: Protrusible pheromone glands in Stenophylla lobivertex (Mantodea: Acanthopidae). Journal of Orthoptera Research 30(1): 39-41. https://doi.org/10.3897/jor.30.55274
Do freshwater snails make good tennis players? One of them certainly has the name for it.
Enter Travunijana djokovici, a new species of aquatic snail named after famous Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic.
Photo of Tavunijana djokovici, a new snail species from Montenegro named after Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic. Photo by J. Grego
Slovak biospeleologist Jozef Grego and Montenegrin zoologist Vladimir Pešić of the University of Montenegro discovered the new snail in a karstic spring near Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, during a field trip in April 2019. Their scientific article, published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal Subterranean Biology, says they named it after Djokovic “to acknowledge his inspiring enthusiasm and energy.”
“To discover some of the world’s rarest animals that inhabit the unique underground habitats of the Dinaric karst, to reach inaccessible cave and spring habitats and for the restless work during processing of the collected material, you need Novak’s energy and enthusiasm,” the researchers explain.
T. djokovici has a milky-white shell in the shape of an elongated cone and is adapted to live in the underground habitats of the Dinaric karst. It is part of Hydrobiidae, a very diverse family of small to tiny snails – also known as mud snails – inhabiting fresh or brackish water, including caves and subterranean habitats.
The type locality where Tavunijana djokovici was found.
This is the first member of the genus Travunijana so far to be discovered in the Skadar Lake basin, and the only one found outside of the Trebišnjica river basin in Herzegovina, which points to the enigmatic distributional range of these snails across the Dinaric underground habitats. Where they came from, and how, remains a mystery.
Because of its small area of occupancy, T. djokovici is assessed as Vulnerable, according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Subterranean ecosystems, the authors of the new species emphasise, are extremely vulnerable to human-driven environmental changes, and, being obscure, they’re often overlooked during conservation efforts.
Original source:
Grego J, Pešić V (2021) First record of stygobiotic gastropod genus Travunijana Grego & Glöer, 2019 (Mollusca, Hydrobiidae) from Montenegro. Subterranean Biology 38: 65–76. https://doi.org/10.3897/subtbiol.38.64762
Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny, Vertebrate Zoology and Geologica Saxonica are the latest historic titles to select the various services and advanced technology provided by the OA-born scholarly publishing platform
One of the largest natural research associations in Germany, the Senckenberg Nature Research Society moved three of its international, open-access scholarly journals to the publishing platform ARPHA, following a recent contract with the scientific publisher and technology provider Pensoft.
Having opted for the white-label publishing solution, the journals remain under the brand of the Society and the Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden, one of the oldest natural-science museums in the world. Despite transitioning to a new platform, the past volumes of the journals remain accessible from a link on their website homepages.
Following their recent move to the Pensoft-developed publishing platform, Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny, Vertebrate Zoology and Geologica Saxonica have not only acquired their own glossy and user-friendly websites, but have also taken advantage from ARPHA’s signature fast-track, end-to-end publishing system, which is to benefit all journal users: authors, reviewers and editors alike. In addition, the journals are already using many of the unique services offered by ARPHA, including publication in PDF, semantically enhanced HTML and machine-readable XML formats; advanced data publishing; sub-article-level usage metrics; automated export of sub-article elements and data to key aggregators; web-service integrations with major indexing and archiving databases; and others.
In particular, to the appeal of the authors, editors and reviewers, the ARPHA’s collaboration-centred online environment takes care after each submitted manuscript during the review, editing, publication, dissemination and archiving stages, so that no one needs to deal with locally stored files and their transfer by email or third-party cloud storages. Additionally, the platform is designed to regularly notify the users about any required action, thus sparing the burden of unnecessary communication and ensuring the speedy processing of manuscripts.
All three journals operate a Diamond Open Access policy, thanks to the support of the Senckenberg Nature Research Society, making the journals free to publish for all authors.
Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny
Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny is the successor of the historical Entomologische Abhandlungen, formerly published by the Museum of Zoology at Dresden.
Its scope covers the taxonomy, morphology, anatomy, phylogeny, historical biogeography and palaeontology of arthropod taxa, but excludes faunistics and research with a strong regional focus. Descriptions of new taxa are only welcome when embedded in a wider context, for example, a phylogenetic, evolutionary, or biogeographical framework.
Similarly, Vertebrate Zoology was preceded by Zoologische Abhandlungen, also formerly published by the Museum of Zoology at Dresden. Its first publications since the move to ARPHA Platform and part of the first journal volume for 2021 are already a fact.
The journal deals with research on taxonomy, morphology, anatomy, phylogeny, historical biogeography and palaeontology of vertebrates. Again, descriptions of new taxa should be integrated into a proper context, for example, a complete revision of a taxon. To support accountability and reproducibility in science and academia, the journal requires that studied specimens have to be deposited in a public scientific collection.
Vertebrate Zoology’s Impact Factor is currently standing at 1.167, while its last Scopus CiteScore reached 2.1 (2019).
Geologica Saxonica
Geologica Saxonica – Journal of Central European Geology, began its life in distant 1876, when it was founded under the name Mitteilungen aus dem Königlichen Mineralogisch-Geologischen und Prähistorischen Museum by German geologist Hanns Bruno Geinitz, renowned for his work on the Carboniferous and Cretaceous rocks and fossils of Saxony.
The journal’s scope ecompasses geology, paleontology, stratigraphy, petrography, mineralogy and geoscience history with focus on Central Europe.
“At Pensoft, we are delighted to support a world-renowned natural history association like Senckenberg in carrying its legacy and treasure of knowledge into our days and well beyond. Now, with ARPHA’s white-label solution, we’re certain that the journals will simultaneously preserve their identity and enjoy all perks of modern and technologically advanced publishing,”
comments Pensoft and ARPHA’s founder and CEO Prof. Lyubomir Penev.
“We are very pleased to have found reliable partners in Pensoft and the ARPHA platform for our three publications to further increase their visibility. Senckenberg’s scientific publications have a long – almost 200-year tradition – and are now shown in a new and innovative design with unprecedented information retrieval options!”
says Prof. Dr. Uwe Fritz, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Vertebrate Zoology and head of the Department of Zoology at Senckenberg Natural History Collections in Dresden.
Between now and 15 September 2021, the article processing fee (normally €550) will be waived for the first 36 papers, provided that the publications are accepted and meet the following criteria that the data paper describes a dataset:
The manuscript must be prepared in English and is submitted in accordance with BDJ’s instructions to authors by 15 September 2021. Late submissions will not be eligible for APC waivers.
Sponsorship is limited to the first 36 accepted submissions meeting these criteria on a first-come, first-served basis. The call for submissions can therefore close prior to the stated deadline of 15 September 2021. Authors may contribute to more than one manuscript, but artificial division of the logically uniform data and data stories, or “salami publishing”, is not allowed.
BDJ will publish a special issue including the selected papers by the end of 2021. The journal is indexed by Web of Science (Impact Factor 1.331), Scopus (CiteScore: 2.1) and listed in РИНЦ / eLibrary.ru.
For non-native speakers, please ensure that your English is checked either by native speakers or by professional English-language editors prior to submission. You may credit these individuals as a “Contributor” through the AWT interface. Contributors are not listed as co-authors but can help you improve your manuscripts.
In addition to the BDJ instruction to authors, it is required that datasets referenced from the data paper a) cite the dataset’s DOI, b) appear in the paper’s list of references, and c) has “Russia 2021” in Project Data: Title and “N-Eurasia-Russia2021“ in Project Data: Identifier in the dataset’s metadata.
Questions may be directed either to Dmitry Schigel, GBIF scientific officer, or Yasen Mutafchiev, managing editor of Biodiversity Data Journal.
The 2021 extension of the collection of data papers will be edited by Vladimir Blagoderov, Pedro Cardoso, Ivan Chadin, Nina Filippova, Alexander Sennikov, Alexey Seregin, and Dmitry Schigel.
Datasets with more than 5,000 records that are new to GBIF.org
Datasets should contain at a minimum 5,000 new records that are new to GBIF.org. While the focus is on additional records for the region, records already published in GBIF may meet the criteria of ‘new’ if they are substantially improved, particularly through the addition of georeferenced locations.” Artificial reduction of records from otherwise uniform datasets to the necessary minimum (“salami publishing”) is discouraged and may result in rejection of the manuscript. New submissions describing updates of datasets, already presented in earlier published data papers will not be sponsored.
Justification for publishing datasets with fewer records (e.g. sampling-event datasets, sequence-based data, checklists with endemics etc.) will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Datasets with high-quality data and metadata
Authors should start by publishing a dataset comprised of data and metadata that meets GBIF’s stated data quality requirement. This effort will involve work on an installation of the GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit.
Only when the dataset is prepared should authors then turn to working on the manuscript text. The extended metadata you enter in the IPT while describing your dataset can be converted into manuscript with a single-click of a button in the ARPHA Writing Tool (see also Creation and Publication of Data Papers from Ecological Metadata Language (EML) Metadata. Authors can then complete, edit and submit manuscripts to BDJ for review.
Datasets with geographic coverage in Russia
In correspondence with the funding priorities of this programme, at least 80% of the records in a dataset should have coordinates that fall within the priority area of Russia. However, authors of the paper may be affiliated with institutions anywhere in the world.
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Check out the Biota of Russia dynamic data paper collection so far.
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