European bounty for taxonomists

Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 2006

Quality and quantity of publications are among the most important measures determining the success of ecologists. The past 50 years have seen a steady rise in the number of researchers and collaborative manuscripts, and a corresponding increase in multi-authored articles. Despite these increases, there remains a shortage of useful and definitive guidelines to aid ecologists in addressing authorship issues, leading to a lack of consistency in what the term "author" really means. Deciding where to draw the line between those who have earned authorship and those who are more appropriately credited in the acknowledgments may be one of the more challenging aspects of authorship. Here, we borrow ideas from other scientific disciplines and propose a simple solution to help ecologists who are making such decisions. We recommend improving communication between co-authors throughout the research process, and propose that authors publish their contributions to a manuscript in a separate byline.

The genus Morchella has gone through turbulent taxonomic treatments. Although significant progress in Morchella systematics has been achieved in the past decade, several problems remain unresolved and taxonomy in the genus is still in flux. In late 2019, a paper published in the open-access journal Scientific Reports raised serious concerns about the taxonomic stability of the genus, but also about the future of academic publishing. The paper, entitled "High diversity of Morchella and a novel lineage of the esculenta clade from the north Qinling Mountains revealed by GCPSR-based study" by Phanpadith and colleagues, suffered from gross methodological errors, included false results and artifactual phylogenies, had misapplied citations throughout, and proposed a new species name invalidly. Although the paper was eventually retracted by Scientific Reports in 2021, the fact that such an overtly flawed and scientifically unsound paper was published in a high-ranked Q1 journal raises alarming questions about quality controls and safekeeping procedures in scholarly publishing. Using this paper as a case study, we provide a critical review on the pitfalls of Morchella systematics followed by a series of recommendations for the delimitation of species, description of taxa, and ultimately for a sustainable taxonomy in Morchella. Problems and loopholes in the academic publishing system are also identified and discussed, and additional quality controls in the pre-and post-publication stages are proposed.

PLoS ONE, 2012

The number of described species on the planet is about 1.9 million, with ca. 17,000 new species described annually, mostly from the tropics. However, taxonomy is usually described as a science in crisis, lacking manpower and funding, a politically acknowledged problem known as the Taxonomic Impediment. Using data from the Fauna Europaea database and the Zoological Record, we show that contrary to general belief, developed and heavily-studied parts of the world are important reservoirs of unknown species. In Europe, new species of multicellular terrestrial and freshwater animals are being discovered and named at an unprecedented rate: since the 1950s, more than 770 new species are on average described each year from Europe, which add to the 125,000 terrestrial and freshwater multicellular species already known in this region. There is no sign of having reached a plateau that would allow for the assessment of the magnitude of European biodiversity. More remarkably, over 60% of these new species are described by non-professional taxonomists. Amateurs are recognized as an essential part of the workforce in ecology and astronomy, but the magnitude of non-professional taxonomist contributions to alpha-taxonomy has not been fully realized until now. Our results stress the importance of developing a system that better supports and guides this formidable workforce, as we seek to overcome the Taxonomic Impediment and speed up the process of describing the planetary biodiversity before it is too late.

F1000 - Post-publication peer review of the biomedical literature, 2000

The number of described species on the planet is about 1.9 million, with ca. 17,000 new species described annually, mostly from the tropics. However, taxonomy is usually described as a science in crisis, lacking manpower and funding, a politically acknowledged problem known as the Taxonomic Impediment. Using data from the Fauna Europaea database and the Zoological Record, we show that contrary to general belief, developed and heavily-studied parts of the world are important reservoirs of unknown species. In Europe, new species of multicellular terrestrial and freshwater animals are being discovered and named at an unprecedented rate: since the 1950s, more than 770 new species are on average described each year from Europe, which add to the 125,000 terrestrial and freshwater multicellular species already known in this region. There is no sign of having reached a plateau that would allow for the assessment of the magnitude of European biodiversity. More remarkably, over 60% of these new species are described by non-professional taxonomists. Amateurs are recognized as an essential part of the workforce in ecology and astronomy, but the magnitude of non-professional taxonomist contributions to alpha-taxonomy has not been fully realized until now. Our results stress the importance of developing a system that better supports and guides this formidable workforce, as we seek to overcome the Taxonomic Impediment and speed up the process of describing the planetary biodiversity before it is too late.

Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2021

Self-published taxon descriptions, bereft of a basis of evidence, are a long-standing problem in taxonomy. The problem derives in part from the Principle of Priority in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, which forces the use of the oldest available nomen irrespective of scientific merit. This provides a route to ‘immortality’ for unscrupulous individuals through the mass-naming of taxa without scientific basis, a phenomenon referred to as taxonomic vandalism. Following a flood of unscientific taxon namings, in 2013 a group of concerned herpetologists organized a widely supported, community-based campaign to treat these nomina as lying outside the permanent scientific record, and to ignore and overwrite them as appropriate. Here, we review the impact of these proposals over the past 8 years. We identified 59 instances of unscientific names being set aside and overwritten with science-based names (here termed aspidonyms), and 1087 uses of these aspidonyms, compared to ...

Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society

Taxon, 2016

When sorting out the nomenclature of Sorbus (Rosaceae) for the forthcoming volume of Atlas Florae Europaeae, we faced significant difficulties in determining authorships of plant names that resulted from ambiguous or inadequate wording of certain articles and the absence of relevant provisions in some other cases. This contribution aims to provide technical corrections and complementing notes and examples to existing rules. (133) Amend Art. 36.1 as follows (new text in bold): "36.1. A name is not validly published (a) when it is not accepted by the author of the name (see Art. 46) in the original publication (Art. 46.6); (b) when it is merely proposed in anticipation of the future acceptance of the taxon concerned, or of a particular circumscription, position, or rank of the taxon (so-called provisional name); (c) when it is merely cited as a synonym; or (d) by the mere mention of the subordinate taxa included in the taxon concerned. Art. 36.1(a) does not apply to names published with a question mark or other indication of taxonomic doubt, yet accepted by their author." This addition reflects the fact that it is the author of the nomenclatural novelty that is implied by this rule. By this clarification and references it would be easier to consider the effect of Art. 46 when determining whether a name was validly published or not, because acceptance of a name, to be considered under Art. 36.1, depends directly on the authorship of the name which is determined under Art. 46. The intimate connection of these Articles is sometimes overlooked, and the direct reference might be useful here. (134) Add a new Note under Art. 46.1 as follows: "Note 0. An author citation, typically placed next to a name, may function as attribution (Art. 46.2 and 46.5) or ascription (Art. 46.3) of a name to a certain author (or authors), or may serve as an indirect reference to the basionym or replaced synonym (Art. 38.14 and Art. 46 Note 4). In certain cases an author citation may appear as an error (Art. 46.3 and 46.4)." Stated authorship of a name may have a variety of meanings under the Code. As guidance to the users, we propose to articulate these options explicitly in an introductory note. The new Art. 46.3 Note 4 is the subject of Prop. 139 below. (135) Amend the second sentence of Art. 46.2 and revise Ex. 7 as follows (deleted text in strikethrough, new text in bold): "A new combination, name at new rank, or replacement name is attributed to the author(s) to whom it was ascribed when, in the publication in which it appears, it is explicitly stated that the same author(s) contributed in some a relevant way to that publication." "Ex. 7. Green (1985) ascribed the new combination Neotysonia phyllostegia to Wilson and elsewhere in the same publication acknowledged his assistance him for "nomenclatural advice". The