Hi Alex, & all,
I feel your pain! Most authors know that reviewers are trying to improve their paper. Sometimes the reviewer name is in the acknowledgements and we all know reviewers are 100% responsible for finding all errors (that's sarcasm by the way). Yes, even when there's some obvious defect it seems hard to get through to some stubborn authors. Foolish of them. It is remarkable how little attention some scientists pay to being sure they are working on the animal they think they are. If they did take care to check then they'd end up citing some modern taxonomy papers.
Did you see the mea culpa comment in Meier where he explains a mistaken species name he used as "Our identification was based on an illustrated key which unfortunately contained an error. We used the key correctly to identify a species-level unit, but the name provided in the key was incorrect." And he hadn't cited the key anyway.
An irritation for me is when a species becomes a model organism and authors start referring to it only by the genus name (at least in titles and abstracts), as if all the other taxa in the genus didn't exist. On model organisms there have been some past major incidents of misidentification or uncertainty over just what species is the actual model, as I think someone has mentioned.
I'm pretty sure that insisting on citing ancient original authors is a bad idea, and obviously not going to help living people with their citation records. However, it shouldn't be too hard for journals to come up with a procedure requiring authors to explain where they got their names from (and Meier proposes this in his last paragraph), without having a rigid rule for every mention of an author + date name as Zootaxa has. Obviously names are less important in community ecology papers, and they're probably wrong anyway, and without authors. For years clued-up people have side-stepped the possibility of criticism from carping taxonomists by not including names anywhere - the text just has the analysis results. To my mind that practice is too divorced from real biology with named animals, and not interesting for that reason.
By the way the three so far un-fully cited (ironic tut tut!) papers already in the discussion are:
Meier, Rudolf. 2017. Citation of taxonomic publications: the why, when, what and what not. Systematic Entomology 42(2): 301-304. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/syen.12215
Steiner, F.M., Pautasso, M., Zettel, H., Moder, K.et al. (2015): A Falsification of the Citation Impediment in the Taxonomic Literature. Systematic Biology, 64, 860-868. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syv026
Wagele, H., Klussmann-Kolb, A., Kuhlmann, M., Haszprunar, G.et al. (2011): The taxonomist - an endangered race. A practical proposal for its survival. Frontiers in Zoology, 8, 25 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1186/1742-9994-8-25
Cheers,
Geoff
-----Original Message-----
From: annelida-bounces from oat.bio.indiana.edu [mailto:annelida-bounces from oat.bio.indiana.edu] On Behalf Of Alexander Muir
Sent: Wednesday, 6 June 2018 12:58 a.m.
To: Dieter Fiege <Dieter.Fiege from senckenberg.de>; annelida from magpie.bio.indiana.edu
Subject: RE: Antw: Re: [Annelida] on the citations of taxonomic papers
Some years ago I refereed a multi-author manuscript about a polychaete species, common in some parts of the world, which had been found in a new biogeographical area, in a different habitat, and looking different to most descriptions. I wondered if it really was that common species.
One thing I wrote to the editor [species name changed] was "Because of the unusual behaviour of Xus yus described, it would be good to be sure that it was actually Xus yus being studied. Who identified it - using which key/description? Was it checked by an expert? Are there voucher specimens in a Museum?"
This was totally ignored.
Alexander Muir
Mr. A.I. Muir,
Invertebrates Division, Life Sciences Department, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington, LONDON SW7 5BD, UNITED KINGDOM
Tel: +44 (0)20 7942 5609
-----Original Message-----
From: annelida-bounces from oat.bio.indiana.edu [mailto:annelida-bounces from oat.bio.indiana.edu] On Behalf Of Dieter Fiege
Sent: 31 May 2018 13:57
To: annelida from magpie.bio.indiana.edu
Subject: Antw: Re: [Annelida] on the citations of taxonomic papers
I would like to add another point here: I think that e.g. in ecological papers it would make sense to cite the literature used for the identification of taxa in the Material and Methods section - and naturally list the citation(s) in the list of references. Identification keys are very helpful tools produced by taxonomists not only for use by their kin but for colleagues in a much wider range of fields. Ecologists are always happy if they get a taxonomic key for a certain taxon. Primer or other standard programs for statistical analyses are cited in almost every ecological paper, like standard molecular procedures are in molecular papers (see the example by Sergio), etc. So why not give the taxonomic key the proper credit, which I think it deserves?
So, yes, I think something like an open letter to taxonomists would be a good idea.
Best, Dieter
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