tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20285651504754192812024-02-18T23:51:11.821-05:00TrichopterologySystematics, arthropod biodiversity, and opinions from a self acknowledged taxahacker.Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.comBlogger77125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-47987559308588352852021-02-22T19:25:00.001-05:002021-02-22T19:25:57.749-05:00The story behind "Latitudinal patterns in tachinid parasitoid diversity".<div>Burington, Z.L., Inclán‐Luna, D.J., Pollet, M.
and Stireman, J.O., III (2020), Latitudinal patterns in tachinid
parasitoid diversity (Diptera: Tachinidae): a review of the evidence.
Insect Conserv Divers, 13: 419-431. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12416">https://doi.org/10.1111/icad.12416</a> </div><div> <br /></div><p>When I started my doctorate working with John Stireman of Wright State University, he and I already had discussions about the chapters in my dissertation. We agreed that there should be a broad biogeographic or ecological component, a narrower phylogenetic component, and a taxonomic revision. I am happy to say that the taxonomic portion passed review in 2020 and is currently in final edits. The ecological portion was published <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/icad.12416?af=R" target="_blank">last March in Insect Conservation and Diversity</a>. I long ago promised that I would blog all my publications, but I've obviously dropped the ball on that here. So this is the story behind the paper. </p><p>In 2012, I started my doctoral program at Wright State in Dayton, Ohio. At the time, Stireman had been running malaise traps out in the woods adjacent to campus and in several other locations near the University. These flight intercept traps catch all sorts of things, but his main interest was to catch tachinid flies, of which he has a sizable personal collection. One of these locations was from Huffman Metropark; most of these data <a href="https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1441&context=biology" target="_blank">were published by his former student Diego Inclan</a>. Stireman also had a large tachinid pan-trapping data-set <a href="https://bioone.org/journals/annals-of-the-entomological-society-of-america/volume-101/issue-2/0013-8746(2008)101[362:ADOATP]2.0.CO;2/%ce%b1-and-%ce%b2-Diversity-of-a-Tachinid-Parasitoid-Community-Over/10.1603/0013-8746(2008)101[362:ADOATP]2.0.CO;2.short" target="_blank">from his doctoral research in Arizona.</a> And, to top it all off, he had access to specimens from a large trapping project at Yanayacu Biological Station in Ecuador. These three regions, Ohio, Arizona, and Ecuador, are spread across 40 degrees of latitude from the temperate zone to the high tropics, which allowed a rough comparison of diversity between tropical and temperate tachinid communities.</p><p>The reason this was such an interesting idea, this latitudinal comparison, is that there is this historical idea that parasitoids are less species rich in tropical zones than in temperate regions, that they have a sort of "inverse diversity gradient", inverse to the normal strong gradient of lower to higher diversity as one moves towards the tropics. Dan Janzen <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1937717?seq=1" target="_blank">wrote a article about this in the mid 1980s</a>, where he used species diversity of parasitoid wasps across North American latitudes to suggest that these wasps have a mid latitudinal peak in species diversity, at around 30-25 degrees North Latitude, and that after that the diversity declines. And furthermore he, and other authors, suggested that tachinid flies would follow this pattern similarily or even more so.</p><p>Now, this particular hypothesis was a sort of creative impulse to write this chapter of my dissertation. But at the time of publication, and even ten years ago at the time I started writing this research, the "inverse latitudinal gradient" for tachinid flies was already a rejected hypothesis. The copious amount of new species coming forth from <a href="http://janzen.sas.upenn.edu/caterpillars/database.lasso" target="_blank">Janzen's own rearing project in Costa Rica</a> made that abundantly clear. So, it was not my purpose to falsify that hypothesis with this paper, but it was an interesting place to start. <br /><br />Over time I added several other datasets for comparison. Sonja Scheffer and Mathew Lewis at the University of Maryland allowed us to add their dataset for comparison. Karen Petersen, a former master's student under Stireman, had surveyed in another area at Yanayacu, so I added that small dataset. And<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marc-Pollet" target="_blank"> Marc Pollet </a>had a good sized survey of tachinid flies from Podocarpus-El Condor Reserve in Ecuador that he collected while trapping for Dolichopodidae. (Marc, Stireman, and Diego all joined me as authors on the final publication.) But by far the largest later addition was all the Tachinidae collected during the <a href="http://phorid.net/zadbi/" target="_blank">Zurqui All Diptera Biotic Inventory (ZADBI)</a> project in Costa Rica, for which Stireman and I identified a large portion of the tachinid specimens. With the addition of that Costa Rica dot I also filled a latitudinal gap, so in the paper we had a general latitudinal spread of 40--30--10--0 degrees. The result was that, every time we thought we had the paper set for publication, it grew another dataset, so what should have taken a few years instead took most of a decade.<br /></p><p></p><p></p><p>(As an aside, I'd like to reflect briefly on the ZADBI project. Since I wasn't a forefront author for <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324039525_Comprehensive_inventory_of_true_flies_Diptera_at_a_tropical_site" target="_blank">those</a> <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29690278/" target="_blank">papers</a>, I don't feel like it's right to do a full post about it. But I do want to comment on one point, that over half the tachinid species collected there were in the tribe Blondeliini, which is my taxonomic research focus. Blondeliine diversity is absolutely insane in the Neotropics, far beyond any other group, and the ZADBI project really bore that out.)<br /><br />The unsurprising result was that we saw a general increase of tachinid species richness from the temperate to the tropical zone. But as I said this had already been established by taxonomists for decades. What is far more interesting to me, is the rarity of most species in all datasets. If you look at the accumulation curves in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/1a29fffe-1e3d-4807-94e1-db5523f9def2/icad12416-fig-0001-m.jpg" target="_blank">Figure 1</a>, you can see that none, not ONE of those datasets reaches an asymptote. Even years into collecting, species new to the longer surveys were being recorded. And this is across the board, both large and small datasets, both datasets in the temperate region and in the tropics. In all cases, 55-68% of all species were collected only once (singlets or singletons) or twice (doublets or doubletons). This to me is absolutely astounding, that even in Ohio, more than half of all tachinid species can be counted as rare. And in Costa Rica, at Zurqui, more than two thirds of all species, 68 percent (!) were collected only once or twice. What this says to me, is that any accurate measure of tachind community richness requires a long period of collecting, perhaps decades of surveying. For tachinid flies, Preston's Veil seems wide.<br /></p><p>Overall, I'd say I'm pleased with the paper. There's still that pesky gap at 20 degrees (Mexico) and it wasn't possible to make any strong conclusions due to the low number of datasets. There are more tachind survey datasets out there, but they're survey's of caterpillars that sometimes yielded parasitoids. Since caterpillar rearing is generally not a random selection process, it's not comparable with trap surveys. So, we could say that the metrics strongly suggest higher species richness in the tropics, but there is nothing in the paper that counts as a definitive test. My question is: If someone were to repeat the same survey at Zurqui, or Yanayacu, how much would those two datasets overlap? 90% species the same? 70%? We know nothing about the turnover of richness in these communities, how many species are transients or inhabitants, or even what "rare" means for Tachinidae. Does it mean "low number of individuals"? Does it mean "widely dispersed in the landscape", and thus rarely encountered? We know that these flies often hilltop, they gather at specific points in the landscape for mating, and we know they have the flight strength to travel long distances. After all, "tachinid" comes from the Greek word "táchos", meaning "speed". Maybe how we see landscapes, with our narrow surveys, means little to a speedy fly. <br /></p>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-88741191286018691172019-09-19T09:41:00.000-04:002019-09-19T09:41:13.416-04:00The hidden trials of the taxonomic impediment.So. I'm coming back after a long hiatus because <a href="https://dez.pensoft.net/article/34683/">this paper</a> dropped not long ago and I've got feelings. <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-07/pp-rmc072519.php">Here's the press release.</a><br />
<br />
A quick summary: Sarah Meierotto of the University of Kentucky and several of her colleagues collaborated with the Area de Conservacion Guanacaste project to describe 18 new species of parasitoid wasps reared in Guanacaste province, Costa Rica. The kicker is they did this entirely from sequences of Cytochrome C Oxidase subunit 1 (CO1) mitochondrial DNA sequences, sometimes known as the "barcode gene". Aside from a single habitus photograph of each species, they offer no morphological treatment of any of these species, and their only diagnostic characters are DNA nucleotides at certain positions. This has resulted in a somewhat heated conversation among taxonomists about the validity and usefulness of these new species "descriptions".<br />
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Before I go into those criticisms, I should mention that this isn't the first time a taxonomist has described species from barcodes only. Andrew Brower <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14772000.2010.534512?scroll=top&needAccess=true">published</a><br />
ten new species of moths from barcodes only a decade ago, but his purpose was to preemptively criticize DNA-only descriptions of new species. Quoting his abstract, "the application of names to concepts does not corroborate or endorse the biological validity of those concepts."<br />
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Meierotto and her colleagues, in contrast, say this is a "revolutionary protocol" for species description. Are these descriptions <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2012/07/publication-availability-and-nomina-nuda.html">available</a>? According to Commisioner Thomas Pape they meet all the criteria for availability. Quibbling about whether listing of base pairs are symbols or words is not really helpful. <br />
<br />
But, are they <b>valid</b>? That's a much more difficult and interesting (and hair-tearing) question. How did we get to this point?<br />
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The new species are described in two different braconid genera, <i>Zelomorpha</i> and <i>Hemichoma</i>. The genus <i>Zelomorpha </i>has more than 50 previously described species, while <i>Hemichoma </i>has less than ten. Both of these genera were revised in a 2006 <a href="https://uknowledge.uky.edu/gradschool_diss/351/">dissertation </a>by University of Kentucky student Carlos Eduardo Sarmiento-Monroy. As far as I can tell, <b>none</b> of these manuscript names were ever published. Dissertations are not considered available under the ICZN, so Dr. Sarmiento-Monroy would have needed to publish these names in a journal, book, or other publication to become available; he never did. This year, Meierotto <a href="https://www.mapress.com/j/zt/article/view/zootaxa.4565.1.11">published</a> a taxonomic review of <i>Zelomorpha</i> and <i>Hemichoma </i>with coauthors including Michael Sharkey, who was both the dissertation advisor for Sarmiento-Monroy and is second author on the DNA-only paper. This taxonomic review includes a large number of "new combinations", but as far as I can tell it has no new species. <br />
<br />
What I suspected happened is that Sarmiento-Monroy completed his dissertation and never got around to publishing the species names. Maybe he disappeared, or moved on to work on some other group, or decided he hated braconid wasps so much he never wanted anything to do with them again. The names were never published. However, all the tantalizing species descriptions, photos, diagnostic information, these all still exist in dissertation form. All of that was copyright to the author, meaning, anyone couldn't come along and publish it for him. So, Michael Sharkey passed the project along to his new graduate student, Sarah Meierotto. Or maybe Sharkey continued working on the group in the intervening time. Anyway. The morphological species concepts were well known, even some genetic concepts were well known, but all the descriptions, diagnoses, and photographs would have to be redone, from scratch. <br />
<br />
Anyone who has ever done any taxonomic work before, I can hear your groans through cyberspace.<br />
<br />
So, they got the idea to publish some new names using the simplest description, just the barcodes. They already had some of these, but Daniel Janzen has a ton more via the ACG caterpillar rearing and barcoding project. Meierotto and Sharkey knew which species in ACG referred to new species and previously described species, because they had all of Sarmiento-Monroy's barcodes. So they took Sarmiento-Monroy's species concepts that matched with those species in ACG, eliminated everything but the barcode, gave them all new names, took habitus photographs for each species, and voila. Taxonomy published. Or so I'm guessing. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
This is all my imagination. I repeat, I don't know how this happened. But it seems likely, and I don't have a problem with it. There are all sorts of reasons for the taxonomic impediment: poor 100 year old descriptions, missing type specimens, a new genus named for every new species (thank you, Townsend). These are obvious, but there are many more hidden reasons for a lack of taxonomic progress. Often times there is a taxonomic scion, the last, greatest worker in a particular family. They remember everything, all the names, the relationships, all the hypotheses. And when they pass, they take all of that knowledge with them and leave behind no heirs. Often times a group isn't difficult by way of some taxonomic mistake, but just because it is naturally so. All the distinct species groups grade together at the boundaries, all the distinct species are apparently species complexes. And sometimes, all the knowledge is there, but it's behind a copyright wall and therefore cannot be published and acknowledged.<br />
<br />
<br />
As a taxahacker, I only really care about what is helpful, about what actually progresses our understanding. So finding some way around the dissertation impediment appeals to me. Let copyright rot if it aids our work. However, the key word is "helpful". When I plan a natural history work, I think, who is this for? Who is this helping? Most of the time I consider my fellow and future researchers. They'll probably be using a stereomicroscope, similar to what I use or with worse optics. They'll probably not have a large research laboratory with genetic tools for identification. And they'll probably be people with only incidental interest in the group. Perhaps they work in field ecology, or pest management, or evolutionary biology. They will care little for single species descriptions, and appreciate in-depth revisions the most.<br />
<br />
<br />
In sum, the average researcher that comes to your work is not going to have access to genetic sequencing equipment. They will have eyes and a microscope. We should aim to write for this level of technology. Any species description that omits morphological characters is effectively useless. Are Meierotto <i>et al.</i> species valid? The above train of literature would suggest yes. At least, they aren't junior synonyms of previously described species. But they aren't helpful, not to any reasonable student of braconid wasps. From Sarmiento-Monroy's dissertation I see that color patterns are necessary but insufficient for identifying <i>Zelomorpha</i> species. There are other necessary components, the shape of the head, the hairing and crenulations of the cuticle, the structure of the genitalia. Many of these aren't visible in a habitus photograph. I suppose I could refer the sequences in the paper back to the dissertation to find the diagnostic characters, but what a hassle!<br />
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Natural history science isn't a filing heuristic. Our job isn't to simply give all the things names, in whatever way possible, and organize them into the prettiest tree. The authors state that we must work ever faster with the biodiversity crisis upon us. To what end? I learned very little about <i>Zelomorpha</i> species from this article, nothing that wasn't already available through previous works or the ACG database. I learned that there are many species and have pretty colors. Replace "species" with "postage stamps" in that sentence; "all science is physics or stamp collecting." No, taxonomy is not Pokemon. Every insect species is a hypothesis of metapopulations. Every genus is a hypothesis of species relationships. Every piece of evidence presented, morphological, genetic, behavioral, either corroborates or negates these hypotheses. As Brower said, "the application of names to concepts does not corroborate or endorse the biological validity of those concepts." The names themselves do nothing. They are often satisfying or amusing, but they don't actually increase our knowledge. They're just a filing code. The problem with the paper isn't that the names are unavailable or invalid. The problem is that the species are poorly described. If this is the answer to the biodiversity crisis, then future generations will know nothing of <i>Zelomorpha danjohnsoni</i>, except that it lived in Costa Rica, fed on a species of noctuid caterpillars, and had black wings and an orange body. Oh, and its mtDNA sequence had A's and T's and C's and G's at particular positions. Hardly a useful fact if the species is extinct. <br />
<br />
Yet, I understand authors' desires. There's a deep need to put a name on things, even if naming them doesn't actually help us understand them better. It's questionable science, but it's art I guess? So I'm torn. Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-91673075170608868482017-05-15T15:32:00.000-04:002017-05-15T15:32:45.896-04:00Using Inkscape for Biological Illustration, Version 1.1.<span style="font-size: large;">I'm releasing an updated version of the UIBI book today, with the following changes.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">-Minor editing and changes to figure names in all chapters.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">-Minor updates to several chapters, including "Detailing" and "Special Structures" (formerly Setae and Hairs).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">-Major rewrite of the "Shading" chapter.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I was planning to wait a few months before publishing a new version, but my previous ideas about hatching and stippling in Inkscape were so very very wrong. I have literally wasted tens of hours of my life (or more!) trying to make regular hatch and stipple patterns in Inkscape using work around methods, when the "Pattern" fill option works very well for both of these if you understand how to adjust the density of the pattern. I only discovered this today. Ugh. Fortunately, shading isn't a major part of my line art style. And everyone else can learn from my mistakes. There is also a new curved hatching method included, using the Calligraphy Tool.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3Z8EUgUvWOvS2oxa2RQVDJsNTQ/view?usp=sharing">UIBI Version 1.1</a></span>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-61416626483530501012017-05-12T12:44:00.000-04:002017-05-12T12:44:09.148-04:00Using Inkscape for Biological Illustration<span style="font-size: large;">Years ago, I posted a short guide to illustrating insect genitalia in Inkscape. Now in the shadow of my dissertation writing, I've managed somehow to write a more complete booklet version.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-VlqlMiKVhCdqxCHfjqPaMltfO8zuZ8CRGSRK4gSHpDzog6K_V7ZVo5DvZ_7u6RAoy2RvKWiDycPLUEaOCCOsVrSBzEnkTKRTjZm3ELW82aTG5MuqBlBRWUbHHXy2aEKXyTBDOMjG-T4/s1600/InscapeBook_201705121239_Cover_Image.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-VlqlMiKVhCdqxCHfjqPaMltfO8zuZ8CRGSRK4gSHpDzog6K_V7ZVo5DvZ_7u6RAoy2RvKWiDycPLUEaOCCOsVrSBzEnkTKRTjZm3ELW82aTG5MuqBlBRWUbHHXy2aEKXyTBDOMjG-T4/s400/InscapeBook_201705121239_Cover_Image.png" width="396" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's free, just like Inkscape! I take you through my line drawing process step by step, from importing sketches, to laying down and modifying lines, to making special structures like setae, to finishing and exporting. I also include some more experimental techniques which may be of interest to other sorts of Inkscape users. Enjoy!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Download link: <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3Z8EUgUvWOvV0xtaWJCcjYydGs/view?usp=sharing">Using Inkscape for Biological Illustration (PDF)</a> </span>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-66883013102006646682016-05-10T09:00:00.000-04:002016-05-10T09:00:05.242-04:00The Fly Trap (Book Review)<span style="font-size: large;"> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fly-Trap-Fredrik-Sj%C3%B6berg/dp/110187015X">The Fly Trap</a> is a modern creative novel: one part biography, a second part history of entomology, a third scientific explanation, with rapture at flies mixed throughout. I’ve been reading Moby-Dick recently, and the similarities are striking. There’s the same tendency to switch themes between paragraphs and chapters, to weave the scientific, historical, and biographical together, and to embiggen fact when necessary. But what draws the entomologist in is Fredrik Sjöberg’s replacement of Melville’s whales with flies and the hope that the author will do the subject of our work and life passions the justice they deserve. How often is any particular family of insects besides butterflies made the subject of literature? </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Sjöberg’s centerpiece is the two-winged fly family Syrphidae, more commonly known as “hover flies” or “flower flies”, names which refer to incredible flight capabilities and the tendency to be nectar feeders. They are commonly yellow and black mimics of bees and wasps. Unlike the animals they’re mimicking they have no stingers to deter predators, so they avoid predation by looking like something dangerous. Sjöberg peppers his chapters with vignettes about individual species, including everything from taxonomic and regional history, physical and ecological diagnoses, and personal anecdotes. My favorite is the sudden “invasion” of <i>Eristalis smilis</i> which overtook the Swedish countryside, contrasted with <i>Doros</i>, of which there are only occasional sightings and elaborate rumors.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> The other subjects are “islands”, whether those be Sjöberg’s home island of Runmarö or a tree stump in a recent clear-cut. “Islands are generalizations of a kind”, he writes. “And where there are no islands, we have to invent them. If only for the fun of it.” He cites the loneliness and isolation of islands both positive and negative. Islands are perfect ground for the cataloger, sometimes disparaged as “buttonologist”, who provides a complimentary and more detailed worldview for “mapmakers”. </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">“But the person who makes maps can never include everything in his picture of reality, which remains a simplification no matter what scale he chooses. Both attempt to capture something and to preserve it.” </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">I particularly enjoyed his description of the Fly Tree, an enormous, 500 year old black poplar that was an island ecosystem onto itself. These species descriptions and descriptions of “islands”, are the stepping stones on which Sjöberg’s stories rest. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Yes, stories. There are actually two stories here, two interwoven biographies. One is of the author’s work with hover flies. The other biography is of the heroic, larger than life Rene Malaise, who sits in sharp contrast to the author. Malaise was a great explorer, eponymous trap inventor, and collector abroad, especially in eastern Russia and Southeast Asia. Sjöberg tries to avoid all collecting and exploration beyond his small island in the Baltic Sea. He says of the tropics, “Tropical nights can build into tremendous explosions of downright Cambro-Silurian cacophony when a thunderstorm starts or cicadas celebrate their orgies in the treetops. They’re magnificent, but no more than that. The indescribable sound of the Madagascar nightjar is worth the entire trip, but in the end it is merely interesting and exciting and fun to tell people about later.” Of the Congo River basin, “What an adventure! What stories I would tell! About freedom! But it didn’t happen. I never managed to say much more than that the forests were vast and the river as broad as Kalmar Sound. And that I’d been there.” Yet he idolizes Malaise and his travels, to the point where he starts a collection of Malaise-related ephemeralia. This ends ironically with an expensive purchase of a painting once belonging to Malaise. The author, so adverse to crazed collecting, has become a buttonologist. But Sjöberg stays to his island, claming glorious isolation and “slowness” allow him an illusion of control over these impulses. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> One of The Fly Trap’s most overreaching themes is what Eliezer Yudkowsky calls “<a href="http://lesswrong.com/lw/ic/the_virtue_of_narrowness/">The Virtue of Narrowness</a>”. Sjöberg’s collection only contains the 202 species of hoverflies (plus one) found thus far on Runmarö island. He feels he must justify his narrowness, so he writes that it’s purely for pleasure. No, it’s because he loves the D.H. Lawrence style of isolation provided by islands. No, it’s a sort of “buttonology”, a collecting disorder, which in his case is benign. No, it’s an attempt to slow down in our fast-paced world. He doesn’t beg the reader to accept his reasons for collecting and observing his island’s hover flies as scientific. Even when he claims his study allows him to “read nature’s language”, the result is for enjoyment. Maybe he feels he can’t explain the usefulness of this small study on his small island to broader natural history, not even to a lay reader, but I don’t think he needs to. The Virtue of Narrowness is the precision and accuracy of your knowledge. It’s enough to only explain hover flies on Runmarö, and Sjöberg knows it, but he still claims “hobby” because it’s not his “real” job.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> True, he does <i>romanticize</i> his narrowness whenever possible. But I enjoy some romanticized narrowness. In my favorite poem by the midwestern American Tom Montag, “The Farmer’s Manifesto”, the farmer says of his father, “He had no /ideas but the things which /his hands could touch, or /those his eyes could find /at great distance—a glint /of sun off farmhouse windows. /Or close at hand, beneath /his feet. What he could /catch as breath; wind would /carry. He knew those weeds.” Romanticized or not, that sort of narrowness holds an incredible depth of knowledge, what Montag could only name as “strange /dark madness, some amazing avalanche /of wolves, lakes, stars, tongues” and the ability to “hear corn grow in summer; /can hide your face in /the curving surface of sky; /examine a potato in light /so special you know something /flies back at you”. This is the sort of knowledge that comes from doing the same thing repeatedly over a small stretch of world and small number of subjects until they become windows. What seems like buttonology is deep expertise. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> I don’t mean to say that The Fly Trap is perfection or free from cliche. It belongs firmly within a genre of creative natural history writing first made popular in the 19th century, a Euro-centric and primarily masculine genre written by men for men and boys. Women are largely incidental to the story and are mentioned mostly as love interests or as props. His wife features prominently at the end of the first chapter, but only as the nameless “girl who sat in the audience one evening”. Of professional meetings, he says, “Normally no women take part at all. And the few who do happen to show up are usually the better halves of the biggest crackpots, wives who could easily pass as personal assistance from a psychiatric open ward. Well, maybe that’s unfair. But the fact is that unattached women could hardly find a better hunting ground than entomological societies. Unusual men, no competition. Just a suggestion.” Does that mean the only reason for women to attend meetings is to pick up men? Even the preface quote ends with the condescending line, “Me, I just concern myself with flies — a much greater theme than men, though maybe not greater than women.” The only exceptions are the short biographical sketches of the incredible,<a href="https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=https://feministisktperspektiv.se/2016/01/08/alla-bor-kanna-till-ester-blenda-nordstrom/&prev=search"> possibly lesbian</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ester_Blenda_Nordstr%C3%B6m">Esther Blenda Nordström</a>, a writer, explorer, and ethnologist who briefly married Malaise and traveled with him to Asia. Unfortunately, her story was abandoned when Sjöberg realized Malaise hadn’t named a species after her, and therefore Malaise’s “love” for her couldn’t be verified (unlike for Ebba Soederhall). I could have read an entire book about Nordström and her travels. Fortunately she wrote several. Unfortunately, I don't read Swedish (<a href="http://www.abebooks.com/book-search/author/ester-blenda-nordstrom/">but maybe you do</a>).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> The Euro-centrism is more forgivable. The Fly Trap was originally written and released in Swedish. The intended audience was Swedes, the setting was (mostly) Sweden, and Sjöberg is Swedish himself. The English translation came ten years later, so it should be read as a Swedish novel<i>slash</i>biography<i>slash</i>creative-nonfiction and shouldn’t be taken as worldly. Especially since Sjöberg repeatedly admits his own non-worldliness.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> I realize I haven’t said very much about flies in this review. Fact is, if you’re still reading this and you haven’t already read The Fly Trap, you probably already have some interest in flies and will be delighted as I was of the hover fly natural history in this book. There isn’t anything to criticize about those descriptions except to say that they’re wonderful and I wish there was more of them. I recommend The Fly Trap for entomologists and non-entomologists alike.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Sjöberg, F. 2014. <u>The Fly Trap</u> [English translation, Thomas Teal], Pantheon Books, NY. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fly-Trap-Fredrik-Sj%C3%B6berg/dp/110187015X">Amazon</a></span></span>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-74731849814557256852015-09-10T13:49:00.001-04:002015-09-10T14:53:40.808-04:00Zoobank is down (the future of taxonomic publishing).<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://zoobank.org/">ZooBank</a> is currently down while I'm writing this, the <a href="http://iczn.org/content/about-zoobank">"official registry of Zoological Nomenclature"</a>. This is the registry that all new electronically published names and nomenclatural acts must use before publication, and that all traditionally published nomenclatural acts SHOULD use before publication (but usually don't).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I don't know if this is just temporary down time, or this has been going for a while, but it's a definite problem. Especially with the way publishing is going.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I was just talking with <a href="http://www.biodiversityinfocus.com/blog/">Morgan Jackson</a> about social media and taxonomic publications, because I woke up with a weird thought in my head this morning: what if I took the taxonomic portion of my dissertation, registered the new names with ZooBank, and published it as a PDF on my blog? Given the standards currently in the ICZN, and assuming I'm meticulous about <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2012/07/publication-availability-and-nomina-nuda.html">referencing type specimens and depositories, etc</a>., the new names would be totally available under the code! Any person can do this now, or at least they could if ZooBank was running.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This isn't only limited to nomenclatural acts originally published as PDFs. To quote Morgan,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"The Winnower is working to publish, assign DOIs and archive blog posts
and reddit threads right now. There is very little standing in the way
of someone publishing a new species name in an electronic place like
reddit (with the proper [ZooBank] registration and everything) and having
it become valid via Winnower sucking it up...As far as I know they haven't finalized their archiving with [CLOCKSS] yet, so they haven't met all of the Code requirements for
digital publication, but last I talked to them it was in the works"</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://thewinnower.com/about">The Winnower</a>, for those who aren't familiar, is an open access publishing site that uses an open access peer review system. They specialize mostly in commentary on publications (i.e., post publication peer review), but their targets include a wide variety of non-traditional publishing platforms like blogs and web forums. <a href="https://www.clockss.org/clockss/Home">CLOCKSS</a> is an archiving platform for electronic publications, which The Winnower is using to store publications as PDFs. What Morgan is suggesting is that a taxonomic work registered with ZooBank could be originally published on a blog, adopted by The Winnower, and archived with CLOCKSS; thus it would meet all electronic publication requirements of The Code <i>despite not being available in it's original publishing context.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i>
It seems convoluted, but the above scenario is totally workable under the current version of The Code. I can see both positive and negative elements of this. For one, the traditional taxonomic publishing method is incredibly ponderous, even with taxonomic journals such as <a href="http://zookeys.pensoft.net/">Zookeys</a> and <a href="http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/">Zootaxa</a>. Publishing is further complicated by the general feeling in biology that taxonomic works are low priority under the categories "impact" and "significance". It also opens up low or zero cost ways for taxa-hackers to publish their work, and I'm all for that. (That new species of fungus gnat I've been sitting on, for example. Hmmm...)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Conversely, I see the recent trend in taxonomy for higher quality publications and the role Zootaxa, Zookeys, and other taxonomic journals have played in this. I would hate for taxonomic publishing to slide back into Townsend-esque quality or for<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/taxonomic-vandalism-and-hoser/"> taxonomic vandalism in the mode of a certain Australian snake hobbyist</a> to become more common.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Someone will try one of the above methods eventually. Or whenever Zoobank is up and running again. At the time of finishing this, the registry website is available! But it still worries me, because electronic publication is only going to become more important in the next decade. If Zoobank is unreliable, then what of the future of animal taxonomy?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Thanks to Morgan Jackson (<a href="https://twitter.com/BioInFocus">@bioinfocus</a>) for help in fermenting these ideas.</i></span>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-83126032389967371402015-03-19T08:30:00.000-04:002015-03-19T08:30:00.567-04:00Adopting Orphaned Taxa (TAD2015).<span style="font-size: large;"><i>(For Taxonomist Appreciation Day 2015)</i> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I know it’s been a while since my last blog post. I’m deep into research right now and about to defend my thesis proposal. I’m also working on a publication. Which means that my writing time is going elsewhere and not here.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My thesis research overall concerns a large and varied tribe of tachinid flies called Blondeliini (Blond-el-ee-ai-nai) or the blondeliines. The core of the work is the <i>Blondelia</i> group of genera, called such because it includes the type genus of the tribe, <i>Blondelia</i>. Females of the <i>Blondelia</i> group have a boat-like keel on the abdomen and a sharp piercing hook for poking holes in things, usually caterpillars.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The piercer isn’t an “ovipositor” in the homologous sense, because it doesn’t contain the tube that carries the egg into the host. Instead, the egg tube (the mostly membranous segments 8-10 of the abdomen) travels down the posterior groove in the piercer and into the hole the piercer has made in the host.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJhdDeDDZtKmgFFqB_SW7KHEILtLiPyVuAovUmzzRxUAEPRHteeHcaWClN9PBUYq1hVwdiH1rWxmBHQVjy-aiM1rO16ARiWcKMEdYZdf9UGMv2vRvQOLHU_RmcxD47ThjT3KoLjTwlDP4/s1600/TachinidPhotos_18.iii.2014_Xiphomyia_Mex_PortilloDeReon_1992.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJhdDeDDZtKmgFFqB_SW7KHEILtLiPyVuAovUmzzRxUAEPRHteeHcaWClN9PBUYq1hVwdiH1rWxmBHQVjy-aiM1rO16ARiWcKMEdYZdf9UGMv2vRvQOLHU_RmcxD47ThjT3KoLjTwlDP4/s1600/TachinidPhotos_18.iii.2014_Xiphomyia_Mex_PortilloDeReon_1992.jpg" height="624" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">A female 'sword fly' of the genus <i>Eucelatoria</i> with hind legs removed. (1992: Mexico, Portillo de Reon.)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In one genus (<i>Eucelatoria</i>), the piercer can be half the body length! I’m not sure why these species have a piercer that long, but there’s some evidence they parasitize caterpillars hidden in rolls of leaves. Some <i>Blondelia</i> group species have spines on the ventral keel, and others have only bristles. Some males of the <i>Blondelia</i> group have hairy patches on their abdomens, and other closely related species are clean shaven. Host use varies; Costa Rican species of the <i>Eucelatoria armigera</i> complex <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1821123/">are particular to one or a few species of noctuid moth caterpillar</a>, while the polyphagous species <i>Compsilura concinnata</i> feeds on over 200 species of Lepidoptera.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">With interesting oviposition behavior, morphology, and a large number of species (>135; not including all the many undescribed Neotropical species) the <i>Blondelia</i> group is an enticing project for a young taxonomist. Do not fall for this trap!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Orphaned taxa are those genera or families that are without a current expert or active worker. The <i>Blondelia</i> group, and Blondeliini in general, are a particularly frightening example. Abandonment can be for a number of reasons. In some cases the group isn’t charismatic enough, or is of minimal economic importance. In other cases high diversity and difficult diagnosis are deterrents. A history of poor descriptions and over-splitting genera may be to blame; for this final reason orphaned taxa often have a taxonomic impediment. The longer the period between experts, the greater the impediment to future research becomes.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In the case of the <i>Blondelia</i> group, <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.de/2014/01/cht-townsend-vandal-of-calypterates.html">our good friend Dr. Townsend</a> is mostly to blame. He is responsible for naming nearly half of all valid blondeliine genera, and most of these with one species apiece. Add to this his notorious over-splitting, his mediocre descriptions, and his terrible, no good, very bad <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.de/2014/08/cht-townsend-vandal-of-calypterates.html">Manual of Myiology</a> genus key, and very few people are courageous enough to venture forth.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">However, not all blame can be placed on Townsend. Disregarding the history, blondeliines are a difficult group with many examples of morphological convergence. They are small, usually dark colored, and told apart mostly by arrangements of bristles. Color patterns often fool me.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQmM5sESOe9opIFV6-Pin91BfC933f4KhacEK4ZIrufPLfE-_HuwWDGXUc1FXo5LAm_Acf2Ud2cH-ncy-MOurehYge65R0ER2gM0YgXK9KfPzhghyJvClTMCRcOoUUwKzF-F0AdMELStk/s1600/201503181718_Xiphomyia_mimic_compare.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQmM5sESOe9opIFV6-Pin91BfC933f4KhacEK4ZIrufPLfE-_HuwWDGXUc1FXo5LAm_Acf2Ud2cH-ncy-MOurehYge65R0ER2gM0YgXK9KfPzhghyJvClTMCRcOoUUwKzF-F0AdMELStk/s1600/201503181718_Xiphomyia_mimic_compare.png" height="247" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Left: Sword fly male. Right: NOT sword fly male. Really similar, but really different. Can you see the difference? (Click for embiggen)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I thank Monty Wood for <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8559899&fileId=S0071075X00002496">his great work on Blondeliini (1981)</a>, without which I would be lost. But this is a preliminary work of broad scope. Efforts focused on a single or a few genera have revealed the scale of the mess yet to be resolved.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Diego Inclan (a graduated MS from my lab) and Dr. John Stireman (my PI and advisor) provide a vexing example of this mess in their recent <a href="http://zookeys.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=4340">Zookeys</a> paper. In his <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25136728">masters thesis</a>, Diego found that some species considered part of the Neotropical blondeliine genus <i>Erythromelana </i>were clearly not. This lead to a convoluted taxonomic investigation. Below is a paragraph from the Zookeys paper as illustration.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">“An example of the taxonomic instability of Neotropical tachinid genera is witnessed in the species <i>Euptilodegeeria obumbrata</i> (Wulp). This species was first classified in the former tachinid genus <i>Hypostena</i> by Wulp (1890; along with many other blondeliines), based on specimens collected in Guerrero, (southwest) Mexico. […] The species was moved by Townsend (1931) to the new genus <i>Euptilodegeeria</i>, moved again to the genus <i>Erythromelana</i> Townsend by Wood (1985) and recently excluded from <i>Erythromelana</i> and resurrected to its previous genus (<i>Euptilodegeeria</i>) by Inclán and Stireman (2013). Although the taxonomy of Tachinidae, particularly of the Blondeliini, is challenging due to the scarcity of clear synapomorphies, the confusion in the generic assignment of <i>E. obumbrata</i> was also due to the limited number of specimens evaluated, the lack of examination of male terminalia and the use of only males for the descriptions. In the present study, we use additional information from male and female terminalia to demonstrate that these “obumbrata” specimens, previously assigned to <i>Hypostena</i>, <i>Euptilodegeeria</i> and <i>Erythromelana</i>, actually belong to the genus <i>Eucelatoria</i> Townsend (1909), in which females possess a sharp piercer for internal oviposition in the host. We also argue that the former species <i>Machairomasicera carinata</i> described from a single female by Townsend (1919) in the monotypic genus <i>Machairomasicera</i>, and later synonymized with <i>Eucelatoria</i> by Wood (1985), belongs to this same species group of <i>Eucelatoria</i>, which we here define and characterize.<b> In the end, taxa that were assigned to four different genera in fact belong to one species group of <i>Eucelatoria</i></b>, providing an example of the taxonomic confusion that plagues many groups of Neotropical tachinids.” [Emphasis mine]</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Many similar issues remain in the genus <i>Eucelatoria</i>. The group may not even be monophyletic. I am not revising all the species in the <i>Blondelia</i> group for my dissertation—or even all the species in <i>Eucelatoria</i>—but the challenge feels insurmountable.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">There are two ways to publish natural history research. One is to be cautious, to wait until all possible evidence is covered and carefully recorded, all the museums have been visited, and every last lead has been pursued. “I only have one more type to look at, and it’s been missing for 40 years. But I can’t publish until I find it.” The other is to rush wildly into publication with any new finding, getting the information out as quickly as possible. “Never mind the types in that European museum, I have the specimens here and there’s nothing (well) written in the literature to say I’m wrong!” </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Taxonomists, myself included, fall more on the cautious side. Townsend was an exception. We want all the bits of evidence before we publish our scientific opinions, whether that be new species, synonyms, homonyms, or redescriptions. Caution is great when you start with a clean slate. But in the face of a huge mess caution is paralyzing. How do I start? I’m looking at a great wreck of a building. Do I take the debris out piece by piece and slowly repair? Or do I knock it down, bulldozer the area, and pour a new foundation? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I have sat and looked and sat and looked and wondered at my specimens guessing and second guessing myself if what I am seeing is really separate species, or if they have been previously described. This back and forth mental motion is useless. I fear too much of wreaking havoc. But plenty havoc has already been wrought.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I think there is a middle ground. Stride boldly, but document everything. Don’t worry too much about creating new species synonyms or mis-associating males and females. Those issues can easily be fixed later. Otherwise you’ll spend the rest of your life waiting for that visit to that one university in Chile (when the type was long since moved to a museum elsewhere). At the same time, document everything and carefully record your findings. If you provide photographs, written description, genitalia drawings, and adequate references to collections and literature in your publications, someone else can build upon this firm basis and correct your mistakes. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">An excellent example of walking this line is Dr. Lee Herman’s <a href="http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/handle/2246/6421">2013 revision</a> of the New World species of <i>Oedichirus</i>, a genus of rove beetles (Staphylinidae). Dr. Herman, a Curator Emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History, received the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.libraries.wright.edu:2048/store/10.1111/(ISSN)1752-4598/asset/homepages/J_O_Westwood_Award_Advert__1-15__aw.pdf?v=1&s=a7826e7a1305b129be611414145cd21f9b6706de">“J. O. Westwood Medal and Award for Insect Taxonomy” [PDF]</a> for this publication. Rove beetles have a taxonomic history as equally tortured as tachinid flies. As in tachinids, associating males and females of the same species is difficult. At times only male or female specimens are available, and species were described sometimes based on the male and sometime based on the female. Furthermore, the majority of specimens available (including the types) are too old for modern techinques like DNA Barcoding. Herman could have waited until new specimens were available, but instead he pushes forward. In the methods section he writes, “hypotheses of male/female association proposed herein for the other species can be corroborated or refuted by DNA barcoding techniques using newly collected specimens.” </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Remember that every “opinion” of natural history is a hypothesis subject to further testing. When our hypotheses are presented as expert opinion but rest on shoddy work they are an obstacle. When we refuse to present hypotheses for fear of being wrong they are also an obstacle. But when our hypotheses are presented boldly and rest on good work, even our mistakes are outweighed by the scientific contribution. I have discovered that it does no good to worry. Any well documented progress is good progress. Anything mopped up is better than the mess we have now.</span>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-37999568471662372932014-08-14T11:14:00.001-04:002014-08-14T16:36:07.173-04:00CHT Townsend, Vandal of the Calypterates. Epilogue.<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.de/2014/01/cht-townsend-vandal-of-calypterates.html">Part I</a>; <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.de/2014/01/cht-townsend-vandal-of-calypterates_20.html">Part II</a>; <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.de/2014/05/cht-townsend-vandal-of-calypterates.html">Part III</a>; <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.de/2014/07/cht-townsend-vandal-of-calypterates.html">Part IV</a>; <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.de/2014/08/cht-townsend-vandal-of-calypterates.html">Part V</a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">When I began this series in January, my intent was to show parallels between recent and historical conflicts in taxonomy and systematics. You may remember Raymond Hoser from the<a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.de/2014/01/cht-townsend-vandal-of-calypterates.html"> first part</a> and <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.de/2014/01/the-impartiality-ethic.html">"Call for Comments"</a> post. He is an extreme example, perhaps more extreme than Townsend with his repeatedly forced rhetoric and lack of decorum. In the history of taxonomy, however, this is not unusual.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And lest you all get this opinion, let it be said that I, Z. L. 'Kai' Burington, do NOT hate Charles Henry Tyler Townsend.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I chose to exhibit him in a negative light, the sort of light that people working on tachinid flies see him in. This is only one half of the story. Contrast my take with Neal Evenhuis's treatment (<a href="http://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nadsdiptera.org%2FNews%2FFlyTimes%2Fissue50.pdf&ei=Z73sU8LaE_H07AawpoC4CA&usg=AFQjCNEUD7GfDVWu8zBPBmK0UlO71wHDfw&bvm=bv.72938740,d.ZGU&cad=rja">Page 15 in this PDF</a>). He calls Townsend a "man of wanderlust and mystery" and outlines his many accomplishments, including: world expertise on Diptera and calypterate flies in particular; instruction in pest control (Jamaica); co-ownership of a taxidermy and zoological specimen company; biology professor (Philippines); biological control of the cotton square weevil (Peru); discovery of the fly vector for both verruga and Oruya fever (Peru); doctorate from Washington University; honorary custodian of calypterate flies at the US National Museum; control of leaf cutting ants (Brazil) and other pests (Peru).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Evenhuis told my favorite story of Townsend today during his talk at the <a href="http://www.icd8.org/">8th International Congress of Dipterology</a>, that he traveled across the Amazon in 53 days (not including stops), and arrived in Peru just in time for his 60th birthday; he popped a champagne bottle near the beach in Pacasmayo to celebrate. I can't help but admire his intense energy and fortitude.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And then I'm brought back to the reality. Townsend was an ego driven, abrasive man who died quite bitter about his recession from science. The story feels like a one-two punch of schadenfreude, but the aftertaste is more like Townsend's own bitterness. He did many great things, and he is usually remembered for his vandalous legacy and his nutty ideas. Often I see the parallels between Dr. Townsend and the late Dr. Lynn Margulis. Both had incredible expertise. Both did great work. And both had some ego-related nutty ideas which threatened their public face and careers and which leave a shadow on their contributions.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I would like to say that things have changed since Townsend. Unfortunately they have not. And I would like to blame all the personality circus acts of this saga on Townsend alone. But I cannot do that either. Coquillett refused to speak with Townsend to try to make things right. Walton, instead of contacting in private, aired his equally abrasive opinions in a public forum. Aldrich, instead of simply cutting off contact and refusing to play along, continued his angry letter sending to his former colleague. And the rest of the dipterist community didn't step forward in outcry against these antics until after the 1925 "Insider History", long after the damage was done. In short, the egos of all people involved were to blame.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Things have not changed. I am, as I said above, at ICD8 this week. This morning as I pondered these questions and yesterday's panel on the "Future of Diptera taxonomy and systematics", a colleague said this to me. He said, it's not the differences in methods, or morphology vs. molecular, or ages of the participants that are why these issues--these apparent clashes--continue. The reason they continue is the difference in <i>personalities</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The reason why the Townsend saga got out of hand--the egos and personalities of the people involved--is the same reason taxonomy lacks unity in our current crisis.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Just before my PhD program started I was working on a short term project at a U.S. museum. At the end of the project one of the curators gave me a long and personal lecture. He said that the most important thing for my future was to be kind and generous to everyone, to promote unity, and to tamp down ego. Because, he said, selfishness and other personality flaws are to blame for our problems in taxonomy.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And the people who are most public, most obvious, the loudest, most outspoken people are often the most abrasive, unkind and ungenerous people. I cannot tell you the number of times I have yelled at my email in the past months upon finding yet another message from the ICZN-listserv. This forum, which was supposed to be for finding and giving help and discussing zoological nomenclature, has become a platform for various taxonomists (including Hoser but <i>not</i> limited to him) to argue and curse at each other publicly over their personal disputes. I have spoken with several people about this on Twitter. The general response is that it is going to happen and there's nothing I can do about it. The Taxacom listserv is much the same. Better to ignore it, I was told.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Yet THIS is the face we present the world and it is not a pretty face. It is the face of irrelevance. If we let people like Townsend and Hoser be what people see in taxonomy, if they see anything at all, how much longer will our science be considered science at all? How can we live up to the many challenges if there is no public unity? How will our field of work continue if there is no kindness and generosity to each other and to the next generation?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Please prove me wrong.</span>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com2Potsdam, Germany52.3905689 13.06447290000005552.2356559 12.741749400000055 52.5454819 13.387196400000056tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-22952628978841695592014-08-04T10:00:00.000-04:002014-08-15T08:11:23.462-04:00CHT Townsend, Vandal of the Calypterates. Part V.<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2014/07/cht-townsend-vandal-of-calypterates.html">IN THE PREVIOUS POST</a>...Townsend's ego-driven quest to propagate genus names </i>ad infinitum<i> leads to a libelous article attacking John Merton Aldrich. The backlash of his former colleagues suggests he had worn out his welcome.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Townsend never returned to North America<i>. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Yet, he continued his research much as he had previously, or potentially more fervently. His output between 1915 and 1925 was smaller than the earlier years, but his publication record from 1926 until 1942 (2 years before his death) nearly matches those high numbers. There was the "Synopse dos generos muscoideos da regiao humida tropical da America" (Synopsis of muscoid genera from the tropical rainforest region of America), published in 1927. The Synopsis contains a 100 page dicotomous key with 605 individual couplets, in Portuguese, and uses a system of abbreviation conceived by Townsend. It was undoubtedly as difficult to use then as it is now. Of course, no Townsend publication would be complete without at least one new genus, so he includes 87 pages of them (with several on each page).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzf0bpulO_uSJBrI21WC3VtE82qukjuf6iWmVxou1m5BoVmtXZzuLTu6-1xfCjmuka9pIyB7a_XiW6jjCpGIZIAMyzQmkXayqOJr4FgNL-sxeHFSiIaKOZFk9_B8RtSjGPq-USkiGeNNI/s1600/Untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzf0bpulO_uSJBrI21WC3VtE82qukjuf6iWmVxou1m5BoVmtXZzuLTu6-1xfCjmuka9pIyB7a_XiW6jjCpGIZIAMyzQmkXayqOJr4FgNL-sxeHFSiIaKOZFk9_B8RtSjGPq-USkiGeNNI/s1600/Untitled.png" height="368" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">New species description from "Synopse dos Generos" (1927). It is both in Portugese and Townsendian abbreviation. Perhaps it is thankful in this case that Townsend described a new genus for nearly every species, as all of his genera are well described in the<i> Manual of Myiology</i> in English (with comparable abbreviations).</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And there was the long awaited <i>Manual of Myiology</i>, published in 12 large volumes between 1934 and 1942. If Townsend could be considered to have a Magnum Opus, this is it. It includes complete keys to families, tribes, and genera of "Oestromuscaria" (muscoid flies), descriptions of all genera, and notes on biology and morphology of the various tribes. Volumes 11-12 contained a strange digression from the earlier sections, including chapters on the Tertiary origin of the Moon from a near Oceanic continent, the origin of humans ("Hands cannot remain idle. Doubtless driftwood clubs and fistsized pebbles were their first implements."), the flight mechanics of a <i>Cnephanamyia</i> bot fly traveling at 400 yards per second, and very, <i>very</i> wrong ideas about gravity.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTXuUvPDBMAOr1K19RHZBsWlcHF1gbBQjRZY7TORtww9ZWCEY1A68PdWa5j4P-6RS7tsSVDAq0P9ztRzAZfJetr2jm9RgwBU-EETTOEQKFQZ3NhzN3UxggehdvGCYqhhIcw6UsKXLGIu8/s1600/Pictures_23.vii.2014_USNM2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTXuUvPDBMAOr1K19RHZBsWlcHF1gbBQjRZY7TORtww9ZWCEY1A68PdWa5j4P-6RS7tsSVDAq0P9ztRzAZfJetr2jm9RgwBU-EETTOEQKFQZ3NhzN3UxggehdvGCYqhhIcw6UsKXLGIu8/s1600/Pictures_23.vii.2014_USNM2.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Cretaceous map of Pangaea (According to Townsend (1942)). Note the clearly marked "Moon" attached to Oceana, which, as Terry Wheeler pointed out, <a href="https://twitter.com/ta_wheeler/status/492100183304335360">"explains those Australia-Moon sister groups." </a></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This second to last item, bot flies traveling at Mach I, has it's own story in one of the most bizarre papers ever to be published in an entomological journal. Dr. Peter Adler mentions Townsend in his Insect Morphology course, and says only two things about him. One, that he has a very strange species concept, and two, that he clocked a bot fly traveling at 800 miles per hour. Long before I started working on tachinids I was already aware that Townsend was a strange fellow.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Townsend claimed to have observed this physical impossibility in Arizona at 12,000 ft, which he described originally in the April 1926 issue of Scientific Monthly. After recieving several comments, he wrote in response in his paper titled <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/25004207">"On the Cphenemyia flight mechanism and the daylight day circuit of the Earth by flight" (1927)</a> that by traveling at this speed (815 miles per hour) one could circuit the earth in less than a day, or see two days traveling
east. "It is of extreme interest as affording a mark [466 mph] that
should be reached within the next decade; while the more remote future
holds the possibility of riding the tail of high noon or speeding on the
wings of the morning halfway between the equator and either pole. It can
not be denied that the double daylight-day westward circuit will attain
great poularity before the single daylight day circuit is realized." </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Since the vibrating wings of a fly are very different than that of a bird or a fixed wing aircraft, he gives the fly flight mechanics its own name, the "Myiopter" groundplan. Townsend proceeds to describe this groundplan in great detail, but not before inserting some off color remarks.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="content">
<span style="font-size: large;">
"Regarding the speeds of Cephenemyia, the idea of a fly overtaking a
bullet is a painful mental pill to swallow, as a friend has quaintly
written me, yet these flies can probably do that to an old-fashioned
musket ball. They could probably have kept up with the shells that the
German big-bertha shot into Paris during the world war."
</span></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">This (to use Townsend's own word) <i>quaint</i> idea was<a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/87/2254/233.full.pdf"> thoroughly debunked</a> by Nobel laureate Irving Langmuir in 1938, who brought the speed down to a more believable but still appreciable 25 miles per hour.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In the same year, Townsend published his second paper on synonymy. The first, as you may remember, was published in<a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1637296"> Science Journal (1911)</a> and was relatively optimistic. The 1927 "What constitutes synonymy?" paper is decidedly bitter and full of <i>schadenfreude</i>. I have transcribed the majority for your enjoyment:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
<div class="content">
<span style="font-size: large;">
"I have never for a moment considered [these genera] synonymous with
Hilarella. Such synonymy is quite ridiculous. As to the rest of the
world, no one competent to form an opinion had studied material, hence
no opinion existed but rather a complete indifference. Nobody cared a
snap whether these genera were synonyms or not. This forcibly
illustrates what a power lies concealed in the weapon synonymy. A
careful worker may erect valid genera and species. An ignorant or
malicious person may publish an article stating that these valid genera
and species are synonyms, and henceforth they bear the synonymic stigma.
The genera public is not competent to judge of the merits of the case,
and besides has troubles of its own. No one cares a snap about the
matter unless he is making a special study of the group in question. The
original author may publish a refutation of the synonymy. Nobody pays
any attention to him, the public not being interested, and his
refutation is quickly forgotten. Fifty years later, a competent worker
reconizes these genera and species as valid and concludes that they have
lain in the synonymy a half century. Is he technically correct in this
view?<br />Synonymy has too long masqueraded as a court of permanent and
infallible decisions. There is nothing final about synonymy[...]<br />The
synonymic pronouncements of a single individual carry weight in exact
ratio to his ability in the groups concerned. But the general public has
no means of judging of his ability. If he sets himself up as a
specialist and speaks with confident authority, the public accepts him
at his own valuation. He is henceforth at liberty to inflict his
personal opinions on a long-suffering public and to manufacture synonymy
ad libitum. This is the easiest thing in the world to accomplish as long
as the manufacturers escapes detection as a fraud. In fact, it may be
termed systematic pastime. He is knocking everything on the head right
and left as suits his fancy, while the public looks on unconcerned and
practically uninterested. He is destroyed, not building, but no one
cares except the original builder who notes the attempt to level to the
ground his laboriously erected edifices. Yet they are not really leveled
and their status is just as good as before until the synonymy in
question is abundantly endorsed [...] This strong weapon synonymy is not
to be left at the beck and call of every individual."
</span></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Upon hearing the above, my darling partner declared "Dear Sir: No one will ever recognize your
true genius, even long after you are dead" and "You mad, Bro?". The imagery of synonymy as a "weapon", of the good taxonomists as the "original builders", of the synonymizers as "knocking everything on the head" and being "destroyed, not building", and that "no one gives a snap" shows Townsend at his low point. This was, after all, just two years past the "Insider History", and before he found a way to publish the <i>Manual of Myiology</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In 1944, only two years after the final volume of the <i>Manual</i> was published, Townsend died in his home at Itaquaquecetuba. The total number of publications over his lifetime is in the hundreds, and the total count of species described is near 1500. He seemed to have burned every bridge with his former colleagues. He outlived his "bitter hatreds". Aldrich died in 1934, the "nation's greatest accumulator of dipterological information" (from Melander 1934). Coquillett had long since passed. The works of both were celebrated. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The Townsend obituary published in <i>Revista de Entomologia</i> (1943) paints him in a positive light, as a great entomologist, biologist, linguist, author, farmer, hunter of beasts, and a member of numerous scientific societies. Yet, to taxonomists who work with tachinids, he is remembered most for his ego and vandalism.</span><br />
<a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.de/2014/08/cht-townsend-vandal-of-calypterates_14.html"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</a><span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.de/2014/08/cht-townsend-vandal-of-calypterates_14.html">Epilogue</a> </i></span><br />
<div class="content">
<h1>
</h1>
</div>
Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-57795914352491152392014-07-17T09:00:00.000-04:002014-07-18T13:07:47.606-04:00CHT Townsend, Vandal of the Calypterates. Part IV.<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2014/05/cht-townsend-vandal-of-calypterates.html">IN THE LAST EPISODE</a>...we examined the short but pointed publication war between Townsend and Walton. Now we return to Townsend's "second bitter hatred", that of John Merton Aldrich.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i> </i>In 1914, Townsend returned from Peru and became the honorary custodian of muscoid diptera at the U.S. National Museum. He had just received his doctorate from Washington University and was working at the Bureau of Entomology. The plan was to quickly finish his <i>Manual of Myiology</i>, but the first volume wouldn't be published till 1934, long after he had left the U.S. Instead, Townsend was caught up in a conflict with his perceived rival, Aldrich. This can be seen in his publication output, which dropped from over 30 papers on tachinids in 1915-16 to only five in 1917, and never returned to the previous numbers. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Aldrich, also an employee of the Bureau, had recently left his job at the University of Idaho and was working in Indiana. In 1915 he published a <a href="http://chla.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=chla;cc=chla;rgn=full%20text;idno=5077679_4176_001;didno=5077679_4176_001;view=image;seq=104;node=5077679_4176_001%3A5.9;page=root;size=s;frm=frameset;">summary</a> of his 25 years collecting tachinid flies, which followed closely to Coquillett's 1898 revision. Townsend was not pleased; the paper ignored his many families of "muscoid" flies and condensed them all into a single family, Tachinidae.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It is interesting, though entirely unintentional I'm sure, that Townsend's <a href="http://chla.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=chla;cc=chla;rgn=full%20text;idno=5077679_4176_001;didno=5077679_4176_001;view=image;seq=110;node=5077679_4176_001%3A5.10;page=root;size=s;frm=frameset;">"On Proper Generic Concepts"</a> follows directly after Aldrich's paper in the same 'Annals' volume. This is yet another attempt to rally for more restricted generic concepts. Here, Townsend begins by separating all the Muscoid taxonomists into two categories, the "specialists" and "generalists". Specialists, such as Rondani, Desvoidy, and the much admired Brauer & Bergenstramm, used restricted generic concepts. Despite the many potential flaws in their work due to ignorance of internal reproductive characters, Townsend finds their work excellent. Conversely, authors such as Macquart, Schiner, van der Wulp, Walker, Bigot, and the ever hated Coquillett are all generalists, who</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"attempted to apply the same broad generic concepts to the Muscoidea that they applied to the rest of the Diptera. Without going into lengthy detail, it is enough to state that their mistakes are many and often overshadow the good contained in their results. Their misidentifications of species are extremely numerous. Their wholesale confusion of distinct generic forms was the natural result of no concise generic concepts. Almost throughout, their genera are mixed-genera. They may be said to have practically lacked muscoid generic concepts, for their generic rulings were largely arbitrary and so loose as to admit numberous foreign elements. The true explaination of all this is that they possessed only the most superficial knowledge of their subject." </span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Townsend goes on to discuss proper generic concepts, those that do not group by "transitional species." "Groups of generic stems [as of tips of a tree] that happen to be connected throughout by transitional species can not be treated as a single genus, on account of their diverse combinations of characters." The branches have not become decimated over time due to their young age, removing the "transitional stocks".</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt8BXUx_IbOHmaBEbsM4efSMR6fmHu6LwkKK05M6Kk_0DkYl_WY_Wjb7awdSwX-b0up8wc7hgioaq_cy-FcoT7iuZU3BGCypGktyT3BwuZ4-omo1h1Up0D4vy3gvEcjWpdypTNIcilybI/s1600/Townsend_16.vii.2014_RestrictedUnrestricted.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt8BXUx_IbOHmaBEbsM4efSMR6fmHu6LwkKK05M6Kk_0DkYl_WY_Wjb7awdSwX-b0up8wc7hgioaq_cy-FcoT7iuZU3BGCypGktyT3BwuZ4-omo1h1Up0D4vy3gvEcjWpdypTNIcilybI/s1600/Townsend_16.vii.2014_RestrictedUnrestricted.png" height="335" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Table from Townsend (1915) showing the pros and cons of restricted and unrestricted generic concepts.</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu6y_7NJY78b5wdz3f6Q8rUbfF0yG9tUb9Pkv9aLcT6RSD4u6l33ERxs6ijwfiiQ7hVrYMlLDaFCmk40yCfTdBejyqafGUoIcAmF3iU8dVNokGP10H1-lfHYn542K9mzTsBR8V06UleH0/s1600/Townsend_16.vii.2014_Young&OldStocks.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu6y_7NJY78b5wdz3f6Q8rUbfF0yG9tUb9Pkv9aLcT6RSD4u6l33ERxs6ijwfiiQ7hVrYMlLDaFCmk40yCfTdBejyqafGUoIcAmF3iU8dVNokGP10H1-lfHYn542K9mzTsBR8V06UleH0/s1600/Townsend_16.vii.2014_Young&OldStocks.png" height="245" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Figure from Townsend (1915) showing two "families" of tachinids with some species used for illustration of convergence and transitional species. Older, decimated stocks would have more easily delineated genera.</span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The above figures are interesting as evidence that Townsend's basic ideas were not poorly thought out. He was attempting methods to classify a very recent group of insects which had not been decimated (see Wonderful Life (Gould 1989)), and thus there were many apparently intermediate forms between what would otherwise be clearly recognizable genera. The problem isn't Townsend's justifications, it's the extremism of his taxonomic splitting and inflationism.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Though not explicitly named, Townsend probably considered Aldrich as a generalist, making a "great number of egregious blunders."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Between 1915 and 1924 we have little to mark the falling out between Aldrich and Townsend. In the earlier part of this 10 year period, it seems the two were communicating about their work on the genera <i>Imitomyia</i> and <i>Masiphyia,</i> and there is no direct evidence they were arguing behind the scenes. However, in 1918 Aldrich was moved from his post in Indiana to the Smithsonian, where he became the Curator of Diptera. Less than a year later, in March 1919, Townsend left D.C. for Peru and Ecuador, and later Brazil, to Iquaquecetuba, near Sao Paulo. There's some reason to suspect that Townsend left America because of professional conflicts with his "new boss", Aldrich. The "Inside History" makes it seem that he was fearful of Aldrich undoing his organizational work at the museum, as he quickly published notes on the collections soon after leaving.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">What Townsend does next is a bit astounding. He published two personal correspondences from Aldrich in his <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/25004062">1925 History</a>. Such a thing seems completely absurd to us now, a total breach of academic conduct and courtesy, yet, it is similar to the methods of Raymond Hoser (our contemporary, who inspired this series).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">On May 8th, 1924, Aldrich sent this letter. The context is a paper he just published with colleague Webber on a tachinid species complex. He writes: "You will not like it, because we did not recognize enough genera to suit you. I am responsible for the generic arrangement, which cost me an immense amount of work and study."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Townsend replies: "Your remark is highly significant. Instead of wasting time in an attempt to extend generic limits arbitrarily where they do not naturally fall, it is far wiser to strike a generic arrangement that shall be fairly simple and easy to follow out. Restricted genera, concisely defined, attain the greatest simplicity of treatment possible."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Aldrich responds, on August 2nd: </span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"It would be useless to undertake any general discussion of the limits of genera. I have, as I freely admit, much difficulty in determining them. You solve the problem by making a genus for almost every species, but you encounter precisely my difficulty when you start to group these genera into tribes. So you are no better off than I am, and I am trying to classify muscoids as nearly as possible on the same lines as other animals. I never did take any stock in your oft-repeated belief that muscoids require a different taxonomy."</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And, of course, hits the nail on the head. These sorts of issues will arise, no matter what rank Townsend decides is appropriate. Better to limit taxonomic inflation than to let the field become grossly distended with monospecific genera. But of course Townsend sees this differently.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br />"The work of Aldrich is destructive rather than constructive. He is attempting to relegate to the synonymy as many of Townsend's restricted muscoid genera as possible, with the sole aim of vindicating his own original commitment to broad categories. It is a pity that he is so unreceptive to progressive ideas and holds so stubbornly to long-exploded concepts. He refuses absolutely to change his ideas in the light of new facts. It is evident that his work will suffer proportionately in consequence. He has a better eye than Coquillett had for muscoid characters, but he persists in ignoring important characters which Townsend has pointed out, partly from prejudice and partly from the difficulty of interpreting them."</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Remember, he's writing in the third person, about a professional colleague, in a professional journal. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The ego-train continues:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"The numerous dicta put forth by Aldrich would be interesting if true, but the trouble is that no dependence can be placed on them. They are simply the individual prejudiced opinions of a man who is unable to learn because he will not keep a receptive mind."</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And:</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"Townsend harbors no animosity toward any one, for life is too short to waste in animosities. He writes this himself, standing off as a detached and impartial observer, contemplating his own work as though it belonged to another, and exposing this inside history only in the interests of fair play and a square deal."</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">You get the idea. He has an ego as tall as the Washington Monument, and a lack of decorum to match.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The drawn out rant finally concludes:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"Such is a brief outline of the work on muscoid taxonomy in North America to date, involving also recent work in South America. Younger students are arising, from whom we may expect much. Let the keep an open mind, for a closed mind is a fatal fault in an investigator. Let them beware of prejudices and commit themselves only to a search for truth. They, will then not be faced by the alternative of retraction, or continuance on a mistaken course."</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">All of this was published, March 1925, in the Journal of the New York Entomological Society.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In 1926, the Society's publication committee received a letter signed by 23 American entomologists, including John Merton Aldrich. It was published as follows:</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"To the Publication Committee, New York Entomological Society.<br />The undersigned wish to express their great surprise and regret that you should have published in your Journal the article by [Townsend] [...] This article is in substance a bitter and uncalled for attack upon [Aldrich], a man of high standing, who is greatly respected both as a man and an entomologist. Dr. Aldrich's criticisms of Dr. Townsend's work in his studies of the Muscoidea have always been justifiable and were an honest endeavor to reach the truth. No one could do as much on this group as Dr. Aldrich has done and criticize Townsend less. Therefore we earnestly desire that you make it known in the next issue of the Journal that you greatly regret the publication of this article and extend to Dr. Aldrich your sincere apology."</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">With which the Publication Committee also published a reply: "[The Committee] regrets any hard feeling has been aroused and all of use feel that Townsend went too far. In fact, it seems to us that he spoiled his won case, if he has one, by indulging in personalities."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Townsend, the purported "insider historian", never returned to North America.</span><br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Concluded in Part V.</span></i>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-44763249855006195462014-07-08T16:45:00.000-04:002014-07-08T16:46:06.098-04:00Canfield - Field Notes on Science and Nature<span style="font-size: large;">Just what is the best way to record and organize my research notes? I've long been interested in answering this question. On the first day of my master's degree, I started a bound notebook (I love the squared, softcover Moleskine notebooks), and used it for caddisfly-exclusive notes. In particular, the notebook filled with sketches, observations, and thoughts pertaining to my work on the genus <i>Cheumatopsyche</i>. When I started my PhD program, I did the same for my tachinid research. I also keep a Grinnel-style triad of field journal, catalog, and species accounts for any field work and dragonfly observations. These are less often used, as I spend most of my time in the lab looking at dead specimens under the microscope.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I had been meaning to read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Field-Science-Nature-Michael-Canfield/dp/0674057570">Field Notes on Science and Nature</a> for several years now, and finally just got around to it. The book is a mixed collection of biologists, anthropologists, and geologists, writing about their methods of taking notes in the field (whatever "the field" might be). The individual chapters are accompanied by photographs of the actual field notes, so you get both the text explanation of methods as well as a visual example. The primary methods of these researchers range from the above mentioned Grinnel system, to more informal collections of notes and drawings, to careful logs of stratigraphy, to the completely electronic recording system of insect taxonomist Piotr Nasrecki.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">However, the overall feel is less that of a textbook on field work and more artbook-slash-nature journal. Most of the chapter authors supply prose accounts of exciting field observations, particularly those working with large mammals. And the journals in themselves are both art and historical artifacts; they carry information, but are also pleasant to look at.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">One theme stretching through the work that seemed most important to me was that "the field" is not necessarily out in nature. It can be, in many people's research, simply in the presence of potentially living specimens. For me, viewing specimens at the microscope is "the field", and the notebook in which I record my observations is my "field journal". Another point many authors made was that observations should be recorded as soon as possible, in a permanent method which other people can use in the future. Who knows what piece of information may be useful?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I appreciated these and other suggestions on design and maintinance of field notes, including Jenny Keller's heuristic for drawing biological specimens in the chapter "Why Sketch?". I have been illustrating genitalia for some time now, but I have no formal art training, so some of her methods were completely unknown to me.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I recommend this book for anyone who does natural history research, because, even if you have already found your perfect method, you will appreciate the diversity of approaches to keeping notes in the field.</span>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-51248636364709309782014-05-22T17:15:00.000-04:002014-05-22T17:16:04.628-04:00CHT Townsend, Vandal of the Calypterates. Part III.<span style="font-size: large;"><i><a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2014/01/cht-townsend-vandal-of-calypterates_20.html">When we left off</a>, in 1908, Aldrich's review of Williston's Manual of North American Diptera marked the "second bitter hatred" against Townsend. We leave Aldrich for a time and focus now on the events marking the "third bitter hatred" of William R. Walton.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">That same year, Townsend began his work on the reproductive system of tachinid flies. This would lead to his doctorate in 1914 at George Washington University. A <a href="http://chla.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=chla;cc=chla;rgn=full%20text;idno=5077679_4172_002;didno=5077679_4172_002;view=image;seq=0037;node=5077679_4172_002%3A3.2">preliminary summary of this research</a> was published in 1911. At the same time, he was taking collecting trips to Peru, and becoming increasingly disturbed by a large number of his names being relegated to synonymy. This resulted in the paper "<a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1637296?origin=JSTOR-pdf">On Muscoid and Especially Tachinid Synonymy</a>" (June 1911).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This particular paper is not recounted in Townsend's <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25004062?uid=3739840&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103333805967">1925 history</a>, but it is interesting for reasons beyond the content and timing. One, it is the first of two papers he published on the topic of synonymy, the other in 1927. And second, the journal is Science, which shows you how much that journal has changed over the past century, and how far taxonomy has fallen. At that time taxonomy was still considered a worthy and important pursuit by the majority of scientists, and a worker as prolific as Townsend was a superstar. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Aside from the mixed criticism of Aldrich and Coquillett, and praise for Brauer and Bergenstaumm, there are some opinions that seem ironic in the context of his own work. He calls for the careful examination of types, and wishes for it to lead onto synonymy. He writes,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"The statement that I am going to make now will probably astonish some people, but I can truthfully say that I would be greatly pleased to see half the generic and specific names that have been proposed in the Muscoidea safely relegated to the synonymy where they could rest undisturbed and buried forever, with no hope of a resurrection, a goodly sprinkling of my own among the number; but such a considerable reduction of names is hardly possible of realization. Looking toward a consummation of final synonymy, however, I shall hope to accomplish in the next few years some portion of the work necessary to this end, during the course of which I here pledge my word that those generic and specific names of my own making will receive the same impartial treatment at my hands as all others. My one wish in this matter is to secure certainty before putting a name into the synonymy. The making of incorrect synonymy is a much more serious taxonomic offense than proposing further names for forms already named. In the latter case the forms can always be definitely referred to by means of the names that have been bestowed upon them, but in the former case serious confusion is certain to ensue."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Indeed, it is astonishing. Without context, the writer would seem to be inclined towards synonymy and stability of nomenclature, but as Townsend's history and future shows, he is anything but.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">1911 also marks the death of Daniel W. Coquillett, the man who, if you recall, was the "first bitter hatred against Townsend". Freed of Coquillett's reaction, Townsend published his "Readjustment of muscoid names" (1912), in which he claims that "dipterological nomenclature is getting a severe shaking up, and the Muscoidea comes in for their share." It was a victory dance of sorts.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Unfortunately, and possibly unbeknownst to Townsend, William R. Walton
had become friends with Coquillett shortly before his death. He became,
as Townsend put it in his history, Coquillett's "staunch defender".</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">At the November 7th meeting of the Entomological Society of Washington, Walton presented a paper "<span class="st">The variation of structural characters used in the classification of some muscoidean flies" (published in the Proceedings (1913)). He argued against the use of "characteristic bristles" as the main source of generic differences within calypterate fly classification, which Townsend and others had used to great effect. These include the number of hairs in lines on the thorax and the abdomen, and the apparent hairiness of the eyes. While some of these hair-based characters are conserved across lineages, others vary within species or even populations. Numbers and size of hairs can also be linked with the amount of food a larva receives during it's development, or the sex of the individual. Thus, Walton gives 4 recommendations:</span></span><br />
<span class="st" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="st" style="font-size: large;">"a. The erection of a genus on a single example of either is folly and should not be permitted.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="st" style="font-size: large;">b. The proposal of a new species on a single specimen or series representing only one sex is inadvisable.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="st" style="font-size: large;">c. The creation of either a genus or species on solely chaetotactic characters without a careful study of ample material is unwise</span><span style="font-size: large;">. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="st" style="font-size: large;">d. The variants of a species should be conserved under species name until good and sufficient evidence is adduced prove they are otherwise. The splitting of species in the genus <i>Lucilia</i> as practiced by Mr. Townsend is a negative example what is here meant."</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">These are actually <b><i>very good</i></b> recommendations, still so 100 years later but especially so in the early 20th century. It was common back then to describe new species (or genera!) based on a single specimen, or on a series of one sex. For example, the male of <i>Eucelatoria</i> <i>gladiatrix</i> was originally described as <i>Proroglutea pilligera</i>; the female was named <i>Xiphomyia gladiatrix</i>. Both were from single specimens (and both by Townsend). Careful taxonomy is what Walton is asking for, and Townsend was considered to be a prime offender. He closes,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"It seems possible that the studies of the internal anatomy of these flies upon which Mr. CHT Townsend is at present working may eventually prove useful as an index to group relations. But the mass of undigested facts, near facts, and conjecture with which he is at present deluging the devoted heads of his confreres will require an immense amount of elucidation, rearrangement, and generous elimination before becoming available for use. To conclude, there is great need of careful rearings of species belonging to homogeneous groups, from known parents, for the purpose of studying variation of structure, color, and size within the species and, failing which our knowledge of the true relations of the Muscoidean flies will never extend much beyond its present meager limits." </span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Townsend was quick to respond, and fired off three papers on taxonomic theory before the end of 1913. The first of these, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=gO00AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA119&lpg=PA119&dq=criticism+and+muscoid+taxonomy&source=bl&ots=7U_u-SIQCS&sig=VvJ4mzXpn2CtN9XOk_hWCgUw5iw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Dmd-U_C_IYmD8AHsx4CoDQ&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=criticism%20and%20muscoid%20taxonomy&f=false">"Criticism and Muscoid taxonomy"</a>, is a direct rebuttal to Walton's paper. Townsend appreciated Walton's dissection of variable characters, but disagreed with Walton's recommendations, especially the first. Walton is declared "a champion of Mr. Coquillett's work on muscoid flies", and that "time will fully demonstrate whatever merit that work may possess, and no one's commendation can increase its merit one whit." "Beginners" and "new students" are clearly not suited to make these judgements, and should wait until they have enough experience before they do. Townsend, in his own opinion, is the expert. Any may come and join him, there is more than enough work to be done; "no one need harbor petty jealousy of another's work." Townsend concludes, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"It is unwise and unseemly for a beginner in a difficult subject to ridicule good work done by his predecessors. Caustic comment has no legitimate place in taxonomic literature, and solves no problems. In the minds of all right-thinking persons such comment serves no other purpose than to reflect on the commentator. I bespeak a spirit of cordial cooperation on the part of my confreres. Such spirit will be both highly appreciated and warmly reciprocated."</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">That is, as long as his "confreres" fall in line with his cherished taxonomic opinions. All are welcome, but know I am the ultimate authority. This line was laid out in his next paper, <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/esa/aesa/1913/00000006/00000002/art00006">"A new application of taxonomic principles"</a>, which is a rambling and convoluted account of his "typic-atypic" system. I honestly can't make any sense of it, except that it seems like he is proposing a taxonomic unit between genus and subtribe. Perhaps this is an early formulation of his "natural genus" concept (see Part I for a full explanation).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The final 1913 paper, <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/25003580">"Notes on Exoristidae"</a> is full of the same haughty language, same mixed criticism and judgement upon other workers seen in the above 1911 paper. He praises Walton for his attention to detail and illustrations, and equally condemns Coquillett, calling the former works "constructive" and the latter works "destructive". Townsend writes, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"What is needed in the Muscoidea and especially in the Exoristidae [i.e., the subfamily Exoristinae of Tachinidae] and more nearly allied families, is an intensive study of the numerous forms thoroughly and conscientiously carried through, without bias and with that keen adjustment of character values and natural appreciation of phylogenetic relations which stamp the master zoölogist. Each one of us must strive as best he can to attain this result."</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Among the "destructive" poseurs and the "creative" "master zoölogists", it is clear from Townsend's writing where he thought himself to stand.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In 1914, Walton published a scathing rebuttal to the "Notes on Exoristidae" and Townsend's opinions of Coquillett in general. He titled it <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/25003609">"On the Work of the Late Daniel W. Coquillett and Others"</a>, but it's clear from the first sentence that the whole and entire target is Townsend. What follows is a catalog of errors, from outright mistakes in descriptions of type specimens (legs cannot be both "not yellow" and "wholly yellow"), to imagined microscopic characters and overlooked obvious characters, to the large number of Townsend names that had been rightfully sunk into oblivion. It also contains more than a few beautiful burns, including my favorite:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"It would seem that the possession of "that keen judgement of character values and natural appreciation of phylogenetic relations," cannot preserve even a "master zoologist" from palpable error when he does take sufficient care to see what is visible."</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Ouch.</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The whole work is delightful and worth a read (free at the JSTOR link above), especially the final words:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i> </i></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"</i>But I conceive these criticisms would much better be said now, while the subject of them is present to explain this position, than in some distant future, when time shall have sealed his lips and stayed his busy pen forever. His fine command of English and evident scholarship will then avail him nothing, if some surviving, or perhaps yet unborn student rise up and brand his work <i>destructive.</i>"</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Thank you, Mr. Walton, for predicting that piece of irony. We are doing just that. Indeed, my current research hinges upon fixing at least part of Townsend's <i>destructive</i> <i>mess</i>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">As far as I am aware, no more shots were fired between Townsend and Walton in public. The 1925 history reports, "Here was born a third hatred of Townsend which became very bitter until it was fortunately dispelled a few years later." He does not record anything more.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Meanwhile, the conflict between Townsend and his US National Museum supervisor John Merton Aldrich was intensifying.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Continued in Part IV</i>.</span></span>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-8911225743672870112014-04-14T10:08:00.000-04:002014-04-14T10:08:00.583-04:00This is not a post about nomenclature.<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">This is not a post about insects, or insect genitalia, or another round in the Vandal of the Calypterates series (but the next one of that is coming, I promise!).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This is a deeply personal thing I am going to talk about, which is entirely uncharacteristic for me and what I like to post here. Sure, I get rant-y about ICZNerdery, or t<a href="http://www.nature.com/news/natural-decline-1.14966">he latest round of "the Naturalists are Dying Out"</a>. These are all par for the course, have been since the beginning of this blog. I share my love of, say, <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2013/11/caddisfly-weirdos.html">weird caddisfly life histories</a> and get excited about it, because that's something I enjoy doing. I try to keep more personal things off this blog because (a) I don't especially <i>enjoy</i> sharing personal parts of my life, (b) the name is Trichopterology, not Facebook 2.0, and (3) the personal stuff is none of your business. But I feel this is important, so I'm breaking the rules.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This is going to be a post about transpeople in science and academia. Because I'm a transwoman.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I realize this will be a shock to some people. Other people will share knowing smiles. The majority of the academics will not care, and that is the point of this post: being trans in academia, at least in the biological sciences, seems to be becoming a non-issue. And the more visible transpeople are, the more of a non-issue it will become. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">When I came out to my first colleague here at Wright State last year, I was terrified. I'm not going to repeat standard introductory conversations on transpeople and gender identity, there are a multitude of primers out there in the InterWebz. <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=trans+101">Just Google it</a>. What I will say is that transpeople are not exactly treated well by society in general, and our tendency is to expect the worse of any social situation in which we out ourselves. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">To my surprise and relief, my colleague was accepting and has been a huge ally. I told more people I felt I could trust, and not one of them rejected me. Some of them had guessed ahead of time. Others were excited for me. The majority were interested, supportive, and quite frankly, treated me like normal. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">When I made my gender identity public to the department in early March, my anxiety was decreasing. Graduate students and faculty, with few exceptions, had positive reactions. Many knew or knew of <a href="http://www.stanford.edu/group/roughlab/">Joan Roughgarden</a>, an evolutionary biologist who transitioned in the late nineties. Some had personal experiences with trans or other queer people. I found friendships had actually <i>strengthened </i>due to my trust. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps I live a charmed life, that my experience is special, not normal. My university includes gender identity and expression under the non-discrimination clause, which means that faculty and staff have to respect my identity, regardless of their personal feelings. My department is a close knit group of open minded ecologists and evolutionary biologists with a wide array of life experiences. In the unlikely event I am ever harassed, the university will respond quickly to fix the problem. Many transpeople cannot claim the same about their university or department. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Yet, I cannot see how my experience is completely unique. One of the most wonderful results of my coming out was being invited to a small panel by women faculty for women graduate students. When I asked about my opportunities for finding a job as a transwoman, the faculty members responded that I shouldn't worry about it, that the real issue is the <i>community </i>surrounding the university, and not the university itself. I may not want to live somewhere due to the hostility of the college town, but the university should be a non-issue. These things are improving.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The recent <a href="http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/articles/10.1038/nj7482-249a">"Queer in STEM" survey suggests that this improvement comes from visibility</a>. When queer people are out and visible in university departments, they become role models and create an environment which makes other queer people, including graduate students, feel more comfortable and welcome. It's so easy to focus on the negative aspects of my situation. Sometimes I feel my transition is selfish, that I am "creating drama" by asking people to change their pronoun and name usage, that I am making things more difficult not only for myself but also for other people. But I also feel that by being visible I am showing other students that they don't have to feel anxious about their identities. I can be that role model. I can relay my positive experiences. In the words of the Trevor Project, "It gets better". It is getting better.</span><br />
<br />
<i>Thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/BioInFocus">Morgan Jackson</a> for his advice and encouragement, and to <a href="http://labandfield.wordpress.com/2014/01/19/where-are-canadas-queer-scientists/">this post</a> by Alex Bond for getting the brain juices flowing.</i> <i>Stay tuned for normal programming.</i>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-27704945604927057612014-01-20T10:00:00.000-05:002014-05-22T17:20:07.701-04:00CHT Townsend, Vandal of the Calypterates. Part II.<span style="font-size: large;"><i>When we left off in <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2014/01/cht-townsend-vandal-of-calypterates.html">Part I</a>, John Merton Aldrich had just written some mixed comments about Townsend's work before 1905. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> At this point, it's necessary to skip to an article 20 years later. Literature trains are often hard to follow, especially in the old literature. But we can see the events before 1925 play out through Townsend's eyes, in his inflammatory piece <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25004062?uid=3739840&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103291408157">"The Inside History of North American Myiology"</a>. Myiology being the term he coins for the study of calypterate, or muscoid, flies. He writes,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"The history of this subject in the United States has unfortunately been characterized by a petty spirit of rivalry and jealousy for the past three decades. This, perhaps the most difficult subject as regards taxonomy, meriting on this very account the most concerted and amicable relations among its students, has met with the exact opposite during its development in North America."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> The entire paper is written in the third person, as if Townsend's history is being recounted by someone else. Another testament to his ego and arrogance. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Townsend's history begins with a short list of insect taxonomists leading up to 1888, saying that "thus far there was no spirit of rivalry or jealousy on this side of the Atlantic." At that time he was a clerical assistant to C.V Riley in the Bureau of Entomology, Washington D.C. He was very much interested in beetles and true bugs, but not true flies (Diptera). However, at the insistence of his supervisor, he took up work on the group. Later he was "grateful, for no other possible group of organisms</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">could have proved so fecund of interest in his [Townsend's] eyes, considered from all points of view." In 1891 he left D.C. for a university job in New Mexico. Evenhuis suggests in his biography that the glowing recommendations Townsend received from Riley may have been an early indication of his difficultness, that "Riley wanted him out of D.C."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Townsend's first direct criticism is not of Aldrich, but of a contemporary, prolific, and recently deceased taxonomist, Daniel William Coquillett (1856-1911). Townsend writes that Coquillett had an interest in calypterate flies but</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"little opportunity to indulge his desire for study of the subject. He chafed under the restriction and developed a bitter hatred of Townsend and his work; a hatred which he nursed diligently until his death, and which prohibited him even from conversing with Townsend except under circumstances of the direst necessity." </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> He claims that Coquillett's hatred was made clear in the 1897 <a href="https://archive.org/details/revisionoftachin00coqu">"Revision of the Tachinidae of America North of Mexico"</a>, where Coquillett synonymized most of Townsend's genera with earlier names. This "hatred" seems to be a deep reading of Coquillett's unwillingness to correspond with Townsend, as the "Revision" does not have any spiteful comments that I can see. Yet Townsend takes a victorious view of the situation, stating "[Coquillett's] pronouncements, like the whole fabric of his work, are falling apart and away as investigation progresses in the groups he treated." Townsend claims,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"During all of this time and up to the last, Townsend harbored no animosity toward Coquillett and would have been glad at any time to converse with him on muscoid work, but found him so unapproachable that he would not even answer questions couched in the most courteous terms and offered in the most friendly spirit. The animosity of Coquillett brought a handful of animosities in its train."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> The first of these "animosities" is John Merton Aldrich. As noted in <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2014/01/cht-townsend-vandal-of-calypterates.html">Part I</a>, Aldrich's Catalogue has mixed comments about Townsend, both praising him for his species descriptions and chastising him for his strict following of Brauer and Bergenstaumm genera. Townsend condemned Aldrich for strictly following Coquillett's revision, calling it a "fatal mistake", that the "manifold errors" and ridicule towards Townsend were so extreme that "he felt he could not gracefully retract after [Townsend] began to point out in a wholly impartial manner the errors that had been perpetuated in the catalogue." This must have been a private correspondence, as Townsend did not publish his comments at the time.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> In 1908, the dipterist Samuel Wendell Williston published the third edition of his <a href="https://archive.org/details/manualofnorthame00will">"Manual of North American Diptera"</a>. He had contracted Townsend for help with the Tachinidae, as Coquillett was unwilling, who took the opportunity to describe a few new genera, as he was wont to do. The same year, Townsend published <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=xFrTXz81LZsC&lpg=PP1&ots=6JzoSbskHk&dq=The%20taxonomy%20of%20the%20muscoidean%20flies&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=The%20taxonomy%20of%20the%20muscoidean%20flies&f=false">"The Taxonomy of the Muscoidean Flies"</a>. In this work he quotes Williston on tachinids:</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"We yet know very little about individual variation in this family, or the real value of many characters now used. The absence or presence of a bristle may be found to represent a group of species, but we should first learn how constant the character is in species. * * * Seriously, is not the stock of Tachinid genera significantly large for the present? Would it not be better to study species more before making every trivial character the basis for a new genus? --Insect life, vol. v (1892-93), pg. 238-40."</span></blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> To that, I say "hear hear!" But to Townsend, it was motivation to have a discussion on "intermediates" and "intergradants" (forms that connect genera and species, respectively). He used the abundance of intermediate forms as justification to devalue the rank of genus, writing,</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"The only possibility of successfully systematizing the superfamily [tachinids, under his system], so that its myriads of forms can be designated definitely by name, lies in the recognition of genera founded upon comparatively slight characters -- slight compared with those recognized as the standard in the older and less specialized superfamilies."</span></blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> This was not quite the concept of a "natural genus" from his later years, but it does shed light onto his massive output of generic names in tachinid flies, and how he justified it at the time.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Aldrich was undoubtedly displeased with this continued taxonomic vandalism. His growing opinions of Townsend became quite clear in his <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1635620">1909 review of Williston's Manual</a>. He writes of Townsend's involvement:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"Dr. Williston, wishing the criticism of a specialist on this difficult group, and being unable to secure the assistance of Mr. Coquillett, asked Mr. C. H. T. Townsend to prepare notes on the figures. This was unfortunate, as Mr. Townsend's ideas of genera are extremely radical; it naturally happened that his notes only serve to confuse the subject. He, however, seized the opportunity to erect a few new genera on the figures, which was the more out of place and uncalled for since he promised fuller descriptions in a forthcoming paper. Would that he had reserved his adumbrations in their entirety!"</span></blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Later, Townsend would consider these "acrid remarks" the "birth of a second bitter hatred" towards himself. The second after Coquillett, soon to be followed by a third.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2014/05/cht-townsend-vandal-of-calypterates.html"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Continued in Part III</i>.</span></a>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-11238613161758292232014-01-13T10:00:00.000-05:002014-01-20T17:31:03.314-05:00CHT Townsend, Vandal of the Calypterates. Part I.<span style="font-size: large;">I've received a lot of feedback about my post about Call to Comments. Most of it has been considerate and helpful. There was one case of a sockpuppet by a certain someone, but it's no matter. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">What does bother me is it seems like people are interpreting the post to be about the <i>Spracklandus </i>case when it isn't. I used the background of that case as an example, a dispute containing both bad taxonomy and thrown insults, something which has been happening since the beginning of nomenclature. I also used it because I find nomenclature fascinating, to the point where I lay away at night thinking about the ins and outs of the Code. And, because I love taxonomy, and history, and because the recentness of this case meant it was well cataloged. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But I could have used any number of historical disputes, including the focus of this series, Charles Henry Tyler Townsend, or CHT Townsend for short.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I am not, unlike in Neal Evenhuis's excellent and overly kind biography of the man (found in <a href="http://www.nadsdiptera.org/News/FlyTimes/issue50.pdf">this issue of Fly Times</a>), going to recount Townsend's life. Instead, I'm going to focus on his controversial work with calypterate flies, and how in many ways he left things worse than when he started.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Townsend's chosen group, those true flies belonging to the monophyletic lineage Calypterata, contains common insects such as the house fly (Muscidae), flesh flies (Sarcophagidae), and blue bottle flies (Calliphoridae), as well as the less common but more horrific bot flies (Oestridae). But the most diverse calypterate group are the <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2013/03/trichoptera-to-tachinidae.html">tachinids</a>, estimated to be the largest group of Diptera surpassing even crane fly (Tipulidae) species numbers.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Dr. Townsend chose these flies as his specialty, particularly tachinids. By the time of his doctorate on calypterate female physiology (1914), he was pouring himself into the work that would eventually become the <i>Manual of Myiology</i> (1936-1941). That many volume set of keys and descriptions is still used today when dealing with the South American fauna.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Unfortunately, Townsend was unconventional or downright radical when it came to his taxonomy. Monty Wood of the Canadian National Collection, a world expert on tachinid flies, told me Townsend's work and opinions were simply an example of his ego and arrogance. The problem that set South American tachinid taxonomy back a century stem from one particular issue, his species concept, which lead to his tendency to split taxa <i>ad infinitum</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In his<a href="http://www.pensoft.net/journals/zookeys/article/5132/history-of-tachinid-classification-diptera-tachinidae-"> history of tachinid fly classification</a>, Jim O'Hara writes,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"The restricted genera of Townsend were based on the author’s concept of a “physiological genus”, defined as a “natural genus” comprising “all those species which can produce fertile crosses” (Townsend 1935: 38). As noted by van Emden (1945: 389–390), “the adoption of [this] principle implies the application of the generic unit to every unit considered to be a species in general zoological practice”. One can learn, explained Townsend (1935: 56), “to make a complete description of a fly genus and its genotype [type species] in one hour for one sex and an hour and a half for both sexes”. The ideal number of members within each of the categories of genus, tribe, family, suborder and order was set at five (Townsend 1935: 60–61). In practise Townsend rarely included more than one species per genus and throughout his career described 1491 genera and 1555 species (Arnaud 1958), with approximately 85% of the genera belonging to the Tachinidae."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> In other words, 95% of his genera were monospecific.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">My current work with tachinids is not my first contact with Townsend's <i>modus operandi</i>. In one of his Insect Morphology lectures, Peter Adler of Clemson University would recount this strange methodology, saying that a difference in structure indicated a new genus, and a difference in color meant a new species. Townsend recorded all this information on index cards in a card filing system. Whenever he found something he considered new, he would reference the system, and fill out a new card. He also had a tendency to split the higher classification, leading to a grand total of 7 families and ~90 tribes of the current Tachinidae. This volume of new taxa matches what we would today consider to be taxonomic vandalism. It did not help matters that his descriptions were much like others of the day, paragraph length and lacking any illustrations. His keys, both in the <i>Manual of Myiology</i> and his <i>Synopse dos generos muscoideos da regiao humida tropical da America </i>(1927), were not much better; they are hundreds of couplets long and practically unusable, yet necessary works when wading through the vast fauna of the Neotropics.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Other tachinid workers reacted much in the same way you would expect: they synonymized names. In particular, this was a drawn out feud between Townsend and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Merton_Aldrich">John Merton Aldrich</a>, a prolific Diptera taxonomist and Associate Curator of Insects at the US National Museum from 1918 until his death in 1934. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It's not clear when the argument started. By the time Aldrich published his<a href="http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/1681#/summary"> catalog of North American Diptera</a> (1905), Townsend had published 84 papers on true flies. This list of publications fills up 6 pages of the catalog, more than any other author. He comments on one, writing, "An attempt to interpret Van der Wulp's too brief diagnoses, without the material to throw any particular light on them; an altogether superfluous piece of meddling. The changes of generic names are both uncalled for." He also calls attention to Townsend's strict following of Brauer and Bergenstaumm genera, yet praises Townsend for his species descriptions, writing, "The specific descriptions of Townsend are conscientious and faithful, and among the most recognizable of any in the family."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">There were obviously no hard feelings at this point, but over the next 20 years their relationship of shared interest would become seriously strained by Townsend's public and often unprofessional reactions to Aldrich's work, and vice versa.</span><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2014/01/cht-townsend-vandal-of-calypterates_20.html">Continued in Part II.</a></span></i> Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-33384535041190968112014-01-08T10:00:00.000-05:002014-01-08T10:00:01.839-05:00The Impartiality Ethic.<span style="font-size: large;"> Among my many current projects, including a preliminary exam, I'm writing a novel. I was convinced by a colleague to join in the National Novel Writing Month goal back in November, and have managed to put nearly 20 thousand words into an original story. Since I write what I know, the story is about grad students, imposter syndrome, taxonomy, ICZNerdery, and natural history in a world where names have power. It will probably never see the light of day, but I did want to mention one thing. In the story, the idea of Universality of Names is taken very seriously. Since names have power, and the precision of that power is derived in part from universal usage, the process of naming is heavily regulated. There's even an analog of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, which is both an arbitrator of disputes and a governing body. The Commission of that world polices the usage of names, to the point where people who do their work poorly are stripped from the books.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /> The Commission of <i>this</i> world, does not.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This is an important distinction, and lies at the heart of the matter I want to discuss. The Commission does not police names, it is solely an arbitrator of disputes. If the taxonomy of a particular paper is bad science, yet the names are otherwise available under The Code, it is not the place of the Commissioners to act upon it. That is, as things are now.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In the latest edition of the Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature, Commissioners Yanega and Harvey published a <a href="http://iczn.org/node/40405">Call for Comments about "Taxonomic Practice and the Code"</a>. Before I dive into that, let's look at why we're talking about it in the first place. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Taxonomy has a history of people with an itch, an itch to name things. And not just a need to name things, but to have one's own name be associated with those things forever. It comes from the formal practice of writing the name of the author and the date of the publication after a scientific name. The term "<i>mihi</i>-itch" is sometimes used to describe this affliction, as <i>mihi</i> is Latin for "mine; of me" (see <a href="http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2008/f/zt01890p068.pdf">Neal Evenhuis 2008 paper </a>for a full history of the term). And they will often let the ends justify the means (including bad taxonomy).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> This is not new (cf.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_Wars"> the bone wars</a> of the 19th century for an extreme example), yet the recent explosion of journals and other easy routes of publication have enabled those with this "disorder". Furthermore, there's no requirement in The Code for science of any kind. The Code is "theory-free", it makes no comments on how to do taxonomy. In the introduction of the Fourth Edition, the late W.D.L. Ride writes, "The Code refrains from infringing upon taxonomic judgement, which must not be made subject to regulation or restraint." Nor is there a requirement in The Code that nomenclatural acts be peer reviewed, a relatively new academic invention. This hands-off attitude is important because, as arbitrators, the Commissioners must remain neutral in the cases they are hearing. The Code of Ethics in Appendix A states: '7. The observation of these principles is a matter for the proper feelings and conscience of individual zoologists, and the Commission is not empowered to investigate or rule upon alleged breaches of them.' All of this means that those with the <i>mihi</i>-itch do unwanted things that are outside the ability of the Commission to arbitrate upon.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The impetus for this particular discussion is a case submitted by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Hoser">Ramond Hoser of Australia.</a> Hoser is a herpetologist who has become infamous in taxonomy for what <a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2013/06/20/taxonomic-vandalism-and-raymond-hoser/">Darren Naish calls "taxonomic vandalism"</a>, and what I have heard others call "taxonomic inflation", or even hyperbolize as "taxonomic terrorism". The method is simple: Produce publications with a large number of <i>nomina nova</i> in the hope that some of them will pay out and actually be valid. In his recent paper <a href="http://iczn.org/sites/iczn.org/files/The%20Taxon%20Filter-open%20access.pdf">"The Taxon Filter"</a>, Hinrich Kaiser writes, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"...Hoser uses the Code as a ‘name-laundering scheme’: his mass-produced names go in and ‘clean’ names come out. The more names that are put through the system, the greater is the likelihood that some will by coincidence stand if science eventually produces supporting facts. None of these names have a rigorous scientific foundation..."</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> So, the overall quality of work is poor. However, as long as the<i> </i>new names follow the <i>letter</i> of the Code, the names are still available. And if a few of the names which satisfy availability end up being new to science, they're valid. In which case occurred <a href="http://www.smuggled.com/AJHI7.pdf">when he happened to raise cobra (<i>Najas</i>) subgenera in a scoop of other taxonomists in his own self edited journal.</a> In particular, his genus <i>Spracklandus</i> was valid, and not just as a potential classification scheme, but in the exact manner these other taxonomists were working to publish as subgenera. Needless to say, Wallach, W</span><span style="font-size: large;">üster, and Broadly were not please, and<a href="http://www.academia.edu/1475897/Wallach_V._W._Wuster_and_D.G._Broadley_2009_In_praise_of_subgenera_taxonomic_status_of_cobras_of_the_genus_Naja_Laurenti_Serpentes_Elapidae_._Zootaxa_2236_26-36"> published their own revision of the subgenera later that year.</a> The three authors named the subgenus <i>Afronaja</i>, and claimed the Hoser publication was not available under the code because it was not properly published. They write,</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"Although Hoser claims the existence of a printed version of his journal, we have found evidence of only one single copy, deposited in the Australian National Library (ANL). [...] On 9 May 2009, one of us (VW) recieved printed copies of all the issues of the Australasian Journal of Herpetology. Unlike the ANL copy of Issue 7, all these issues are printed on one side only, and give the appearance of having been printed on demand at the same time: all have a pair of longitudinal white lines along the midline of the entire page: issue 1 has the lines spaced about 2 mm apart but all the other issues have the lines spaced 5 mm apart, suggesting that they were printed at the same time. These lines are not present in the ANL copy of Issue 7. All the issues received by us are bound by a single large staple in the upper, left hand corner. We conclude that the Australasian Journal of Herpetology is an online publication that fails to fulfill the requirements of Articles 8.1.3 and 8.6, any printed copies are printed on demand and therefore do not constitute published work under the provisions of Article 9.7, and the electronic versions available from Hoser's website are not published under the provisions of Article 9.8."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> To make the rest of the story short, <a href="http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom/2013-May/077495.html">Hoser claimed the authors were frauds</a>, saying, <a href="http://www.thescienceforum.com/biology/28524-uk-us-academics-caught-out-doing-scientific-fraud-snakes-grass.html">"</a></span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.thescienceforum.com/biology/28524-uk-us-academics-caught-out-doing-scientific-fraud-snakes-grass.html">the men chose not to look in the one place that the Zoological Rules said hard copies should be sent to, namely <i>Zoological Record".</i></a> (Which makes it seem like he isn't as familiar as he considers himself, since there is no provision in The Code requiring copies to be sent to the publication <i>Zoological Record</i>, only a recommendation.) People are now confused about which revision to use, and cobras are, as you might guess, medically important snakes. If the journal was published hardcopy, <i>Spracklandus</i> is available, and <i>Afronaja</i> is a junior objective synonym, and invalid. If the journal was not published hardcopy, "Spracklandus" is unavailable, and <i>Afronaja </i>is the valid name. All of this is the subject of <a href="http://iczn.org/node/40371">Case 3601 <i>Spracklandus </i>Hoser, 2009.</a> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b> And whatever decision comes out of that case is irrelevant to me. Before Mr. Hoser or any of his friends descend upon my blog like locusts to grain, I work on insects, not snakes, I have no stake in this. I don't care if the subgenus is named <i>Afronaja</i> or <i>Spracklandus</i>. Whatever the Commissioners decide is fine by me. I do find Hoser's journal atrocious and taxonomic methods (or lack thereof) appalling, but my opinion on that matter is powerless. Please leave me alone, I'm just a poor grad student.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">What is relevant to me is that this case has prompted a <a href="http://iczn.org/node/40405">Call for Comments by Commissioners Harvey and Yanega</a>. This is a request for opinions from the greater community of taxonomists. The Commission receives open comments on all their cases, but this is a more general call; not about the <i>Spracklandus</i> case in particular, but about the historic and continued neutrality towards ethics and unwillingness to police the taxonomic community. They write,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"The question has been put before us, however, as to whether the desires
of the community can compel a re-evaluation of the policy of neutrality;
specifically, whether taxonomic freedom requires us to remain blind to
ethical considerations, including a failure to adhere to proper
standards of scientific conduct. Therefore, we seek guidance from the
taxonomic community as to whether there is a perceived need for change,
and we wish to solicit comments in order to ascertain a clearer picture
of public opinion. We are, ultimately, at the service of the community,
and if there is a consensus indicating that the community feels
neutrality does not serve their needs, then we wish to be clear about
it. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">[...] Basically, what we seek to know is whether the taxonomic community wants
to continue dealing with these issues at their own discretion, or
whether they want the Commission to be empowered to do so (or something
in between); we will not do so on our own initiative."</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> I love that, a perfect exposition of neutrality, and the unwillingness to wield power unless asked. The antithesis of politicians. They're asking us how they may best serve all of us. Go over and read all of it, it's short and sweet.<br /><br /> So. As stated above in the bold text, I'm just a lowly grad student. They're asking for comments, but I'm not confident enough to submit my opinion to the Commission on this matter. But if I were to submit a comment, maybe it would go something like this.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i> The long standing neutrality of the Commission is an important part of remaining above conflicts within the taxonomic community. A reduction in the sort of neutrality described in the Code of Ethics will mean the Commission has the possibility of becoming a 'political tool' rather than a body for impartial arbitration of conflicts. It will set a precedent in a system which is supposed to avoid making precedents. The Commissioners should continue to arbitrate only on cases brought to them, and only on conflicts covered under the Code, and should not seek out problems for which to "apply justice". Instead, taxonomists should band together in rejection of those who fail to uphold scientific ethics and good taxonomy. </i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i> I am a student, and I have little power. But, if I am worthy, I would hope someday to be selected to serve this community. If I am honored with that task, I would like be the sort of arbitrator described illustrated in the Call for Comments: impartial, restrained, and dedicated.</i></span>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-11091737721196109612014-01-06T09:00:00.000-05:002014-01-07T09:03:01.579-05:00"By people who don't need them for people who can't use them."Recently, I discovered the long awaited revision of the North American black winged fungus gnats (Sciaridae) has <a href="http://www.studia-dipt.de/data/19141.pdf">finally been published</a> (Note: link is only the first page). <a href="http://www.studia-dipt.de/introe.htm">Studia Dipterologica</a> is a relatively obscure publications for fly nuts, so it took some digging to get a copy. In my excitement upon arrival, I scanned through the entire text, looking for the thing I was <i>really</i> excited about. And it's not there, there's <i>no genus key</i>.<br />
<br />
A bit of background: The Manual of Nearctic Diptera remains today a masterpiece, 30 years after publication. It includes generic keys to every family of Diptera in North America, for adults and sometimes for larvae as well. And <a href="http://www.esc-sec.ca/aafcmono.php">it's freely available online, too</a>, so all the better! But even in this <a href="http://www.canacoll.org/Diptera/Staff/Skevington/pdfs/Cumming_2011_History_of_CNC_high_resolution.pdf">continuing <i>piece d'resistance</i> of the Canadian National Collection of Insects</a>, there are problems. Things have changed since 1983, there are new genera, synonyms of old genera, and elevated subgenera. And some keys simply don't work very well, or are not trustworthy. This is not true for all the keys, of course. Most of them still work perfectly fine. And even for some of the ones that don't work perfectly, that's just the nature of the game for those groups. I'm looking at you, Tachinidae. It doesn't matter how well a tachinid key is designed, they're the most difficult group of flies and they are going to be difficult until the end of time.<br />
<br />
In other cases, however, it's more a matter of updating. Black winged fungus gnats are not the easiest group of flies to identify, but there have been changes since Volume 1 of the Manual was published. What's frustrating is, the Mohrig et al revision is a very nice catalog of all the described North American Sciaridae, with updated names, descriptions, and genitalic illustrations in many cases, but there is <i>no revised genus key</i>. Why? Not THAT much has changed since 1983, it wouldn't be that difficult. Why didn't they include an updated key to the genera in their revision?<br />
<br />
This reminds me of another situation. <br />
<br />
For about two years now, I have been sitting on this key. It's an updated genus key to the keroplatid fungus gnats of North America, meant to replace a section of the Mycetophilidae in the Manual of Nearctic Diptera. <a href="http://keroplatidae.wikispot.org/Nearctic_Genera">It's even available online, though not exactly pretty. </a>Last week, my adviser said, you know, you should really publish that. Emphatically, he said it. And he's right, I should publish it. But I'm not going to, not now, anyway.<br />
<br />
Why? Three reasons:<br />
<br />
<b>1. I can't verify it without more research.</b> I've used a combination of several publications, the world checklist, and intuition to build it. But I've looked at very few specimens, and I have no collection to back it up. This was the preliminary work for what was going to be my dissertation, and when <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2013/03/trichoptera-to-tachinidae.html">I ended up working on tachinid flies instead</a>, well... The Orfeliini is the real problem, with the previous genus <i>Orfelia</i> split up into a large number of what used to be subgenera. Since I don't have a good collection, I don't know if species in the World Catalog are correctly placed. There may even be genera in North America not currently in my key. And I haven't had time to follow up.<br />
<br />
<b>2. It needs illustrations.</b> I could quickly and easily format the thing for <a href="http://www.pensoft.net/journals/zookeys/">ZooKeys</a> or the <a href="http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/bsc/ejournal/ejournal.html">CJAI</a>, but without illustrations it's not going to be easy to use. Especially for all the 'new' Orfeliini genera. I don't have illustrations because I need specimens from all the genera to make them. See item 1.<br />
<br />
<b>3. I feel like I'm going to be stepping on someone's toes.</b> I don't think anyone is working on this right now, but I can't be sure. And the key is derived, it's a synthesis; there isn't really any new stuff there, it's a combination of the MND key PLUS Lane 1951 PLUS Vockeroth 1981 PLUS the Manual of Paelearctic Diptera and others. I'm afraid someone is going to accuse me of plagiarism, or of trying to inflate my publication number, or tell me the Manual is good enough as it is, just leave it. <br />
<br />
The title alludes to a common saying about identification keys, that they're written by people who don't need them (experts), for people who can't use them (non-experts). Yet they are incredibly useful, even in this day and age when digital HD photographs are a click of a button. Keys are the technology side of our work, they're the tools we create to make our lives easier. Not every specimen is perfect, and not every taxonomic group is nicely defined by a single, specially shared character that no other group has (cf. Tachinidae, again), it's true. Digital identification keys such as <a href="http://keys.lucidcentral.org/key-server/keys.jsp">Lucid Keys</a> allow much greater flexibility, with multiple starting points, the ability to account for character variability (e.g. lengths), and overall more characters to work with. However, in most cases, a good dichotomous key is much faster to use, in spite of the learning period.<br />
<br />
But there seems to be some barriers to publishing keys, especially updates of older works. There's only so many ways I can split up Keroplatidae. Since the parsimonious way is the best way, and since THAT way is the way the Manual is set up, why NOT use the Manual's key as the basis? Maybe my reasons are the same reasons for no updated Sciaridae key in Mohrig et al.<br />
<br />
So, some general questions for ya'all:<br />
<br />
Is the reworking and synthesizing of old keys into a single, updated key for publication plagiarism? <br />
<br />
Is the publication of revisions without dicotomous keys a trend, or is this an isolated case?<br />
<br />
How much extra work needs to be put into an update before it becomes worthwhile to publish? Half? One-fourth? The whole shebang?<br />
<br />
Do any of you have any keys you're sitting on, not publishing, for the above reasons or others? Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-8157076282216131482013-11-28T15:22:00.001-05:002013-11-28T15:23:45.828-05:00Beating the dead horse Paraphyly.<span style="font-size: large;">I know I said I was going to cut back on the ICZNerdery. But <a href="http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2013/f/z03741p300f.pdf">this</a> letter by Jaroslav Flegr to Zootaxa this week was too weird to pass up. Morgan Jackson summed it up nicely:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes I wonder if I could submit some of my blog posts to journals. Then I read stuff like this <a href="http://t.co/Ezy6niv5pn">http://t.co/Ezy6niv5pn</a> & realize I could</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">— Morgan Jackson (@BioInFocus) <a href="https://twitter.com/BioInFocus/statuses/405445301231558656">November 26, 2013</a></span></blockquote>
</div>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Summary (tl;dr): There is not one shred of anything new here.</b> There's not even anything nomeclature related. The author is using Zootaxa to opine about paraphyletic inclusive classification, that is <i>it</i>, there's nothing else to this "paper" if it could even be called that. (Though, note: the link above only contains the first page and references if you don't have a subscription.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The title, "Why <i>Drosophila</i> is not <i>Drosophila</i> anymore, why it will be worse and what can be done about it?", suggests this is going to be about the <i>Drosophila melanogaster </i><a href="http://heathenscientist.blogspot.com/2010/04/drosophila-politics-sophophora.html">ICZN case</a> last year. I never wrote a proper post about it, and given the complicated nature of the case I'd prefer not to repeat it here. So check out Kim Van Der Lin's summary in the link if you need a reminder. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But the title is deceptive. Flegr starts off discussing the case, and he gets one thing wrong immediately. Molecular taxonomic studies have <i>not</i> shown that "the correct name of this species should be <i>Sophophora melanogaster</i>". What they have shown is that <i>Drosophila</i> as it stands now is a paraphyletic taxon. The actual raising of the subgenera to genus level is something that has yet to happen. And when, inevitably, someone revises the genus and raises them, the rest of us can dispute that action. That's right, you heard me correctly. Changing a taxon's rank, changing it's genus, etcetera, are subjective decisions, and unlike the fixation of types are not regulated under the <i>Code</i>. Someone else can come along later and challenge it without getting the Commission involved. <i>D. melanogaster</i> is also not "the fly that eats their fruit". Though they are often called "fruit flies", the common name is "vinegar flies" because they feed on fermenting fluids. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The rest of the "paper" is devoted to supporting a paraphyly friendly classification system, something that seems quite strange to the Cladist majority of taxonomists. Now, mind you, there's nothing in the <i>Code</i> prohibiting paraphyly, but the majority reject it because we've become devoted to a classification system that is descriptive, predictive, and explanatory. We've discovered that when our biological classification is based upon evolutionary descent, and in particular on monophyletic groups (groups that contain a common ancestor and all of it's descendants), it is a powerful general reference system. And when that system includes paraphyletic groups (which contain a common ancestor and only some of it's descendants), <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2011/11/general-reference-system-goal-of.html">it looses predictive and explanatory power.</a></span> <br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Flegr moves to his point in a roundabout manner, first starting with an utterly confusing explanation of paraphyly. (Note: Taxonomists are overwhelmingly visual. Reading a long list of possible relationships between Taxon A and Taxon B is about like trying to decipher one of my grandfather's differential equations.) Fer Linneaus sake, use a real life example! He blames molecular systematics for the multiplication of paraphyletic taxa in recent years, which is a common enough theme in the literature that I don't pay it much attention. All it tells us is that the author is a traditional taxonomist who probably uses physical structures of the organism exclusively.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">His statements about "inner and outer similarity" reflect a real problem in systematics, sometimes called the phenotype/genotype conflict. When we infer evolutionary relationships, often times the physical and DNA characters deliver us a differently shaped tree, and we're unable to tell whether one or either of these reflects reality better. But calling it a "conflict" is a misnomer. As one of my committee members recently told me, there is no real conflict between between the morphological and molecular characters. The conflict is in the methodology, and how we analyze the data. Flegr writes "nothing might be possible to guess from a system that would not reflect the inner similarity of the species", as if morphology is doomed to forever represent convergence and DNA is innately neutral to selection. Neither of these are right. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The deep and real problem that he is reaching for but missing, is that many traditional classifications are based upon <i>obvious</i> physical characters rather than evolutionarily meaningful ones. There are, for example, many characters that place birds as a therapod lineage. But since these are not as obvious as "has feathers" and "is warm blooded", and since this uniqueness is part of a traditional classification, people continue to place them in a separate lineage from other archaeosaurs. Why? Because tradition, because, as Flegr puts it, "secondary school biology teachers are far much more numerous than theoretical taxonomists." </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I'll refrain from commenting upon this except to say that allowing high school biology teachers to dictate how we should classify organisms is ridiculous.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Flegr's solution is to allow paraphyletic groups to stand. Of course. What better way to solve a problem than to ignore that it exists? Then you don't have to go through the messy route of educating people. And while we're at it, why don't we just throw out this whole evolution thing? It's so much easier to classify organisms based on obvious characters like, for example, lacking wings. The insect order "Aptera" worked out <i>so well.</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">There are also some fairly ugly diagrams which are not at all convincing. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Throughout, Flegr tries to make his case using the prevalence of punctuated equilibrium in major radiations rather than gradual change. Somehow this is evidence for rejecting reciprocal monophyly. I don't see it. There's also the opinion that these phylogenies will make our classification system inherently unstable. To which I reply: They are unstable <b>now</b>. Classifications that are based upon obvious similarities rather than evolutionarily relevant characters will forever be subject to the whims of authority opinions. What Flegr wants is to go back to the days of evolutionary taxonomy, where if Dr. Smith was the expert on so and so group, then whatever he said goes. NOPE NOPE NOPE. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">This is all very much a Dubois-ism, in the spirit of the <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2013/11/important-kernels-lost-in-chaff.html">last paper I wrote about.</a> He concludes,</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">It is, of course, probable that most of the current theoretical taxonomists, who spent a large part of their active professional life fighting the fuzzy eclectic phylogenetics and taxonomy, would not be very enthusiastic about the recurrent more and more urgent suggestions of rehabilitating the paraphyletic taxa (Hörandl, 2006; Hörandl & Stuessy, 2010; Podani, 2010a; Zander, 2010). The change, fuelled by practical taxonomists who mostly use a ‘wrong’ eclectic taxonomy in their everyday practice anyway, will be probably slow and painful. It is, however, necessary to start the change as soon as possible. Otherwise, we might soon have to say farewell not only to drosophilas but to the whole taxonomic system.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">I suspect these authors he cites are all in the same boat, a bunch of "taxonomic reactionaries" who can't cope with their authority being overturned and their traditional taxa being reshaped by evolutionary understanding. They call it "practical taxonomy"; I call it the easy way out. Flegr also shows himself to be a doomsayer by the last line. It's the end of the world as we know it, apparently. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In closing, no, wait. I don't think this mess merits a wrap up. Flegr leaves us one last gift, a tagline. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Australopithecus sapiens</i>, possibly Reptilia, Pisces"</span><br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Australopithecus </i>does not have priority over <i>Homo</i>. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Reptilia is a paraphyletic group.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">So is Pisces.</span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-63872001946692829622013-11-22T14:31:00.000-05:002013-11-22T14:32:01.496-05:00Important kernels lost in the chaff.<span style="font-size: large;">There are clear, concise collections of criticism. <a href="http://biotaxa.org/Zootaxa/article/view/zootaxa.3735.1.1">And then there's this paper.</a> At 94 pages, it's not a short read, so I don't blame you for skimming. It's already received <a href="http://iphylo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/reaction-to-taxonomic-reactionaries.html">a lot</a> of <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/the-new-zoo-1.14200">flack</a>. In short summary, Alain Dubois and 18 other authors published an almost op-ed style article on problems existing in zoological nomenclature, particularly in reference to electronic publication of names and nomenclatural acts. The above links already have eviscerated it. By that standard, I shouldn't even bother. But wait, what's this?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">Given the demands on their time, the ICZN members could probably do
without a reprisal of the online versus print naming debate — a debate,
remember, that saw the farcical printing to paper of hard copies of
online-only papers, which were then handed to libraries to fulfil the
exact wording of the code. The <i>Zootaxa</i> authors seem unwilling, or
unable, to move on. They have a semantic bee in their bonnet over the
code’s requirement that species descriptions must be always “available”.
When the online publishers they contacted explained that, no, they did
not routinely supply paper versions of the files on the journal’s
websites, the authors, rather uncharitably, deemed the information
unavailable to them. <i>---the Nature editorial</i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">Uhhhh.....cue Indigo Montoya. "Availability" does not mean "I can pick it up at the library" under the <i>Code</i>. <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2012/07/publication-availability-and-nomina-nuda.html">To be available is to satisfy all criteria within the <i>Code</i> necessary to be considered for validity, priority, and other things</a>. It is a whole lot more than the location of the published work. For example, a nomina novum, or 'new name', is not available unless the type specimen(s) are referenced explicitly, as well as the location where the types are to be deposited. You forgot to do this? Sorry! Your new name might as well have never been put in the literature for all it means to the <i>Code</i>. Refining the articles on availability means that species descriptions have higher standards, which is considered good by anyone who's tried to wade through the old literature. <br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Given that Nature failed to understand <i>that</i>, a basic and important concept in the <i>Code</i>, I wondered how much more they were flubbing about the article. So I read it. All 94 pages. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">What I discovered was, well, a mess. Oodles of footnotes, most of them irrelevant to the paper. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CamelCase">CamelCase</a>, really? Symbols in journal names? Philosophizing about supplementary materials? It doesn't matter if I agree with them or not, this is supposed to be a paper about problems with electronic publication of new names. Then there's the intentional emotive, non-academic language. See the footnote on page 29 for an example. And in all things there's this sort of ivory tower dictatorial outlook, as if their opinions are final. Maybe from the authors' point of view they are. The majority of the authors hail from old European natural history institutions. And there's the fact that Dubois cited himself 38 times in the references. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">It's unfortunate that within all this there are some actual relevant criticisms, some of which were not covered in electronic vs. paper debates before the 2012 amendment. For example, some journals mistook the allowance for optical disk deposition (sometimes called the "5-copy rule") to extend to all electronic publications, including PDFs. Which means there are a whole bunch of names between 1999 and 2012 which are not available due to poor reading of the <i>Code</i>. This does not include mixed-model journals like Zootaxa, which publish both an electronic and a printed version with separate identification numbers. In those cases, the printed versions satisfy the <i>Code</i>. The rest, not so much. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">There's also criticisms of pre-publication editions (which make establishing date of publication more difficult), publishing of new names in electronic supporting information (which does not fulfill the criteria of availability, even under the 2012 amendment), and the treatment of online checklists as authoritative. All of these are useful criticisms, as is the main (lost) point of the appendixes, namely, that authors and journals don't understand the changes in the 2012 amendment very well. BioMed Central <a href="http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcblog/2013/11/15/the-devil-may-be-in-the-detail-but-the-longview-is-also-worth-a-look/">has responded to the authors' complaints</a>, which is understandable as they took the brunt of the criticism. They reference their <a href="http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/editorialpolicies#DescribingNewTaxa">editorial policies</a> on describing new taxa, which is available for all to see. They also reference the "5-copy rule", saying they followed the <i>Code</i>. (Note: there is no 5-copy rule in the code anymore. Even if this prior rule could have been interpreted to include deposition not in the form of optical disks, all electronic-only publications before 2012 are considered unavailable.) All of this is irrelevant, as they are still publishing unavailable names even now, <i>after</i> the 2012 amendment. Again, I don't blame them for being upset. The Dubois et al. paper was purposefully inflammatory and should be derided as such.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In summary, there are still problems with electronic publishing of names. But this paper will not be remembered for valid criticisms. Instead, it will be another sign that taxonomy has lost sight of the times. As the Nature editorial pointed out, all the recent ICZN news seems to be bad press. Taxonomists look as if we are a bunch of doryphores, interested more in trivial piddly lawyerisms than solving actual problems. Spend some time on the listservs, for example, or read this paper, it's the same. Without change we'll be irrelevant.</span>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-16334615079802003782013-11-19T11:55:00.000-05:002013-11-19T12:11:41.969-05:00ICZN funded...for now.<span style="font-size: large;">Earlier this year, we received word that the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature was broke. As you might imagine,<a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-iczn-is-broke-anyone-have-hat.html"> I was and still am concerned.</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But there is a temporary reprieve. <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/nomenclature-chaos-averted-with-financial-bailout-1.14191">The National University of Singapore will fund the ICZN secretariat for the next three years.</a> In other words, they will pay for the ~$80,000 in costs it takes to run <a href="http://iczn.org/secretariat">the basic "government" body of the commission</a>. This includes <a href="http://zoobank.org/">Zoobank</a>, the zoological name registry, which takes the majority of those funds to upkeep. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But this is all temporary. When the funding runs out in three years, will another organization step forward to help out? The ICZN isn't the Olympics here, nations aren't lining up to back the Commission. About the only thing any individual institution gets out of funding the ICZN is the associated prestige, which doesn't go far in this modernist world where value equals direct monetary gain or less cost.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">So now there will be the inevitable talk about "business models", which works fine for a natural history museum but horribly for a multinational consortium. There's no ICZN giftshop where we can buy nomenclature themed t-shirts saying things like "<span class="st"><i>Deus creavit,</i> <i>Linnaeus</i> <i>disposuit</i>" and "Save the ICZN!" with a picture of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Edwin_Strickland">Hugh Strickland</a>. (Though, that's not a bad idea. Hipsters might be good for something after all. Hmm....)</span></span><br />
<span class="st" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="st" style="font-size: large;">Usually in these situations you have member states or institutions contributing to the total cost, e.g. UNESCO. Or, like the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS), there are membership fees. Or, like the International Botanical Congress (IBC), there is a meeting that coincides with the arbitration.<br /><br />But<a href="http://iczn.org/content/about-iczn"> the Commission is a small body of 26 people</a>, and their respective institutions do not provide funding. Nor are there membership fees, or a large meeting associated with arbitration. </span><br />
<span class="st" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="st" style="font-size: large;">One way to fund it may be to enlarge the membership, make it the entirety of the International Congress of Zoology, and increase the membership fees to coincide with voting rights. Then amending the Code is something everyone at the ICZ can take part in, just as it is at the IBC. But the Code itself is written to be arbitrated by a limited commission, not a large governing body, so the change in itself would require an amendment. With 15,000 new names a year, a number which <i>grows</i> yearly, maybe it's time for a change. There were 36 cases (or at least that many decisions) <a href="http://iczn.org/biblio?f[0]=im_field_volume_issue%3A592">this year</a>. Can the Commission keep up?</span><br />
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<span class="st" style="font-size: large;">In any <i>case</i>, this problem isn't going away. And where is <a href="http://www.iubs.org/">IUBS</a> in all this? They're the mandating body, they're the organization from which new commissioners are chosen. Three years will speed past. Now is the time to find a solution.</span>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-55811725853805366132013-11-18T10:20:00.000-05:002013-11-18T10:20:23.724-05:00Smart Phone Etiquette<span style="font-size: large;">We now have tricorders.<br /><br />Back in the day (or more recently), did you watch the original Star Trek series? Remember those communicators everyone carried around, the ones that could record and transfer data? They were called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricorder">tricorders</a>, and we have those. People have in their pockets, a camera, video camera, global positioning system, Internet interface, data recorder, communication device, music player, and a whole lot more in a package no bigger than a deck of cards. Not just a few people, but a whole LOT of people. Yes, true, there are a few things smartphones can't do, like take lifeform readings, but apparently there are people <a href="http://www.scanadu.com/">working on that.</a><br /><br />I'm what you might call a "late adopter" or "laggard" when it comes to new technology. Some might even say "neophobe", since I tend to be dragged into the New kicking and screaming. 30 years from now when everyone has moved on to the next interface I'll be still using the old laptops. I'll complain that the new tech feels insubstantial (because it practically is), and that a good computer is weighty and takes up more space than a sheet of paper. How can I even type anything worth reading without the physical clicky-clack of a keyboard?<br /><br />But, staring down at my 2007 Nokia Tracfone, so old that I have to go to tech support every time I want to add minutes, and looking at the new technology and all it can do, I wonder if it's time. How incredibly useful would it be to have a combination camera/GPS/phone with me every time I go in the field? Or, at professional meetings, I could join in all the community building on Twitter and tweet about talks. Some of my colleagues have designed apps which allow the recording of behavioral observations in the click of a button, and then upload the data to the cloud. No need for a clipboard checklist and stopwatch.<br /><br />At the same time there's so much that disgusts me about smart phone use, and cell phone use in general. <a href="http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/i_forgot_my_phone/">This video pretty much sums it up.</a> It's become a huge distraction that keeps us from interacting with one another. This is because there's no standard etiquette for smart phone use. We've finally gotten to the point as a society when cell phone use in each other's company is shamed. The same does not apply to smart phones, since they aren't so much a phone as they are a tiny computer interface. The standard rules of "turn your phone off in a meeting" do not apply anymore, because most of the use isn't making phone calls.<br /><br />I'm afraid that when I take the leap, I'll be tempted to use this wondrous tech to distraction. Which is why I'm proposing in advance some basic etiquette rules for smart phone use. And I'd like to hold everyone else to the same standard because that's just the world I want to live in.<br /><br />The first and foremost rule in smartphone use is the <b>Rule of Engagement</b>, which is:<br /><br /><i>Your present company is who you should be engaged with.</i><br /><br />By company, I mean "anyone who is either with you or currently holds your attention." And it really cuts to the heart of when and why smart phone and indeed, all cell phone use is rude. It's taking us away from engagement with whatever is happening around us. Including, but not limited to, the people we are presently with. <br /><br />Why I'm using the Rule of Engagement as prime is because there are many instances where using a smartphone while with company can add to engagement. You may, for example, be viewing a talk at a professional meeting and wish to right then and there share what you are learning on Twitter. This is not only engagement, this is hyper-engagement. What the speaker is telling you excites you so much that you feel impelled to share their conversation with everyone else by using the hashtag for the meeting. There is absolutely no shame to this, in fact, it should be encouraged. Last week, tweeting at the 2013 Entomological Society of America meeting (<a href="https://twitter.com/search?src=typd&q=%23EntSoc13">#EntSoc13</a>) allowed me and other people who were not able to attend to actually feel involved and learn and build community. Tweeting the talks as they were actually proceeding was outreach! Other cases where smartphone use doesn't limit engagement is when you can provide a piece of information to move a discussion forward (e.g. by a simple Google search).<br /><br />In these cases there are still limits. In addition to the Rule of Engagement I have a few more.<br /><br /><b>1. All the old cell phone rules still apply.</b> If you're in public and with company, using your smart phone for calling is still discouraged. And this is equally true with company in private. In other words, talking on the phone or texting in the company of others is rude. You are telling that other person or people that you don't value their time or presence, that they are boring or at least less interesting than the person you are talking to or texting on your phone. Since these classic examples violate the Rule of Engagement, they are still rude and should be avoided.<br /><br /><b>2. Other smart phone applications should be used sparingly in company.</b> By which I mean, don't use your phone without a legimate reason. This is not the time to go link jumping on TV tropes, or check your email, or Facebook, or do /anything/ that takes more than a few seconds. Whatever you /do/ use it for should be relevant to the circumstances, like the examples I gave above. It's a tool, not a distraction device. <br /><br /><b>3. Approved smart phone use in company should be discrete and efficient.</b> In and out, and as little of a distraction for everyone around you as possible. In a dark room, this might include dimming the screen so it isn't as bright. The point is not to be bothersome, and to cut away from it as quickly as possible so as not to disengage your company.<br /><b><br />4. If use is extended, you should excuse yourself from present company.</b> This was true for phone calls, and it's true for apps. You may find it inconvenient, but frankly is so freaking rude to sit with me and stare at your smartphone for five minutes as I try to have a conversation with you. If you have to do that, I'd rather you go elsewhere and indicate you need that privacy.<br /><br />Now, I've made some of these mistakes in the past. Not with a smartphone, but with my laptop. Even with a 10 inch screen and keyboard on my lap it's so easy to disengage from physical reality and forget my surroundings. We need to treat these tools as what they are, <i>tools</i>, not as entertainment units to distract ourselves from being truly present with others. And when used legitimately we still need to be considerate of others.<br /><br />The ultimate goal is more engagement. Smartphones can help with that, but they can also harm. We should be aware of their consequences and use them wisely. </span>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-7645542141476588662013-11-14T11:29:00.000-05:002013-11-14T12:14:43.750-05:00Caddisfly weirdos.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Previously on Trichopterology...about 5 years previously, I talked about some <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2008/09/chathamiidae-marine-caddisflies.html">very cool caddisflies that live in tide pools.</a> These marine caddisflies feed on soft corals, and also use it to construct their cases. And the females of at least one species, <i>Philanisus plebeius</i>, oviposit into the <b>body cavity of sea stars</b>. Now, I'm not quite sure you'd call this relationship parasitic, because I don't know if the sea stars are harmed at all by the oviposition or the eggs. As soon as the larvae hatch, they leave the sea star through its stomach and out its mouth, and start munching on coral. They seem to be more of a commensalist incubation chamber than a host in a parasitic relationship. It's unfortunate that there hasn't been any more recent research in the literature, nor photographs because I would really love to show you all one of their cases.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Out of the three main indicator aquatic insect groups (caddisflies, mayflies, and stoneflies or EPTs), Trichoptera seem to have the widest range of niche. They range from free moving predators to plant shredders, to filter feeders, to scrapers and grazers. You can find them in tiny spring seeps and large rivers, in temporary pools and the wind swept shores of the Great lakes, and in aquatic habitats ranging from fully freshwater to marine. This diversity of habitats and feeding guilds is a testament to their wondrous use of silk, building cases out of practically every kind of material that can be found in aquatic habitats, or spinning silk into webs and nets. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Marine caddisflies are pretty weird, they have a semi-parasitic lifestyle and they live in habitats that are avoided by all other insects. But, there are other weirdos.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I've talked previously about the <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2012/02/limnocentropodidae-tethered-casemakers.html">tethered casemakers, Limnocentropodidae</a>, which connect their cases to the substrate with a sturdy silk stalk, sometimes tethering to other cases in long aggregations during pupation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Then there's the Atriplectidae, which really deserve a blog post of their own. They're sometimes called the 'vulture caddis' due to their specialized telescoping head. Much like a vulture, they feed on carrion, but in this case it's other arthropods. The long 'neck' allows them to stay outside the corpse and insert only their head for feeding.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">There are several species of caddisflies which spend most of their lives out of the water, in moist habitats. This includes the Platte River caddisfly, <i>Ironoquia plattensis</i>, which undergoes a terrestrial estivation period as larvae during the summer. There's also a British species, <a href="http://www.wbrc.org.uk/worcRecd/Issue%2015/land_caddis.htm"><i>Enoicyla pusilla</i> the land caddis</a>, which feeds on dead oak leaves in humid forests and spends most of it's lifecycle out of water. A stranger habit is that of the retreat maker <i>Xiphocentron sturmi</i>. Typical of it's family, it makes a network of tubes appressed to a substrate, in this case rotting wood. What's not so typical is the tunnels are out of water, and weirder yet is it's "chrysalis". When <i>X. sturmi</i> finish larval development, they build a hanging structure that looks sort of like a tiny lemon on a rope, and pupate inside of it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But really, these are all sideshows compared to the main attractions, a caddisfly-sponge mutualism and an honest-to-god caddisfly parasitoid.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Ceraclea</i> is a genus of caddisflies in the family Leptoceridae, the long horned caddisflies. As the name implies, most leptocerids have long antennae in both adults and larvae. <i>Ceraclea</i> is unusually for a number of reasons, first of which is that their antennae are much shorter than other leptocerids. Another reason is that several species feed on freshwater sponges. I wouldn't suggest trying sponge for yourself, though. It would be like eating fiberglass, since the sponge skeleton is made of tiny glass bars called spicules. These sponge feeding caddisflies are able to ingest both the soft tissues and the spicules without damaging their guts because they have a super tough midgut. They're really feeding on the zooanthellae, endosymbiotic algae that live within the sponge tissue.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The sponge outwardly seems to be the host in a parasitic relationship, since the caddis feeds on and damages host tissue but doesn't consume the whole colony. But <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12589724">according to research from 2003</a>, the sponge benefits as well. Electron micrographs of <i>Ceraclea fulva </i>cases showed that they are composed of a tightly bound series of silk bridges attached to sponge spicules. Furthermore, pieces of living sponge attach to the cases, especially in the late larval instars. Since sponges often spread by fragmentation, the combination of larval integration of living sponge fragments into its case as well as fragmentation during feeding means that the sponge can spread to new habitats with help from the caddisfly larva. Mutualisms are rare enough in aquatic insects that this is the only example I know where both species benefit. There are other aquatic insects that feed on sponges, the <a href="http://bugguide.net/node/view/40303">spongillaflies</a> for example. But these are parasites, and are not dispersal agents for the sponge like <i>Ceraclea</i> cases.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8OJHXCXyNurhSM8OhMgLi87zfdJbdlFRq25NSN6hYl0t80l5lc1NlqIt8oFYaDNFcAqu5_6X4Yp7uowCFeao3uOHZMExvR0Y-qBvaIOhJT9X6qq55C2ROjUojB-4jwBf5IHtifURFIiM/s1600/Ceracleafulvacase.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8OJHXCXyNurhSM8OhMgLi87zfdJbdlFRq25NSN6hYl0t80l5lc1NlqIt8oFYaDNFcAqu5_6X4Yp7uowCFeao3uOHZMExvR0Y-qBvaIOhJT9X6qq55C2ROjUojB-4jwBf5IHtifURFIiM/s640/Ceracleafulvacase.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Case of <i>C. fulva</i>; 'S' indicates living sponge tissue (Corallini & Gaino 2003)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">At the other end of the spectrum from mutualism, you have parasitoids. This life history includes many groups of terrestrial insects, like the<a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2013/03/trichoptera-to-tachinidae.html"> tachinid flies on which I am currently working</a>. Most aquatic parasitoids are not truly aquatic, since they have no special adaptations for the aquatic environment. There is at least one species of truly aquatic chironomid midge which is an ectoparasitoid of caddisfly pupae. And, there are at least a few species of microcaddisflies that do the same.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Orthotrichia</i> species, like all members of the family Hydroptilidae (microcaddisflies), spend 4 out of five of their larval molts as free living. In the final instar, hydroptilid larvae undergo hypermetamorphosis, greatly inflating their abdomens and building a portable case. This is believed to be an evolutionary link between the free living habit and the true casemaking habit, not quite a casemaker but not completely free living either. <i>Orthotrichia</i> in particular builds a tiny purse shaped case out of sand grains. The case is open at both ends and unlike true casemakers can be used bidirectionally.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcAdrpLfEKj-ZqWbOqql_m5N01-RYxkQ9mrIuzJMqKNfBrFJQMXGyScsPcH-kQErI88dgdWax8GRpS3ihchvXeFavv-5SbaC3xm417JrTz3CUq2QhpFJBafzCYPI_quNamPY6TjtlVGq4/s1600/Orthotrichia.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcAdrpLfEKj-ZqWbOqql_m5N01-RYxkQ9mrIuzJMqKNfBrFJQMXGyScsPcH-kQErI88dgdWax8GRpS3ihchvXeFavv-5SbaC3xm417JrTz3CUq2QhpFJBafzCYPI_quNamPY6TjtlVGq4/s640/Orthotrichia.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Orthotrichia spp.</i> larvae; 1. in pillbox case; 2 & 3. with host pupae; note distended abdomen (Wells 2005)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1440-6055.2005.00492.x/abstract">a few unusual Australian <i>Orthotrichia</i></a>, the initial case is much smaller and pillbox like. The larvae are swept by the current into the nets of filter feeding caddisflies, which they somehow escape and get enclosed within the pupal case of their host. From there, these <i>Orthotrichia</i> construct their normal case, and begin feeding on the caddisfly pupa. This continues until the <i>Orthotrichia</i> abdomen is big and swollen, and the host is no more than a pupal husk. Having taken over it's host's pupal case, the <i>Orthotrichia</i> larva spins it's own cocoon and pupates. The adults are apparently larger than non-parasitic <i>Orthotrichia</i>, which could be in part due to the easy and massive food supply provided by a net spinning caddisfly pupa. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Even the sea star ovipositing marine caddisflies don't seem too bizarre when I consider all the other Trichoptera oddities. Parasitoids bring to mind tachinid flies and brachonid wasps, not aquatic insects. But I guess that caddisflies prove once again that if there's an aquatic habit, they'll find some way of making it work.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Wait...who am I kidding? Marine insects, feeding on soft corals, ovipositing into sea star incubation chambers? Nothing can beat that level of weird.</span>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-12159551855725688762013-03-04T12:00:00.000-05:002013-11-19T12:10:16.067-05:00Trichoptera to Tachinidae<span style="font-size: large;">Well, it has been a while, hasn't it? I just recently got back into the swing of posting regularly. Before that there was a long silence, a diapause (as <a href="http://membracid.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/diapause/">Bug Girl recently characterized her absence from blogging</a>). And to be honest, the things I was posting about weren't terribly interesting. Minutia of The Code is a technical activity at best, a lawyerly pursuit at worst (reading the backlog for the <a href="http://list.afriherp.org/mailman/listinfo/iczn-list">ICZN-listserv</a> shows this), and not something for general audiences.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I started this blog in 2008 during the first semester of my Master's degree, in part inspired from Bug Girl's Blog and the few other insect blogs around at the time. I wanted to improve my writing, and I wanted to relate my interest in caddisflies, a group I had just begun to investigate. Caddisflies will forever be my first love, no doubt, but in the denouement of my master's thesis I became interested in other groups. It was both temporary burn out and lack of funding in that direction; I was without a "real" job, working in a restaurant, trying to pay back some of my student loans. I had a brief, unpaid internship at Chicago Field Museum (<a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/12/budget-cuts-hit-chicagos-field-m.html">which has had it's own recent financial difficulties</a>), still operating under the assumption that if I just got enough practical experiences in museums one would actually hire me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It was half way through that valley year that I discovered I was really missing research, and I was missing universities and academia. The long term revision of the <a href="http://keroplatidae.wikispot.org/">North American Keroplatidae</a> that I had been planning seemed like the perfect project for a PhD thesis. Unfortunately, the programs I applied to didn't agree with me, or more likely they didn't have the space or money for that sort of research.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Cutting to the point: I finally found a PhD assistantship! But the work was in neither caddisflies nor fungus gnats. This was an entirely new to me group of insects, an important and diverse group of flies called tachinids. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVp7WIvvGllTG7Tv8JuvU3c0qBrfDF6A56J0zpWtcgCQ2p77y7qZX1LEks7fzsRb1vFBJrDtvYCz1-Zk58XFSVFZ6ZxjW4ieEG_RLKVo-PKMpS2nRyofOUVmN-omV6qJEMnN0MA2sm0tQ/s1600/Tachiniddiversity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVp7WIvvGllTG7Tv8JuvU3c0qBrfDF6A56J0zpWtcgCQ2p77y7qZX1LEks7fzsRb1vFBJrDtvYCz1-Zk58XFSVFZ6ZxjW4ieEG_RLKVo-PKMpS2nRyofOUVmN-omV6qJEMnN0MA2sm0tQ/s640/Tachiniddiversity.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">A Plethora of Tachinids: Most look like the gray and silver ones at the right side of the third row.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Tachinid flies (Family Tachinidae) are a worldwide distributed, ultra<span style="font-size: large;">-</span>diverse family of true flies with around 8,000 described species, and many more yet to be described. And we think that all this diversity is relatively recent, with the stem group branching out around 30 to 40 million years ago. The really special thing about tachinids is that they are all <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitoid">endoparasitoids</a> of other arthropods. By which I mean, they all do the 'Aliens' thing. Yeah, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPV4goh0Ajg">that thing</a>. The young get into their hosts by some means, and there the larvae grow and slowly eat the host out from the inside. When they pupate, they burst out and metamorphose inside their last larval skin<i> </i>(called a puparium), leaving behind the empty husk of their host. Endoparasitoids (or the techinical term, koinobionts) do not make a good bedtime children's story (The Very Hungry <span style="font-size: large;">Caterpillar</span>, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/insectopolis/4688263213/"> this is not</a>), but they are a great platform for studying evolution and evolutionary interactions. Parasitoids can be ultra specialist, like many tiny <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braconidae">braconid wasps</a> that have only one host species, or super generalist like the tachinid <a href="http://bugguide.net/node/view/265766"><i>Compsilura concinnata</i></a>, which feeds on over 120 species and across several insect orders. Most tachinids are in the middle range, with a few to 10s of host species. Why they aren't particularly host limited like other groups will be the subject of a future post.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The majority of tachinids attack plant feeding insects, especially moth <span style="font-size: large;">caterpillars</span>, sawfl<span style="font-size: large;">y larvae</span>, and beetle larvae, and are probably a significant factor in <span style="font-size: large;">controlling</span> agricultural pests. A few species have even been mass released as active biological controls. And there are some tachinids which are pests in their own right, including <a href="http://www.karnataka.gov.in/sericulture/English/Technologies/SilkWarmDiseasesAndPest.aspx">the Uzifly which attacks silkworms and causes millions in damages to sericulture every year</a>. Some of the more unique tachinid groups have unusual hosts, like crickets or stick insects, or<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLpz-B9T4F8"> ant queens</a>, or stink bugs. There is even a tachinid that attacks trapdoor spiders (<a href="http://bugguide.net/node/view/23441">Antrodiaetidae</a>). </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's a little funny to me that as important and ubiquitous as tachinids are, they don't really have a common name. The family name, Tachinidae, comes from the Greek word <i>tachys</i> meaning 'swift', so I guess we could call them swift flies. Other names people have used include: parasitic flies, hairy parasitoid flies, hedgehog flies, and bristle flies. None of those names have really stuck, despite being wonderfully descriptive, so people continue to use the abreviated form of the family name. In general, tachinids are small to large sized dark colored, hairy house fly like insects, often with patches of silvery wax, and sometimes with bright orange, yellow or metallic <span style="font-size: large;">coloration</span>. The hairyness is probably the thing that stands out the most about tachinids, and many of the individual bristles are used in identifying and classifying these flies. A good number of tachinid adults are flower feeders, and some are striking bee and wasp mimics. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If you want to learn more about tachinids, the best place to start is the <a href="http://www.nadsdiptera.org/Tach/home.htm">Homepage for Tachinid Resources</a>. There's also the <a href="http://www.nadsdiptera.org/Tach/TTimes/TThome.htm">Tachinid Times</a>, an annual newsletter for tachinid research. <a href="http://www.nadsdiptera.org/Tach/TTimes/Tach26.htm">This year's issue</a> just came out yesterday, and it's a particularly nice one. Dr. O'Hara (the editor) was kind enough to allow me a full page to describe my intended PhD research, which I will be outlining more in detail next week. There are also lots of pretty pictures, so go check it out!</span>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-11408001155984662342013-02-25T10:00:00.000-05:002013-02-25T10:00:03.667-05:00The ICZN is Broke; Anyone have a hat?<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6122/897.short">This unfortunate news</a> came to my attention over the past week:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">Since 1895, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature
(ICZN) has helped ensure animal names
are unique and long-lasting, with a panel of
volunteer commissioners who maintain naming rules and resolve conflicts
when
they arise. But the U.K.-based charitable trust
that supports all this is slated to run out of money before the year's
end—and
that could spell trouble.</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">This isn't just a problem for the arbitration process. Six months ago, the Commission passed an <a href="http://www.pensoft.net/journals/zookeys/article/3944/">amendment allowing electronic only publication of names and other nomenclatural acts.</a> Part of this amendment was provisions for <a href="http://zoobank.org/">an official registry of nomenclatural act publications</a>, with a mandate that all electronic only articles must be registered with Zoobank prior to publishing. Otherwise, these names and acts are not considered <a href="http://trichopterology.blogspot.com/2012/07/publication-availability-and-nomina-nuda.html">available</a>. A large portion of the ICZN's trust funds have gone to building and supporting the registry, so that may explain why the Commission is suddenly out of money after<span style="font-size: large;"> 66 years <span style="font-size: large;">with "<a href="http://iczn.org/content/international-trust-zoological-nomenclature"><span style="font-size: large;">t</span>he Trust</a></span></span>".</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">When the electronic publication amendment was decided on last year, I was worried. Then the worry went away as the Taxonomic End of Names did not arrive and tear asunder the work of centuries. (Note: taxonomists do not actually believe in an End of Names.) And now, the worry is creeping back.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If the ICZN cannot find funds in time, and Zoobank can no longer be supported, the rules of electronic only publication will fall apart, at least under the amendment. I won't even go into arbitration; you can imagine how bad it would be if the ICZN became a static document with no governing body. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Not that there hasn't already been trouble with people not following the amendment rules. The best example is of a number of fossil species described recently in PNAS,<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-12/pre-historic-lizard--named-obamadon-after-smiling-president/4422880"> including a lizard named 'Obamadon', after President Obama</a>. Not only did the authors fail to register the publication with Zoobank, they published these descriptions in supplementary information, which is explicitly not a valid way of publishing species. (<a href="http://coo.fieldofscience.com/2013/01/obamas-lizard-not-so-fast.html">Catalogue of Organisms has a complete summary.</a>) And the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences isn't exactly a low impact journal, so you can expect this sort of thing is happening more often than once.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But back to the point, which is that the stability of animal names is in trouble. Dr. Roderic Page <a href="http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-end-of-names-iczn-in-financial.html">pointed out on his blog that the funds aren't impossibly high;</a> only 78 thousand is needed to get through the year. While Dr. Page suggests hitting up <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/">Kickstarter</a>, and the chair of the trust's board says he will be begging for money at natural history museums (which are woefully funded as it is), a better idea may be to go to online bioinformatics organizations for help. Websites like <a href="http://eol.org/">Encyclopedia of Life</a>, <a href="http://www.itis.gov/">Integrated Taxonomic Information System</a>, <a href="http://www.discoverlife.org/">Discover Life</a>, and <a href="http://www.barcodinglife.com/">BOLDS</a> require accurate taxonomic information for their databases, and so have the greatest benefit from seeing Zoobank succeed. It would make sense for these large scale databases to collaborate funds and help out the Commission, because that rides well with their individual missions. <br /><br />Another idea may be to go the way of the Other Code. The<a href="http://www.ibc2011.com/"> International Botanical Congress</a> is a completely volunteer organization that meets every six years and updates their <a href="http://www.iapt-taxon.org/nomen/main.php">Code of Botanical Nomenclature</a>, as well as arbitrates disputes. The argument against this is that there is no equivalent meeting for zoology that is well attended. Although, if things continue to worsen for zoological nomenclature people may find it more reasonable. I'm hoping it won't reach that point.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com0Wright State University39.782816926688916 -84.05759811401367239.770614426688915 -84.077768114013665 39.795019426688917 -84.037428114013679tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2028565150475419281.post-1400418989024306642013-02-18T08:00:00.000-05:002013-02-18T13:19:06.802-05:00Waterfalls and Wandering Gliders<span style="font-size: large;">During August of last year, I was doing some consulting work in southwestern Pennsylvania. In the time off I would visit state parks and forests. I was staying just West of the Central Appalacian Ecoregion, and Laurel Mountain was only 10 minutes away. This is a beautiful area of the state. The abundant mountain laurel reminded me so much of the Blue Ridge in South Carolina, where I did my Master's degree. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">One day I had the opportunity to visit Ohiopyle State Park.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgThp7tWYGUJp5evjpQVaZUzsrTUoLJgKFuvLXZ9dAUfafQqI6a3mTTqLDwlhdGPn93hJ39lMtAJ07DHToskKPBjkJDn2bd3AJ9DhqQgFJGIYc2q30gHvWrnIjZIR-6kIEuy5FP3MO6CGk/s1600/img_0572.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgThp7tWYGUJp5evjpQVaZUzsrTUoLJgKFuvLXZ9dAUfafQqI6a3mTTqLDwlhdGPn93hJ39lMtAJ07DHToskKPBjkJDn2bd3AJ9DhqQgFJGIYc2q30gHvWrnIjZIR-6kIEuy5FP3MO6CGk/s400/img_0572.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">The eponymous Ohiopyle Falls.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The town of Ohiopyle is situated on a large bend in the Youghiogheny River as it makes it's way Northwest to Pittsburgh, and gives it's name to both the surrounding state park and the 20 ft falls in the above photograph.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUs9yO7G4HFe-O_Uq7ctVgX-EYo33d7T_dcM1amb4hr7-qj845Vrz7IOFzNYLsBSLXs76sBv3FrH6Fb6Bc_1x3l8TS1alhvE6LoolEUCyncUbtY8o1FQSP8NJIoicVklEAbC2sU0D7eiY/s1600/img_0574.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUs9yO7G4HFe-O_Uq7ctVgX-EYo33d7T_dcM1amb4hr7-qj845Vrz7IOFzNYLsBSLXs76sBv3FrH6Fb6Bc_1x3l8TS1alhvE6LoolEUCyncUbtY8o1FQSP8NJIoicVklEAbC2sU0D7eiY/s400/img_0574.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ohiopyle Falls, looking from the West bank.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Yough (say it like yawk) is calm enough upstream of the falls for swimming, but then there is a point of no return where the water tumbles over a <span style="font-size: large;">sandstone</span> cliff stretching the width of the river.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM3ORWpV0C1shx7qxDBaw80LZOWByIVLLzLfWxb-LnKGuK4mu3BYxUUUoXf0-ZXjCZ_P8gzqH-C1zbtuADjjVygyG_Fdd8Sv-UqvgFVKgXDfiTMBf5lgu8TCFoChFKiyAXNU35YKwOsoA/s1600/img_0571.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM3ORWpV0C1shx7qxDBaw80LZOWByIVLLzLfWxb-LnKGuK4mu3BYxUUUoXf0-ZXjCZ_P8gzqH-C1zbtuADjjVygyG_Fdd8Sv-UqvgFVKgXDfiTMBf5lgu8TCFoChFKiyAXNU35YKwOsoA/s320/img_0571.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Looking downriver from the East bank of the Falls.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Downstream there are daily whitewater rafting tours. Brave kayakers are allowed to go over the falls on certain summer weekends, and there is an annual Over the Falls Race where many kayakers compete for best times.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNd3aQ4biucUoRlvgLKSZRzR-X9rPvjdIaIrf9fHlNXlDYiD29KqwQojleG7BZB_o1zKVXa5LfQ4oUYvWcc9-v7P1biEn2eihJU8ktJ0BU8Ej7aTM7MRNyJ2T5OHxjgL_mIHcbJ_XV0lo/s1600/img_0575.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNd3aQ4biucUoRlvgLKSZRzR-X9rPvjdIaIrf9fHlNXlDYiD29KqwQojleG7BZB_o1zKVXa5LfQ4oUYvWcc9-v7P1biEn2eihJU8ktJ0BU8Ej7aTM7MRNyJ2T5OHxjgL_mIHcbJ_XV0lo/s400/img_0575.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Crayfish washed up at the edge</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">On the West side of the Falls is Ferncliff Natural Area, which includes a rocky, cycad fossil covered trail along the river. When the water is low enough, you can skip the trail for the exposed bedrock of the riverbank. I was able to rock jump out to the edge of the flow, where there were plenty of washed up signs of invertebrates, including crayfish and stonefly skins.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmT8U5lOhXAE9aRBtiFHqZaGiHXF9fkRtIaiTvXWFNQ-xONxJ0A4LUFPxdyK1eD11U1eU4pi3gxo_LFJKodK97pu5jXlRae3irJIFo_-5e9ACEp912oSKgkhmkUETaT444PtTILUK10FU/s1600/img_0584.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmT8U5lOhXAE9aRBtiFHqZaGiHXF9fkRtIaiTvXWFNQ-xONxJ0A4LUFPxdyK1eD11U1eU4pi3gxo_LFJKodK97pu5jXlRae3irJIFo_-5e9ACEp912oSKgkhmkUETaT444PtTILUK10FU/s400/img_0584.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ephemeral pool, ~3-4 feet across, ~1-2 inches deep</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Here and there the rock formed shallow cavities which had filled with rainwater. Some of these had abundant mosquito larvae wiggling around, and some of them were strangely quiet. When I looked closer at these still pools I found the answer lurking in the sediment.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizLBxXTHxwCvnj05G9T72OGMBq_zDC1XPCzVqOnKmmPwibtzffU3V6MRKiymgJEwul9Xlu4Bc1Y8qKG2iIzzxv0aP7dDDQHGZ8EL3IZKYBoOhwUHf3VRmk7BltN5yuJ2P1X11gMh4LsmQ/s1600/img_0585.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizLBxXTHxwCvnj05G9T72OGMBq_zDC1XPCzVqOnKmmPwibtzffU3V6MRKiymgJEwul9Xlu4Bc1Y8qKG2iIzzxv0aP7dDDQHGZ8EL3IZKYBoOhwUHf3VRmk7BltN5yuJ2P1X11gMh4LsmQ/s640/img_0585.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">You can't see him, but he's there. The floating shed skin at the left end of the pool is a clue.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">There are a couple dragonflies known for laying eggs in ephemeral pools, and after examining a larva under the microscope later, I was pretty sure which one. The mosquito larvae had all been eaten by a <i>Pantala</i>, a rainpool glider larva. Probably <i>Pantala flavescens</i>, also known as the wandering glider or globe skimmer. Wandering gliders are well known for their annual migrations accross continents and oceans worldwide, and equally well known for laying their eggs in any small pool, including artificial containers. I unfortunately didn't see any of the adults about; they have cheesy yellow colored abdomens, and paired with their effortless flight pattern they are pretty difficult to miss.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMDeN7MAsW6WkbA0qKs6NpBQOd2iR0osXOsMYXZC4sZFPk2uxcXl_5mF9sBjMHpYip87TR0dAHh6OTpKgTpp5RowSeGLkV5aJ9GuGE1mBaNronnWLpKrYjV8CZMNSBtrSiMh_4OkTZLww/s1600/img_0581.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMDeN7MAsW6WkbA0qKs6NpBQOd2iR0osXOsMYXZC4sZFPk2uxcXl_5mF9sBjMHpYip87TR0dAHh6OTpKgTpp5RowSeGLkV5aJ9GuGE1mBaNronnWLpKrYjV8CZMNSBtrSiMh_4OkTZLww/s640/img_0581.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Dusky dancer (Argia translata) male, at the edge of Ohiopyle Falls.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I also spotted a damselfly perched on the edge of the falls. With the above photo I was able to confirm later that it was a male dusky dancer (Argia translata), a new one for my life list. What threw me off at first is the strange band of white near the tip of the abdomen. If you look close you can see it's pinching the abdomen like a damselfly elastrator (and if you don't know what that word means, don't look it up; this is your only warning). This ring of skin is probably left over from the last larval molt, which sometimes is incompletely shed. When the adult skin expanded and hardened, the leftover ring started pinching. This male is probably still reproduction ready, but it definitely doesn't look comfortable. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGJ-6FwjQx-ZAPuGuO_gZXZ7NvsmfXRyeIjFsFvHnB_idvx1q0u4gzLALgqT1BfRgIdJaoMd0UnABaaDoyl1Yojx1Ax-kxAnnD8__xIwY5NyGhEr8EHdrieKFuQfTWjouO41Z-4Xr827E/s1600/img_0592.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGJ-6FwjQx-ZAPuGuO_gZXZ7NvsmfXRyeIjFsFvHnB_idvx1q0u4gzLALgqT1BfRgIdJaoMd0UnABaaDoyl1Yojx1Ax-kxAnnD8__xIwY5NyGhEr8EHdrieKFuQfTWjouO41Z-4Xr827E/s320/img_0592.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Cucumber Falls from above.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The big Falls isn't the only waterfall in the park. Off of the main channel, in a small tributary valley, is the smaller, more private, yet more spectacular Cucumber Falls.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhd543m_EZW-EmNcV4e9yEQa2j3srYwWlp2lYr5f8p9mOEkduFU9qI6sK5bXdO96JqJac1jngL5G59pgISru7ODjN8CXBHVcXoB5Zp_0P0x5uDKOiFg_gt7zIKilQhEyr09tmgfYjBYog/s1600/img_0593.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhd543m_EZW-EmNcV4e9yEQa2j3srYwWlp2lYr5f8p9mOEkduFU9qI6sK5bXdO96JqJac1jngL5G59pgISru7ODjN8CXBHVcXoB5Zp_0P0x5uDKOiFg_gt7zIKilQhEyr09tmgfYjBYog/s640/img_0593.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Cucumber Falls from downchannel.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Walking up to Cucumber Falls puts me back in the rainforests of O'ahu. Albeit, the rocks are <span style="font-size: large;">san<span style="font-size: large;">dstone and shale</span></span>, not basalt, but the feeling of overgrown lushness is the same. The ice cold stream drops off a natural overhang into a crystal clear pool with a school of black lined dace. And from there it disappears underground to reappear several hundred feet away, nearly at the Yough, seen through the trees at a distance. How many years have these dace been locked in, diverging under the selection of this small pool from their parents, either upstream or down?</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif770bDdW5vy6vVuLAoU9lEFF-IRoAooM_t6-h4Sk18r6dTk_Z7OqVYivYgoC8BuCdcSIYyhGbxrRB8pder7nthyw-Pdk2nDJZIFnLB_jjUtSeICjFcY0GoSps9Iflkgo69UH0gWppl80/s1600/img_0598.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif770bDdW5vy6vVuLAoU9lEFF-IRoAooM_t6-h4Sk18r6dTk_Z7OqVYivYgoC8BuCdcSIYyhGbxrRB8pder7nthyw-Pdk2nDJZIFnLB_jjUtSeICjFcY0GoSps9Iflkgo69UH0gWppl80/s320/img_0598.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Blacknosed dace (Rhinichthys obtusus?) in the splash pool at the base of Cucumber Falls.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And of course, any trip to a forest stream wouldn't be complete without the appearance of my spirit animal. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiXSpjHxwRp3A9D28j6P4OvRxMD9FMi3fAgVk_H6frKY54aq-SLRK-Duv98cGYAN09KzJ3N5S84AGsJGviemc_KV7WmgxBUyS4LqFhzyRsLXMyFMWCQqWXX6fqa2uqZ0CsC4lXR8YpKjM/s640/img_0600.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">An ebony jewelwing male, doing what it does best: glistening in the sunlight.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It seems I see <i>Calopteryx maculata</i>, the ebony jewelwing, no matter where I go in Eastern North America. They're common as can be, but still remain my favorite insect. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Acknowledgement: Much thanks to Stephanie Sanner-Fallon of Powdermill Nature Reserve for being my "tour guide" to the beauties of southwest Pennsylvania, especially Ohiopyle State Park.</span></span>Kaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15709111344826156855noreply@blogger.com0Ohiopyle State Park39.8386863 -79.45913780000000839.6436943 -79.7818613 40.0336783 -79.136414300000013