Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The top-ten new species described in 2010 and the failure of taxonomy to embrace Open Access publication

Each year the grandly titled International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE) publishes list of the top 10 species described in the previous year. This year's list is reproduced below, to which I've added the links to the original publications (why do people think still it's OK to omit links to the primary literature when all of these articles are online?).

The striking thing is that only 2 of the 10 species were described in Open Access publications (and I use that term loosely as as Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny PDFs are freely available, but the licensing isn't clear). Sadly much of our knowledge of the planet's diversity is still locked up behind a paywall.

SpeciesReferenceDOI/PDFOpen Access
Caerostris 5Darwin's Bark SpiderKuntner, M. and I. Agnarsson. 2010. Web gigantism in Darwin's bark spider, a new species from Madagascar (Araneidae: Caerostris). The Journal of Arachnology 38(2):346-35610.1636/B09-113.1No
Mycena 2Bioluminescent MushroomDesjardin, D.E., B.A. Perry, D.J. Lodge, C.V. Stevani, and E. Nagasawa. 2010. Luminescent Mycena: new and noteworthy species. Mycologia 102(2):459-47710.3852/09-197No
HalomonasBacteriumSanchez-Porro, C., B. Kaur, H. Mann and A. Ventosa. 2010. Halomonas titanicae sp. nov., a halophilic bacterium isolated from the RMS Titanic. International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology 60(12):2768-277410.1099/ijs.0.020628-0No
VaranusMonitor LizardWelton, L.J., C.D. Siler, D. Bennett, A. Diesmos, M.R. Duya, R. Dugay, E.L.B. Rico, M. van Weerd and R.M. Brown. 2010. A spectacular new Philippine monitor lizard reveals a hidden biogeographic boundary and a novel flagship species for conservation. Biology Letters 6(5):654-65810.1098/rsbl.2010.0119No
GlomeremusPollinating cricketHugel, S., C. Micheneau, J. Fournel, B.H. Warren, A. Gauvin-Bialecki, T. Pailler, M.W. Chase and D. Strasberg. 2010. Glomeremus species from the Mascarene islands (Orthoptera, Gryllacrididae) with the description of the pollinator of an endemic orchid from the island of Réunion. Zootaxa 2545:58-68PDFNo
Philantomba 2DuikerColyn, M., J. Hulselmans, G. Sonet, P. Oudé, J. de Winter, A. Natta, Z.T. Nagy and E. Verheyen. 2010. Discovery of a new duiker species (Bovidae: Cephalophinae) from the Dahomey Gap, West Africa. Zootaxa 2637:1-30PDFNo
TyrannobdellaLeechPhillips, A.J., R. Arauco-Brown, A. Oceguera-Figueroa, G.P. Gomez, M. Beltran, Y.-T. Lai and M.E. Siddall. 2010. Tyrannobdella rex n. gen. n. sp. and the evolutionary origins of mucosal leech infestations. PLoS ONE 5(4):e1005710.1371/journal.pone.0010057Yes
PsathyrellaUnderwater mushroomFrank, J.L., R.A. Coffan and D. Southworth. 2010. Aquatic gilled mushrooms: Psathyrella fruiting in the Rogue River in southern Oregon. Mycologia 102(1):93-10710.3852/07-190No
SaltoblattellaJumping cockroachBohn, H., M. Picker, K.-D. Klass and J. Colville. 2010. A jumping cockroach from South Africa, Saltoblattella montistabularis, gen. nov., spec. nov. (Blattodea: Blattellidae). Arthropod Systematics and Phylogeny 68(1):53-39/td>PDFYes
HalieutichthysPancake BatfishHo, H.-C., P. Chakrabarty and J.S. Sparks. 2010. Review of the Halieutichthys aculeatus species complex (Lophiiformes: Ogcocephalidae), with descriptions of two new species. Journal of Fish Biology 77(4):841-86910.1111/j.1095-8649.2010.02716.xNo