[Coral-List] do coral studies lack crucial species information??

[Douglas Fenner]

I recently spotted this piece (open access):

Most insect studies lack crucial species information

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01541-0?
utm_source=briefing-dy&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20180205

"Survey results suggest that a lot of entomology research could be
impossible to replicate."

"More than 98% of entomology papers contain so little species information
on the insects being studied that they are essentially impossible to
replicate, according to a survey of more than 550 articles published in
2016."
Come to think of it, I don't remember many studies on corals in the
Indo-Pacific that include this kind of info.  May not be necessary in the
Caribbean, where many of the corals are easy to ID, but nearly all
Indo-Pacific coral species have at least one other species (usually
several) that are the very devil to tell apart.  Many studies in the I-P
report results only at the genus level, which are vastly easier to ID, and
thus more certain.  But I think this is a potential problem for work done
with individual species in the Indo-Pacific.  What do you think?  We do
need information at the species level, species within genera differ on all
kinds of things, and can differ in dramatic ways.

Cheers,  Doug

-- 
Douglas Fenner
Contractor for NOAA NMFS Protected Species, and consultant
PO Box 7390
Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA

New online open-access field guide to 300 coral species in Chagos, Indian
Ocean
http://chagosinformationportal.org/corals

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