[Coral-List] nitrogen fixation in corals; biodiversity helps corals; replication problem: coral identification

Douglas Fenner douglasfennertassi at gmail.com
Mon Aug 12 20:08:40 UTC 2019


Relative diazotroph abundance in symbiotic Red Sea corals decreases with
water depth

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00372/full?utm_source=F-AAE&utm_medium=EMLF&utm_campaign=MRK_1040055_45_Marine_20190711_arts_A


open-access

Biodiversity enhances coral growth, tissue survivorship, and suppression of
macroalgae.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330203101_Biodiversity_enhances_coral_growth_tissue_survivorship_and_suppression_of_macroalgae


open-access

I notice that these articles do not state how they identified the coral
species, who identified it, what literature sources they used, etc.  This
is not unusual or uncommon.  Surely extends to other organisms such as
fish, other inverts, etc.  I can't remember a single coral reef article
other than a taxonomic article that provides that sort of information for
corals (though surely there is at least one article that does it, it is
surely rare).  This is common practice in our community.  This is a
criticism of what our whole community does, not these specific articles.
Everybody's doing it.

     An article on insects claims this is a problem.  With species that are
easy to ID, it wouldn't be a problem.  But corals are not easy to ID in the
Indo-Pacific, where most of the coral species are.

 Survey results suggest that a lot of entomology research could be
impossible to replicate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01541-0?utm_source=briefing-dy&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20180205


"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."  (my emphasis)


Packer, L., Monckton, S. K., Onuferko, T. M. & Ferrari, R. R. Validating
taxonomic identifications in entomological research.  Insect Conservation
and Diversity 11, 1–12 (2018)

*Abstract*

   1. We surveyed the treatment of taxonomic information in 567 papers
   published in nine entomological journals in 2016.
   2. The proportion of papers that provide taxonomic data in sufficient
   detail to permit precise validation of taxonomic identifications is
   vanishingly small: most did not cite identification methods, most did not
   state whether identified material had been vouchered, and taxon concepts
   were almost universally absent in non‐taxonomic papers. Overall, the
   combination of all three factors was provided less than 2% of the time and
   almost two‐thirds of all papers provided none of the three.
   3. We suggest that journals should modify the templates used by editors
   and reviewers by overtly including the following questions:
      1. Are Order and Family named in the title, abstract or keywords?
      2. Are the methods used for identification of all studied taxa stated
      clearly?
      3. Is it clear who did the identifications, are they named and is
      their contact information and/or institutional affiliation provided?
      4. Is the literature whereupon these identifications are based cited
      appropriately? This would include some reference to as thorough a
      revisional taxon concept statement as possible, preferably from recent
      revisions if available.
      5. Are exemplars of all focal species (or all sampled individuals)
      vouchered in a named repository (ideally with contact person name and
      accession numbers or other means of ready detection)?

I'd add putting photos of living corals or better yet skeletons in the
article.
Doesn't this apply to corals and other reef organisms?
Don't we have a problem with replication?  "impossible to replicate"?
Can't we do better??  Shouldn't reviewers and editors require more??  Isn't
it time to do this??
      Granted, it is not feasible for ecological survey studies to collect
samples of all corals in the study.  But don't we need to do it when we
can??

Cheers,  Doug
-- 
Douglas Fenner
Ocean Associates, Inc. Contractor
NOAA Fisheries Service
Pacific Islands Regional Office
Honolulu
and:
Consultant
PO Box 7390
Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA

A call to climate action  (Science editorial)
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6443/807?utm_campaign=toc_sci-mag_2019-05-30&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=2840296

New book "The Uninhabitable Earth"  First sentence: "It is much, much worse
than you think."
Read first (short) chapter open access:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/read-a-chapter-from-the-uninhabitable-earth-a-dire-warning-on-climate-change

Want a Green New Deal?  Here's a better one.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/want-a-green-new-deal-heres-a-better-one/2019/02/24/2d7e491c-36d2-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html?utm_term=.a3fc8337cbf8


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