Posted by:
wulf
at Sun Nov 23 17:19:29 2003 [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by wulf ]
Hi Chris,
I do not have any experience in the field, and cannot comment on field research
I would be best to examine specimens in their natural habitat but this is not always possible for some reasons...But you can manage to examine as much museum specimens in natural history collections to come up with conclusions. But this is the hardest thing to do when you are not a professional biologist and do not have contact to an institution! Most of the museums will ignore your data requests...
I am not capable (yet) of writing my own reports.
Just read a lot of papers from other workers and you will soon know what and how to do. After that choose a journal you want to publish your paper in and read the submission rules that usually give you a hint to the formal structure that the paper should have to not be rejected. There is sort of lesson for scientific writers available as ebooks (pdf). Just send me an email (wulf@leiopython.de).
However, if I revised A.Tokar's paper on Eryx jaculus, who should I send it to? And who would be the 'moderators'?
You choose the journal and before submitting your paper you should get in contact with the chief editor. Usually in a peer-reviewed journal you can suggest some reviewers mentioned in a "reviewers list".
Also, if those particular people disagreed, does it make my report wrong?
Well, if you've done good work and can come up with conclusions supported by evidence based on your examination and methods and perhaps supported by prior workers and previous literature your paper will mostly just be rejected because the formalism is bad or even wrong.
BUT: First of all you will have to do a lot of literature study and get hold of every important prior published paper about the taxon/ family you want to revise. Perhaps there already is a synonym for the taxon you would suggest to be separate from others...
Also, if somebody revise's a particular taxon, when does it actually become valid?
Well, there actually is a difference between the "biological validiy" of an (sub-)species and the "availability" (not validity!) of a name under the rules of the ICZN code.
Even if a name is available under the code (which is a quite easy thing to manage, see i.e. Hoser's python paper 2000) this new taxon must not necessaryly be widley accepted as an own biological entity (i.e. Hoser's Chondropython paper 2003 lately discussed on this forum).
Hope this helps a bit...
Cheers,
Wulf
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http://www.leiopython.de ,
http://www.herpers-digest.com
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