You win some and you lose some?
03-06-2008 21:32
The fact that I haven't been publishing here, does
not mean that I have not been active with my snails.
Perhaps I was just too busy with them... ;-)
One of the topics with progress was the Peruvian Bostryx. I wrote before on the material of Weyrauch and, although his localities are usually rather precise, I feel a bit stuck on the Rio Rimac valley material, by lack of adequate collecting data. Not only is it important to have precise localities (in this case very precise), I would recommend every collector to make additional field notes on habitat (occurrence on vertical or horizontal faces*) and other ecological data. Since all possible notes have been destroyed after his death by his ignorant spouse, we will never know where Weyrauch collected some of his material and in which habitats.
On the contrary, e.g. are the very adequate data supplied by Fred Thompson. During all his collecting trips he made extensive notes on habitats, soils and circumstances. I used some of them in a paper on enigmatic species (to be published) and in forthcoming papers on Venezuela and Hispaniola.
That being the positive side on the coin, there is also some negative news. My applications for the Synthesys programma, viz. to study type material in London, Berlin and Stockholm, have all been rejected. While decision making was separate for each museum, they have in common that it has been a nearly complete 'black box'. In London there were nearly 200 applications, which made competition stiff. The Berlin committee argued that my last publication was in the 1980s, simply ignoring my recent Zootaxa paper... Perhaps I have been just too long "out" to be able to do relevant research?
One of the topics with progress was the Peruvian Bostryx. I wrote before on the material of Weyrauch and, although his localities are usually rather precise, I feel a bit stuck on the Rio Rimac valley material, by lack of adequate collecting data. Not only is it important to have precise localities (in this case very precise), I would recommend every collector to make additional field notes on habitat (occurrence on vertical or horizontal faces*) and other ecological data. Since all possible notes have been destroyed after his death by his ignorant spouse, we will never know where Weyrauch collected some of his material and in which habitats.
On the contrary, e.g. are the very adequate data supplied by Fred Thompson. During all his collecting trips he made extensive notes on habitats, soils and circumstances. I used some of them in a paper on enigmatic species (to be published) and in forthcoming papers on Venezuela and Hispaniola.
That being the positive side on the coin, there is also some negative news. My applications for the Synthesys programma, viz. to study type material in London, Berlin and Stockholm, have all been rejected. While decision making was separate for each museum, they have in common that it has been a nearly complete 'black box'. In London there were nearly 200 applications, which made competition stiff. The Berlin committee argued that my last publication was in the 1980s, simply ignoring my recent Zootaxa paper... Perhaps I have been just too long "out" to be able to do relevant research?