A new centipede (reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder) enticed taxonomists – but the specimens had obscure origins.
© MAGNOLIA PRESS; C. DOMÉNECH ET AL., ZOOTAXA, 4483 (3), 401 (2018)
According to Yao-Hua Law
In 2018, a new species of centipede graced the pages of the prominent taxonomy journal Zootaxa. Over 14 inches tall, with striking blue-green legs, it lives in the mountainous and mossy forests of the Philippines. Now, however, the centipede is in the spotlight. The Philippine government says the Spanish neurologist and amateur biologist who described the species obtained its specimens illegally.
Neither the magazine’s editors nor its fellow reviewers caught the error – and the magazine has no policy requiring documentation that specimens have been collected with appropriate permits. Some editors tell Science that should change. Others worry about hampering research when undescribed species quickly disappear. And all agree that magazines would struggle to enforce such rules, given the wide variation in countries’ legal requirements. “A magazine simply cannot verify this,” says Maarten Christenhusz, independent botanist and editor-in-chief of the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
Carles Doménech of the University of Alicante in Spain had contacted Filipino collectors after seeing images of the centipede online. One, Michael Andrew Cipat, caught wild centipedes and sold them – dead and alive – to Doménech in 2016 and 2017. Cipat says Science he had permits to collect and that a friend with export permits had shipped the copies. But the Philippine Department of the Environment and Natural Resources says it is illegal to sell specimens to a foreign researcher who has not signed an agreement with DENR. “The Philippine government does not tolerate such illegal acts,” a representative wrote Science. The collectors can be incarcerated or fined under a Philippine conservation law.
Doménech says he was unaware that he needed permits to export the centipedes, calling himself a “newbie” who mostly worked alone. After he submitted his paper describing the new species, which he named Scolopendra paradoxa, neither Zootaxa neither of the five reviewers of his manuscript asked for permits, he says. ‘Now I know [was] a mistake, ”he wrote in an email. “Now I catch my copies and don’t let anyone do it for me without the corresponding legal permits.”
Zhi-Qiang Zhang, editor-in-chief of Zootaxa, who studies mites at Landcare Research in New Zealand, says that while the journal does not impose licensing requirements, individual editors can reject manuscripts that are not licensed. He says the magazine’s editors had previously discussed whether it should instruct authors to adhere to the licensing requirements and disagreed. “Most editors took a negative view of ‘permits’ or ‘legal requirements’ for specimens,” said Zhang, citing the view that such regulations restrict research into and conservation of biodiversity.
A reviewer of Doménech’s manuscript, Carlos Martínez, a centipede taxonomist at the University of Turku Zoological Museum, says he was “ really crazy ” when he learned about the origin of the centipede specimens. “As reviewers, we have a right to know if the specimens were obtained illegally,” he says. “We have the right to refuse to review the newspaper.” Martínez says he interviewed four of the five Filipino collectors named in the paper and confirmed the copies were illegal. But he says reviewers cannot be expected to routinely examine the legality of specimens. “We reviewers are not supposed to be the police.”
Illegal copies under investigation have occasionally been uncovered, but magazine editors disagree on the magnitude of the problem. One editor described it as “insignificant”; another said it is “impossible to know”. They also disagree on what to do about it. Louis Deharveng, Deputy Editor of ZooKeys and an arthropod researcher emeritus at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, says an editorial permit policy is “essential.”
But of the five respected taxonomy journals, two – the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society and Zootaxa– do not instruct authors to obey specimen collection laws. (Science will soon add such compliance with legal requirements to its editorial policy.)
Shaun Winterton, managing editor of Systematic Entomology and an entomologist at the California Department of Food and Agriculture, says his journal authors say they follow the law, but adds, “If we editors suspected material had been collected illegally, it might be difficult for us to confirm.” (He notes that he speaks on behalf of the magazine, not his employer.) The complex and diverse legal conditions that countries place on research are an obstacle.
Another complication is the international Nagoya Protocol, which aims to ensure a “fair and equitable sharing of benefits resulting from the use of genetic resources”. The agreement may regulate the import of some specimens, but whether it applies to taxonomy specimens is unclear. The Nagoya Protocol allows each signatory country to determine the use of genetic resources; Spain says EU law enforcing the Nagoya Protocol does not apply to taxonomic studies such as Doménech’s.
Gonzalo Giribet, editor-in-chief of Systematics of invertebrates and a zoologist at Harvard University, adds that reviewers also can’t take the responsibility. “They are doing this altruistically,” he says, making him suspicious of adding legal concerns to their audit burden. “Magazines must have clear statements about the origins of biological materials and ethics, and ultimate responsibility [for legality] should lie with the authors. “
Clear information about legal requirements would help reviewers, editors and researchers, says Caroline Fukushima, an arachnologist at the Finnish Museum of Natural History. In June 2020, in Conservation Biology, she and colleagues recommended creating a platform for countries’ legal requirements for wildlife research. “We are facing habitat destruction, so we need to make life easier and faster for scientists,” she says.