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Behind the Curve
I have learned, following my recent post to killietalk regarding reference
materials, that there is no central collection of technical literature
available to members other than JAKA and perhaps some journals of sister
associations.I was told by one member that resources have,on occasion,
disappeared over the years. This leaves university resources: library,
biological abstracts, and inter-library loan as the most direct means of
acquiring technical literature cited. An unorthodox but, perhaps, effective
way of building a robust AKA reference library would be to require/request
JAKA authors to submit copies of cited literature (of reasonable length)
along with their manuscript when sent for review.
I am of the opinion that to know our fish we must know their history. There
is a lot going on these days with regards to evolutionary biology and the
subject of speciation. It is now necessary to couple meristic/morphological
measurement with allozyme survey so to best understand species identity and
associations. The means used to reach results have become complex and, for
me, can be difficult to grasp. I feel there would be value in having an
objective technical committee/advisor(s) who stay abreast of current trends
in zoological issues and scientifc methods. These would not , necessarily,
be the researchers who use JAKA for publication as they may lack the
inclination, time, or objectivity to answer general technical queries. If
anyone out there has a "handle" on the analysis of electrophoretic data in
population genetics and systematics I would like to hear from them by
private e-mail if they have some time.
Thanks, and if you live up north, as does my brother, where winter has
caused hardship I hope life soon returns to normal
Mike Bleakley
mbleak at telepath_com
l Page 2 October 14, 1996