radiolaria - Marum

Radiolaria 14 News
Usefulness of this information, fast acquisition of
impressive numbers of data points, ease of comparison
with literature data, are some of the advantages that made
isotope studies so popular. I think, however, that one of
the major factors that contributed to the decline in the
interest for surveys based on species identifications is our
inability to work out a common language as far as the
names and shapes of the bugs we deal with are concerned.
Some years ago, we (Boltovskoy & Jankilevich)
compared the results of our rad identifications in a small
plankton collection from the equatorial Pacific ocean with
publications based on materials that undoubtedly exceeded
our coverage several-fold [Oceanologica Acta, 8:101-123,
1985]. Only Petrushevskaya's reports seemed to include
all the species that we found, while the remaining 8
studies analyzed reported 88% to as little as 18% of our
taxa. I have very little doubt that the missing radiolarians
were present in their collections: they were either ignored,
or lumped with other forms, or split to the point one
cannot trace equivalencies. I am not implying that we
were right and all the others were wrong, but just
pointing out that we did not communicate. There
obviously was a language problem.
When looking at the illustration of a "new" species
just published in the literature, didn't you sometime have
the "deja vue" feeling? Well, I've had it quite often, and
sometimes, just for fun, I'd go to Haeckel or Popofsky or
some other old monograph... and there it is! with horns,
spines, and everything! Creating a "new" taxon is much
much easier than combing all the dusty books in search of
an adequate name for the odd shell one comes across in the
slide. And since too few reviewers seem to care much the
new name makes its way into print and contributes its
sand grain to the already hectic mess.
Unfortunately, the process of erecting new names has
practically no rules to it. One just sends the manuscript;
if it is lucky enough as to be reviewed by someone who
cares little about nomenclature and systematics, the paper
gets published and the new names are formally valid
thereafter.
Is there anything that can be done to mitigate this
problem? In my opinion - yes. Good identifications are
§A welcome spin-off from Yoshiaki Aita's sojourn here
as a post-doctoral fellow at Auckland University has been
a rapid rise in interest in using Mdiolarians to improve
age control in poorly dated Mesozoic basement rocks and
Cretaceo-Paleogene limestones.
Geologists from the Institute of Geological and
Nuclear Sciences aGNS, ex DSIR Geology and
Geophysics, formerly NZ Geological Survey!) are
successfully retrieving Triassic and Jurassic radiolarians
from cherts and phosphate nodules in the greywackes
around Wellington.
Radiolarian research in New Zealand
Chris Hollis
- 5 -
obviously the starting point, but then we all think that
our own identifications are good. But what about other
people's identifications? Yes, we can definitely criticize
those, or at least some of them. Look, for example, at
Paulian Dumitrica's approach at describing new taxa (e.g.,
Revista Española de Micropaleontología, 21:207-264,
1989); I doubt that any of us would dare to question his
work. Each new species is illustrated in photographs, line
drawings, thin-sections, thoroughly described and
compared with related morphotypes. And then check other
descriptions of new taxa (no, I won't give examples: we
all have some good examples to offer anyway...).
I have the feeling that avoiding spurious new species
is as much a responsibility of the author, as it is of the
referees and of the editors. When acting as referees, we
should probably require some minimum standards for
accepting a new species from a colleague. These minima
should take into account the number of specimens used
(measured, photographed, thin-sectioned) for the erection
of the new taxon, the literature checked in search of
synonyms, the variability within the taxon and
similarities with other species, etc., etc.
This problem is not a recent one: Ernst Haeckel, in
his 1887 (Challenger) monograph, included 3389
radiolarian species, 2785 of which were described as new.
Nowadays we are all aware of the fact that quite a few of
these taxa are synonyms, but at the turn of the century
there were no isotopes to compete with. Cathy Nigrini
and Ted Moore's 1979 radiolarian guide (A guide to
Modern Radiolaria, Cushman Foundation for
Foraminiferal Research, Special Publication 16) was a
cornerstone that did a lot for improving our
communication as far as radiolarian names and shapes are
concerned. But the decade elapsed since that work requires
a new similar effort to put some order in radiolarian
taxonomy. A Nigrini-Petrushevskaya-Dumitrica (as a
biologist I am restricting my scope to Cenozoic
radiolarians) coauthored updated guide would be an epochmaking
update.
Demetrio Boltovskoy
Barry O'Connor, a graduate student at Auckland
University, has obtained rich mid-to Late-Oligocene (with
some Eocene) faunas from the poorly dated Mahurangi
Limestone north of Auckland. His excellent TM and SEM
photos will be a valuable record of these very well
preserved southem mid-latitude faunas.
Although mainly working on Recent benthic
foraminifera at present, Chris Hollis is managing to find
some time for extending his studies of Cretaceo-Paleogene
radiolarians from the Amuri Limestone in Marlborougll
(NE South Isla~ld), including biostratigraphic study of
radiolarians and foraminifera (with Percy Strong of IGNS)