Revolutionary changes to the Botanical Code published in 16 journals and 5 languages

In addition, the journals PhytoKeys and Mycokeys published the same paper translated into Chinese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish in order to further disseminate these important changes to the wider community of scientists these changes will affect.

The XVIII International Botanical Congress held in Melbourne, Australia in July 2011 approved sweeping changes to the way scientists name new plants, algae, and fungi (previous press release: Electronic publishing 'goes live'). The Melbourne Code (now re-named the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants) will allow online-only publication of names of new taxa – what is widely known as e-publication – from 1 January 2012. The mandatory requirement for a Latin diagnosis or description of new taxa of algae, fungi, and plants was changed to allow either English or Latin from the same date.

"Two important amendments to the Code affecting publication of new names – e-publication and the use of Latin and/or English rather than only Latin - will take effect on 1 January 2012, sooner than what would be the traditional timing of 1 January 2013. To prepare the community and journal publishers for these important steps that will come into effect very soon, we publish today a paper that focuses on what e-publication means for the different stakeholders in the process of naming new algae, fungi, and plants" said the lead author Dr Sandra Knapp of the Natural History Museum in London.

This highly important article was published or will be soon re-published in a total of sixteen leading academic journals: BMC Evolutionary Biology, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, Brittonia, Cladistics, MycoKeys, Mycotaxon, New Phytologist, North American Fungi, Novon, Opuscula Philolichenum, PhytoKeys, Phytoneuron, Phytotaxa, Plant Diversity and Resources, Systematic Botany and Taxon.

In addition, the inaugural issue of the open access journal MycoKeys, which is published today, features a commentary paper by Professor David Hawksworth (Department of Plant Biology, Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Department of Botany, Natural History Museum, London) entitled "A new dawn for the naming of fungi: impacts of decisions made in Melbourne in July 2011 on the future publication and regulation of fungal names" in which the far-reaching changes affecting nomenclature of fungi are detailed. A critical change in nomenclatural rules for fungi is the adoption of the "one fungus, one name" principle, among others.

More information: Sources:

English: Knapp S, McNeill J, Turland NJ (2011) Changes to publication requirements made at the XVIII International Botanical Congress in Melbourne – what does e-publication mean for you. PhytoKeys 6: 5-11. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.6.1960

Chinese: Knapp S, McNeill J, Turland NJ (2011) Translation into Chinese of: "Changes to publication requirements made at the XVIII International Botanical Congress in Melbourne – what does e-publication mean for you?". Translated by Li-Bing Zhang. PhytoKeys 6: 13-19. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.6.1984

Portuguese: Knapp S, McNeill J, Turland NJ (2011) Translation into Portuguese of: "Changes to publication requirements made at the XVIII International Botanical Congress in Melbourne – what does e-publication mean for you?". Translated by Jefferson Prado, Regina Y. Hirai, and Cíntia Kameyama. PhytoKeys 6: 21-28. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.6.1985

Spanish: Knapp S, McNeill J, Turland NJ (2011) Translation into Spanish of: "Changes to publication requirements made at the XVIII International Botanical Congress in Melbourne - what does e-publication mean for you?". Translated by Carmen Ulloa Ulloa, Lourdes Rico Arce, and Renée H. Fortunato. PhytoKeys 6: 39-49. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.6.1990

Russian: Knapp S, McNeill J, Turland NJ (2011) Translation into Russian of: "Changes to publication requirements made at the XVIII International Botanical Congress in Melbourne – what does e-publication mean for you?" Translated by Irina V. Belyaeva and Maria S. Vorontsova. PhytoKeys 6: 29-37. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.6.2001

Hawksworth DL (2011) A new dawn for the naming of fungi: impacts of decisions made in Melbourne in July 2011 on the future publication and regulation of fungal names. MycoKeys 1: 7-20. doi: 10.3897/mycokeys.1.2062

Provided by Pensoft Publishers