Peer Reviewing Interdisciplinary Papers

Interdisciplinary research is becoming more frequent because many contemporary issues can only be successfully addressed by integrating different perspectives. One general feature of the various scientific fields is peer review, i.e. the assessment and improvement of submissions to journals, conferences and workshops. Whilst there exist guidelines for the peer review of mono-disciplinary articles and empirical studies of how interdisciplinary research proposals are assessed, there is still a need for a summary of issues specific to the peer review of interdisciplinary research papers. This article provides an overview of relevant questions such as whether reviewers are competent to assess interdisciplinary papers even if unfamiliar with all the involved fields. We discuss the assessment of the interdisciplinarity, soundness, novelty, influence and general interest of interdisciplinary manuscripts. Further issues include the appropriateness of interdisciplinary submissions for journals, keeping the vocabulary of new interdisciplinary fields understandable to the reader and balancing the references across various fields. Constructive interdisciplinary reviewers are likely to be just as open-minded as interdisciplinary scientists and should be rewarded more than they currently ar

Are the living collections of the world's botanical gardens following species-richness patterns observed in natural ecosystems?

Pautasso M. and Parmentier I. 2007. Are the living collections of the world's botanical gardens following species-richness patterns observed in natural ecosystems? Bot. Helv. 117: 15 - 28. Botanical gardens aim to promote the awareness, study and conservation of plant species diversity, but little is known about the species diversity of botanical gardens themselves. We therefore investigated whether the species richness of the world's botanical gardens is related to their size, age and geographical location by compiling data from gardens in 124 different countries. The data show that even in these highly managed ecosystems, species richness can be described in terms of a relatively small number of large-scale patterns. As with most natural ecosystems, there were positive species-area and species-age relationships. There was also a positive latitudinal gradient in species richness, which contrasts with the trend observed in natural ecosystems. This discrepancy may be due to the use of heated greenhouses at high latitudes, the rarity of old botanical gardens in the tropics, and the problem of poverty in developing countries, where most hotspots of plant biodiversity are located. There is thus a need to allocate more funds to botanical gardens in species-rich regions. This study also calls for an increase in the coordination of data management between botanical garden

A Review of 'Crop Protection in Medieval Agriculture. Studies in Pre-Modern Organic'

This brilliant and original book by Jan Zadoks, a renowned, prolific and polyglot Dutch plant epidemiologist [2], provides a systematic, learned and well-structured overview of our understanding of medieval crop protection in Europe

Correspondence between genetic structure and farmers' taxonomy - a case study from dry-season sorghum landraces in northern Cameroon

The study of the genetic structure of cultivated plant populations maintained by farmers is of great importance for evolutionary and conservation biology. Such studies help understand the bases of crop evolution and conservation in relation to farmers' practices. In this study, we assessed the genetic structure underlying landrace diversity of dry-season sorghum. This crop constitutes a historical model of innovation developed by farmers to extend sorghum cultivation to the dry season. Two types of dry-season sorghum are cultivated. We aimed to assess the link between farmers' taxonomy and molecular genetic structure. We collected both types of dry-season sorghum in two villages of northern Cameroon which represented 20 landraces. These landraces were genotyped using eight polymorphic microsatellite markers. This study compared two clustering methods: a Bayesian method (STRUCTURE) which is based on explicit genetic assumptions and the discriminant analysis of principal component method. The latter, more recently proposed, is based on the combination of principal component analysis and discriminant analysis. We noticed a general congruence between these two methods. We also used both methods to infer the genetic structure of our sample. Our results showed strong genetic structuring of the landraces, with K ¼ 14 genetic clusters. We then analysed the fit between farmers' taxonomy and genetic structure. The data suggested that each type and each landrace corresponds to a given genetic entity. This pattern was robust across both villages, despite differences in cultural practices. (Résumé d'auteur

Species-richness patterns of the living collections of the world's botanic gardens: a matter of socio-economics?

Background and Aims The botanic gardens of the world are now unmatched ex situ collections of plant biodiversity. They mirror two biogeographical patterns (positive diversity-area and diversity-age relationships) but differ from nature with a positive latitudinal gradient in their richness. Whether these relationships can be explained by socio-economic factors is unknown. Methods Species and taxa richness of a comprehensive sample of botanic gardens were analysed as a function of key ecological and socio-economic factors using (a) multivariate models controlling for spatial autocorrelation and (b) structural equation modelling. Key Results The number of plant species in botanic gardens increases with town human population size and country Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per person. The country flora richness is not related to the species richness of botanic gardens. Botanic gardens in more populous towns tend to have a larger area and can thus host richer living collections. Botanic gardens in richer countries have more species, and this explains the positive latitudinal gradient in botanic gardens' species richness. Conclusions Socio-economic factors contribute to shaping patterns in the species richness of the living collections of the world's botanic garden

Drivers for emerging issues in animal and plant health.

The history of agriculture includes many animal and plant disease events that have had major consequences for the sector, as well as for humans. At the same time, human activities beyond agriculture have often driven the emergence of diseases. The more that humans expand the footprint of the global population, encroach into natural habitats, alter these habitats to extract resources and intensify food production, as well as move animals, people and commodities along with the pathogens they carry, the greater the potential for pathogens and pests to spread and for infection to emerge or re-emerge. While essential to human well-being, producing food also plays a major role in disease dynamics. The risk of emergence of pests and pathogens has increased as a consequence of global changes in the way food is produced, moved and consumed. Climate change is likely to increase pressure on the availability of food and provide newly suitable conditions for invasive pests and pathogens. Human population displacements due to economic, political and humanitarian crises represent another set of potential drivers for emerging issues. The overlapping drivers of plant, animal and human disease emergence and environmental changes point towards the concept of 'One Health'. This paradigm underlines the urgent need to understand the influence of human behaviour and incorporate this understanding into our approach to emerging risks. For this, we face two major challenges. One is cultural; the second is methodological. We have to look at systems not under the narrow view of specific hazards but with a wider approach to system dynamics, and consider a broad spectrum of potential outcomes in terms of risk. In addition, we have to make sense of the vast amounts of data that are available in the modern age. This paper aims to help in preparing for the cultural and methodological shifts needed in our approach to emerging risks