Venom Mass Fingerprints for Species Delimitation, Reloaded: A Test Case with Italian Scorpions (Euscorpius)

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  Venom Mass Fingerprints for Species Delimitation, Reloaded: A Test Case with Italian Scorpions (Euscorpius) Abstract Scorpion venoms are complex mixtures of bioactive compounds including proteins, peptides and enzymes. Although venoms exhibit substantial intraspecific variation, some compounds appear to be species-specific, highlighting their potential as chemotaxonomic markers. Venom mass fingerprints (MFPs) derived from Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time-of-Flight (MALDI-TOF) Mass Spectrometry (MS) have been proposed as a means of delimiting species. However, their utility for species delimitation has rarely been evaluated against independent sources of taxonomic evidence. In the present study, the performance of MALDI-TOF MS-based venom peptide barcoding (mass ranges of m/z 800‒4500 and m/z 3000‒10,000) was assessed in 52 populations of eight Italian species of the scorpion genus Euscorpius Thorell, 1876, representing different levels of evolutionary divergenc...

If history is written by the victors, who describes the spiders? Species author trends reflect gender and geopolitical disparities in biodiversity science

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If history is written by the victors, who describes the spiders? Species author trends reflect gender and geopolitical disparities in biodiversity science

Abstract

Gathering data on species description authorship is one way to track who has had access to a career in taxonomy. Via data from the World Spider Catalog, we examined trends in gender and geopolitical affiliation of taxonomists who described spider species from the Americas between 1946 and 2021. From each author citation, we inferred the gender (man or woman) of each author and the geopolitical location of their institution. Institutions were labelled as representing the Global North or South, categories corresponding to countries with more or fewer economic resources that foster access to taxonomic careers. We then used these individual author designations to calculate proportions of author teams of each gender or geopolitical category for each species described. When examining the makeup of author teams across time, we see that they have become more collaborative across gender and the geopolitical hemispheres. However, equity gaps remain when it comes to first authorship. Greater proportions of women are on teams with greater proportions of Global South authors, suggesting that when one underrepresented demographic is supported in becoming a species description author, other underrepresented demographics also benefit. This study contributes data toward understanding how we can make careers in taxonomy more accessible globally.

Montana, K. O., Gorneau, J. A., Gosnell, J. S., Crews, S. C., Xavier, C., Marta, K. S., Pantoja, P., Hannappel, M. P., Stiner, E. O., Jones, M. M., Mottershead, G., & Esposito, L. A. (2025). If history is written by the victors, who describes the spiders? Species author trends reflect gender and geopolitical disparities in biodiversity science. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 146(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blaf067