Newsletter of the Biological Survey of Canada (Terrestrial Arthropods)

Project Update:
The Biological Survey of Canada
Journal of Arthropod Identification

A modular identification e-journal of the Biological Survey of Canada

Steve Marshall
Department of Environmental Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1 samarsha@uoguelph.ca

Hugh Danks
Biological Survey of Canada (Terrestrial Arthropods), Canadian Museum of Nature,
P.O. Box 3443, Station D, Ottawa, ON K1 6P4
hdanks@mus-nature.ca

Scope
Contributions must review the taxonomy and identification of one or more groups of terrestrial arthropods for all or part of Canada. Each contribution is expected to include novel and fully illustrated identification guides to at least one taxon for a significant geopolitical region, habitat, or ecozone. Contributions must deal with the Canadian fauna, but need not be restricted to Canada, and we welcome more inclusive submissions covering areas (such as the Great Lakes region) or habitats (such as North American spruce forests). Some of the e-publications due to come out in the near future include Exopterygote families of Canada, Scorpionflies of Ontario, and Vespidae of Ontario.

Criteria for publication
The principal prerequisite for an e-publication to appear in this series is the inclusion of a novel and useful identification guide. We expect that most authors will produce a printable dichotomous key, but we also encourage the submission of alternative key formats either as a supplement or a replacement for a dichotomous key. Matrix keys, such as LUCID, represent an attractive option, as do custom HTML keys. We strongly encourage authors to include linkages to regional databases, maps, and related products, and insist that all submissions to this series include numerous high-quality illustrations and/or photographs (see "other instructions to authors" below for some additional recommendations).

New taxa
We encourage the inclusion of new distributional data, new taxonomic characters, new insights into morphology, new biological information and other data relevant to understanding regional arthropod diversity. We will not, however, accept descriptions of new taxa and instead suggest that new taxa be validated in another journal (such as the Canadian Entomologist) prior to usage of the taxon names in the e-journal.

Copyright
Copyright for all illustrations and photographs will normally remain with the author, although a release will be required and the BSC holds copyright to the published product as a whole. If someone other than the author holds copyright to the illustrations or photographs it must be clearly indicated on the photos/figures and it is the author’s responsibility to ensure that they are used with appropriate permission.

Other instructions for authors
Editing and reviewing will be done by fully qualified volunteers. We wish to avoid extensive technical editing and substantial modifications to files, so contributions must be web-ready as submitted. We recommend that all photographs be provided as JPEGs between 72 (minimum) and 300 (maximum) ppi resolution, and that line drawings are converted to JPEG or (better) GIF formats. Further details will be made available to authors upon enquiry, pending the posting of guidelines on the BSC website and the posting of initial fascicles, two of which are outlined below.

Editorial committee and review process
The Editorial committee will include an editor-in-chief and a committee of regional editors with differing taxonomic expertise. The regional/taxonomic editors will, whenever possible, be chosen from the Scientific Committee of the BSC. Contributions can be submitted via email. The file size of image-rich contributions might be too great for email attachments, so manuscripts can also be submitted on CD. (FTP submission might also be possible, but this approach would limit potential reviewers so CDs are recommended). Submissions should be sent to the editor-in-chief (S.A. Marshall, address above), who will forward them to the appropriate regional editor. The regional editor will then choose reviewers on the basis of taxonomic expertise, familiarity with the type of publication submitted, and scope of the submission.

Page charges/subscription costs
The BSC Journal of Arthropod Identification will be open access, with no subscription charges and no page charges.  

Vespidae of Eastern Canada
One of the first contributions to the upcoming e-journal of the Biological Survey of Canada is a taxonomic treatment of the Vespidae of eastern Canada. The Vespidae, which include the solitary potter wasps, and the eusocial yellowjackets and paper wasps, contain some of the most conspicuous and most familiar taxa of our native Hymenoptera fauna. Despite their attractiveness (in some cases notoriety) and their highly interesting biology the taxonomy of Nearctic Vespidae lingers in a state of neglect. Even the identification of some of the most common taxa poses tremendous challenges. Some groups have never been properly revised or were revised in the first half of the 20^th century, and existing keys are often outdated, incomplete and misleading. The need for a new taxonomic resource is well illustrated by the fact that our research has uncovered one new eastern Nearctic species in the genus Euodynerus (Eumeninae) and has led to the resurrection of a species of Ancistrocerus (Eumeninae) from synonymy.

The eastern Canadian Vespidae project aims at overcoming the taxonomic impediment in this important and interesting group. It provides a complete and novel set of keys from the subfamily to the species level, and covers all the species that occur in northeastern North America (south to Virginia). In many genera a completely new approach at keying out species is taken including a considerable number of newly discovered diagnostic characters that have helped to solve certain taxonomic problems. Taking full advantage of the opportunities of the new electronic medium this work is profusely illustrated with both high-resolution photographs of museum specimens and photographs of live specimens in the field. The standard set of photographs for each species includes at least one dorsal and one lateral habitus photograph (Figs 1, 4) as well as frontal views of the male and female head (Figs 2, 3). Additionally, all diagnostic characters are documented by either high-resolution photographs or line drawings. Considering the great variability of many species, especially their colour patterns, a detailed verbal description of variation accompanies each species treatment. The distribution of species in Ontario is documented through distribution maps and full locality data while their presence in the remainder of eastern Canada is recorded by province. Besides many new provincial records 14 species are recorded for the first time from Canada, including the first Nearctic record of an introduced Palaearctic species. The biology of each species is briefly discussed, including new data on several species.

The project is now in an advanced stage. The keys and most of the species treatments have been written and most of the standard images (habitus and head photographs) have been taken. We are hopeful that the Vespidae of eastern Canada will demonstrate the advantages and usefulness of the new electronic medium and will encourage similar taxonomic treatments of other Canadian families of insects.

Matthias Buck

Examples of images from the upcoming Vespidae of Eastern Canada (Images of pinned specimens taken by D. Cheung, using a Microptics imaging system, University of Guelph Insect Systematics Laboratory)
Fig. 1 Ancistrocerus gazella (Panzer), female habitus, dorsal
Fig. 2 Euodynerus crypticus (Say), female head	Fig. 3 Pachodynerus erynnis (Lepeletier), male head
Fig. 4 Parazumia symmorpha (Saussure), male habitus, lateral