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How to rectify the misuse of scientific names in bioscience?

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Chinese Science Bulletin

Abstract

The misuse of scientific names for species of organisms is a widespread and long-standing academic phenomenon; however, its negative impacts to scientific community and the public have been largely overlooked all along. Here we exemplified two research cases in seaweeds to highlight the extent and dimension of misused scientific names of species in bioscience, and present a few feasible measurements to rectify such a situation. Our ultimate goal is to create a discussion platform and to draw deserved attention of scientific name to taxonomy-related scientists.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank two anonymous reviewers for their critical and valuable comments on the original version of this manuscript. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31370264).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Zi-Min Hu & De-Lin Duan

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35487, USA

    Lopez-Bautista Juan

Authors
  1. Zi-Min Hu
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  2. Lopez-Bautista Juan
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  3. De-Lin Duan
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Correspondence to Zi-Min Hu.

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Hu, ZM., Juan, LB. & Duan, DL. How to rectify the misuse of scientific names in bioscience?. Chin. Sci. Bull. 59, 1479–1481 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-014-0143-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-014-0143-7

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