\documentclass[10pt]{article}

\usepackage{fullpage}
\usepackage{setspace}
\usepackage{parskip}
\usepackage{titlesec}
\usepackage[section]{placeins}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{breakcites}
\usepackage{lineno}
\usepackage{hyphenat}





\PassOptionsToPackage{hyphens}{url}
\usepackage[colorlinks = true,
            linkcolor = blue,
            urlcolor  = blue,
            citecolor = blue,
            anchorcolor = blue]{hyperref}
\usepackage{etoolbox}
\makeatletter
\patchcmd\@combinedblfloats{\box\@outputbox}{\unvbox\@outputbox}{}{%
  \errmessage{\noexpand\@combinedblfloats could not be patched}%
}%
\makeatother


\usepackage{natbib}




\renewenvironment{abstract}
  {{\bfseries\noindent{\abstractname}\par\nobreak}\footnotesize}
  {\bigskip}

\titlespacing{\section}{0pt}{*3}{*1}
\titlespacing{\subsection}{0pt}{*2}{*0.5}
\titlespacing{\subsubsection}{0pt}{*1.5}{0pt}


\usepackage{authblk}


\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage[space]{grffile}
\usepackage{latexsym}
\usepackage{textcomp}
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage{tabulary}
\usepackage{booktabs,array,multirow}
\usepackage{amsfonts,amsmath,amssymb}
\providecommand\citet{\cite}
\providecommand\citep{\cite}
\providecommand\citealt{\cite}
% You can conditionalize code for latexml or normal latex using this.
\newif\iflatexml\latexmlfalse
\providecommand{\tightlist}{\setlength{\itemsep}{0pt}\setlength{\parskip}{0pt}}%

\AtBeginDocument{\DeclareGraphicsExtensions{.pdf,.PDF,.eps,.EPS,.png,.PNG,.tif,.TIF,.jpg,.JPG,.jpeg,.JPEG}}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[ngerman,english]{babel}



\usepackage{float}








\begin{document}

\title{The eternal life of taxonomic monographs: the series on the Fauna and
Flora of the Gulf of Naples}



\author[1]{Ferdinando Boero}%
\affil[1]{Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn Napoli}%


\vspace{-1em}



  
  \date{June 17, 2024}


\begingroup
\let\center\flushleft
\let\endcenter\endflushleft
\maketitle
\endgroup





\selectlanguage{english}
\begin{abstract}
Taxonomic monographs, such as those of the Fauna and Flora of the Gulf
of Naples, have almost eternal life, in terms of scientific relevance,
and keep being cited even after centuries.%
\end{abstract}%



\sloppy


The eternal life of taxonomic monographs: the series on the Fauna and
Flora of the Gulf of Naples

Ferdinando Boero

\emph{Fondazione Dohrn, Darwin Dohrn Museum, Napoli, Italy}

Email: ferdinando.boero@unina.it

Most papers, and even books, rapidly fall into oblivion: some pass
through bursts of popularity, to lose their fame a few years after
publication, or after the death of the author(s). Some scientific
contributions, however, survive for centuries. Darwin's books are the
paradigm of eternal success, whereas those of Alexander von Humboldt,
for instance, rapidly lost their intellectual attractiveness and need to
be revived from time to time, in spite of their modernity (Wulf, 2016).

Taxonomic monographs are exceptional under this respect: they are not
''best sellers'' but they are surely ''long sellers'', and their appeal
never fades away.

Most of these books are old, and have a market through antiquarian
booksellers; many monographs, however, can be downloaded for free from
specialized sites such as the Biodiversity Heritage Library
(https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/).

The charm of old paper, the quality of both bindings and illustrations,
the very smell of these ancient books makes them objects of cult for
those who appreciate ''real things'' more than their projections on a
computer screen. As a source of information, however, the digitalized
monographs are even better than the real books: they are searchable,
parts of their content can be copied, annotated and organized in other
documents, along with the illustrations. In the past, these books were
often photocopied for taxonomists who had not a solid library to support
their studies, and the library copies were subjected to continuous
handling stress. Now they have to support a single stress: the scanning
from the machine. Then they can circulate for free throughout the world,
as pdf files.

The names of taxa are subjected to continuous change, as soon as their
phylogenetic or nomenclatural position becomes clearer, also in the
light of molecular studies. The old monographs deal with phenotypes and
are almost invariably rich in beautiful plates that show the morphology
of the treated species. The names can change, but the organisms keep
looking the same, whatever the name we give them.

The great oceanographic expeditions led to the production of impressive
monographic series: biological oceanography started with the Challenger
Expedition (1872-1876) whose results were published as 50 monographs
that narrate the cruise and describe the sampled species, especially
from the deep sea (Bailey, 1953). The results of many other expeditions
were documented with monographic series (Wust, 1964), accounting for
what today is labeled as ''biodiversity exploration''.

Vessels and marine stations are complementary for the study of marine
life. On the one hand, oceanographic ships have a worldwide operational
range, but their samplings last just a few hours at each station, with a
narrow temporal range. Samples are usually preserved, and the
collections are studied by appointed specialists in their institutions.
On the other hand, marine stations allow for the study of living
specimens, often in their natural environment, with no time-related
constraints: the spatial range is limited to the vicinities of the
station, but the temporal range is wide.

The Zoological Station of Naples, now Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn,
was founded by Anton Dohrn in 1872, the starting year of the Challenger
Expedition: both modern biological oceanography and marine biology have
exactly the same age. The impressive monographic series of oceanographic
expeditions, however, have no counterpart for marine stations. With the
sole exception of Naples' Zoological Station.

Anton Dohrn, in fact, launched the \emph{Fauna und Flora des Golfes von
Neapel} , later known as the \emph{Fauna e Flora del Golfo di Napoli} ,
a series of monographs dedicated to the biodiversity of the Gulf and,
sometimes, of the whole Mediterranean (Fig. 1).

The first monograph treated the Ctenophora (Chun, 1880), the 40th and
last one the Opistobranchia (Schmekel and Portmann, 1982). For a
century, three generations of Dohrn (Anton, Reinhard and Peter) hired
taxonomists that worked for years at the Zoological Station, sampling
and rearing the local species of the assigned groups, and renewed
artists were often appointed to lavishly illustrate the monographs. The
books were sold as subscriptions, not only to institutions whose
researchers used them as benchmark references for their studies, but
also to lay people, who collected them as beautiful coffee-table books.

The monographs were printed and sold by the Zoological Station, with the
exception of the very last one, that was published, in a different
format from all previous monographs, by Springer Verlag (Schmekel and
Portmann, 1982), twelve years after the 39th monograph on the
Anthomedusae-Athecatae (Brinckmann-Voss, 1970). Each monograph required
several years of work. To produce her monograph, Anita Brinckmann-Voss,
for instance, worked at Naples from April 1958 to July 1963, and
continued to work at it in Canada, until it was finally published. She
had a technician (Sofia Giaquinto-Boag) to rear the studied species so
as to reconstruct their life cycles and an artist (Ilona Richter) to
produce the plates that illustrate the monograph. During Brinckmann-Voss
permanence at the Zoological Station, many hydrozoan specialists spent
periods of study at the Station, such as Eberhard Stechow, Kay Petersen,
Marta Vannucci, Mayumi Yamada, Jean Bouillon, to complement
Brinckmann-Voss' work.

Such investments in time and human effort are not profitable, with
current publication trends. More than ten years of work for a single
title, in a series that is not awarded an Impact Factor is simply
suicidal for young researchers, and this calls for some meditation on
how biodiversity research is supported.

The monograph series of the Zoological Station was terminated in
1970-1982, ten years before the beginning of the era of biodiversity
with the Rio Convention on Biological Diversity, in 1992. It is
paradoxical that Naples' Zoological Station, one of the world capitals
of marine biodiversity, gave up its primacy just when the vision of its
monographs was given crucial importance.

The first 34 monographs of the Zoological Station are freely
downloadable from the site of the Biodiversity Heritage Library
(https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/176366). Biodiversity
knowledge, however, cannot be ''frozen'' in these old books. They must
be updated, since new species are discovered, species that were present
at those times are not found anymore, whereas other species arrive from
the tropics, due to the impact of global warming on Mediterranean biota.
The species of boreal affinity are in distress, being replaced by
species of tropical affinity: the composition of biodiversity evolves,
and its knowledge must be continuously updated. It is time, then, to
upgrade the available monographs, using the currently valid names,
adding species that were not covered, completing the descriptions with
molecular data and, if the whole life cycle was not described, providing
information not only about adult stages. The 38th Monograph (Ahlstrom et
al. 1962), for instance, is still a classic in the field of fish larval
development, and the knowledge it contains is based on the careful work
carried out at the Zoological Station by Salvatore Lo Bianco, whose
monograph on the periods of sexual maturity of the animals of the gulf
of Naples (Lo Bianco, 1909), published in the journal of the Zoological
Station, is a masterpiece in marine phenology, covering the periods of
sexual maturity of most of the animal species dealt with in the
Monographs and with many other taxa that are not covered in the
Monographs. Many taxa, in fact, simply do not have a monographic
coverage: the knowledge on these taxa is fragmented into myriads of
papers that are often published in ''obscure'' journals that are not
accessible to most researchers.

The monographs on the Fauna and Flora of the Gulf of Naples represent a
unique opportunity to compare the present biodiversity with the past
one: the unparalleled knowledge of marine biodiversity at Naples is
conducive to biodiversity changes evaluation that cannot be accomplished
at other places, due to lack of detailed studies dating back to more
than a century ago. These accounts on biodiversity remain important
historical witnesses of the first steps of biodiversity exploration,
their style, furthermore, is far from the dry and essential style of
modern scientific literature and are often fun to read.

Maybe these monographs are not so useful to document the local
biodiversity, since the species they deal with might not be present in
the area anymore, having been replaced by others that are not covered in
the monographs. They surely need updates, and this is easy with the
currently available digital aids.

Online monographs might respond much better to the need of summarizing
all available knowledge on species, and offer the opportunity of
real-time updates, species by species, as soon as new data become
available.

As a taxonomist, long time ago, I photocopied all papers that dealt with
each species of the group I was studying, starting from the original
description, and pasted the clips of monographs and articles in files
that contained the whole available knowledge on each taxon. Nowadays,
this monographic treatment, species by species, is even more feasible,
taking advantage of the digitalization of taxonomic papers and books.
Artificial intelligence elaborates what is available in the web but
cannot examine documents that are buried in libraries. If
meta-monographs will be realized for each species, the exploration of
biodiversity will become more reliable and efficient. Once all the
published knowledge on biodiversity will be digitized and properly
organized, artificial intelligence will become a powerful tool that will
foster biodiversity science in an unprecedented fashion. The decision of
carrying out this project, though, depends on natural intelligence.

References

Ahlstrom E.H, D'Ancona U., Sanzo L., Sparta A., Bertolini F., Montalenti
G., Padoa E., Ranzi S., Tortonese E., Vialli M. 1962. Uova, Larve e
Stadi Giovanili di Teleostei. Monografia elaborata con l'uso del
materiale raccolto e seriato da Salvatore Lo Bianco. Fauna e Flora del
Golfo di Napoli. 38: 858 pp.

Bailey H. S. 1953. The Voyage of the `Challenger.'~Scientific
American.~188, 5: 88--95.

Brinckmann-Voss A. 1970. Anthomedusae/Athecatae (Hydrozoa, Cnidaria) of
the Mediterranean. Part I. Capitata. Fauna Flora Golfo di Napoli. 39: 96
pp., XI plates.

Chun C. 1888. Die Ctenophoren des Golfes von Neapel und der angrenzenden
meeres-abschnitte. Fauna und Flora des Golfes von Neapel und der
anrenzenden mecres-abschnitte, hrsg. von der Zoologischen Station zu
Neapel, vol. 1: 313 pp., XVIII plates.

Lo Bianco S. 1909. Notizie biologiche riguardanti specialmente il
periodo di maturit\selectlanguage{ngerman}à sessuale degli animali del golfo di Napoli.
Mittheilungen aus der Zoologischen Station zu Neapel. 19: 513--761.

Schmekel L., Portman. 1982. Opisthobranchia des Mittelmeeres --
Nudibranchia und Sacoglossa. Fauna Flora Golfo di Napoli. 40, Springer,
Berlin: 410 pp., XXXV plates.

Wulf A. 2016. The invention of Nature. Alexander Von Humboldt's New
World. Vintage Books, New York. 552 pp.

Wust, G. (1964). The major deep-sea expeditions and research vessels
1873--1960: A contribution to the history of oceanography, Prog.
Oceanogr., 2: 1--52, doi:10.1016/0079-6611(64) 90002-3.

Legend to Figures

Fig. 1. Library collection of the series \emph{Fauna e Flora del Golfo
di Napoli} . The 40\textsuperscript{th} monograph on the Opistobranchia
of the Mediterranean has a different format than all other monographs
and is not published by the Zoological Station.\selectlanguage{english}
\begin{figure}[H]
\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=0.70\columnwidth]{figures/Fig/Fig}

\end{center}
\end{figure}

\selectlanguage{english}
\FloatBarrier
\end{document}

