Meeting Abstract

79.3  Wednesday, Jan. 6  Species Naming Contest: A Year of Science 2009 Effort That Engaged the Public in Science COLLINS, Jennifer A; Consortium for Ocean Leadership jen@paleobio.org

At last year’s SICB meeting in Boston, Ira Flatow kicked off the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS) 2009 Year of Science (YoS) celebration. Each month of the YoS has been themed, with June focusing on ocean and water science. During June, we launched a species-naming contest for the Bonaire banded box jelly (BBJ; Cubozoa, Tamoyidae). The contest was hosted on the YoS website and challenged visitors to learn about taxonomy, the science team, the process, the animal, and then submit a name to become the formal, published scientific name. Over four weeks, the contest attracted over 500 citizens of the world to submit potential names. The public learned how to engage in this piece of science through press releases, the YoS web page, list-serves, blogs, and public outreach events. The scientists then picked out seven of their favorite — and appropriate — potential names from those submitted. During the subsequent week, more than 800 votes were cast by individuals and a winning name was chosen. However, new information came to light and prompted the scientists to decide that naming the BBJ as a distinct species was premature and too tentative. The public witnessed the dynamic nature of science as the original team contacted foreign collaborators, made additional observations, and discovered that they had data on a closely related species needing a new name and description. The person who submitted the winning name for the BBJ has embraced the plan of having the winning name applied to this species, a close ally of the BBJ.