Kitano Group / Ecological Genetics Laboratory

First record of Macrobrachium ustulatum (Crustacea: Decapoda: Palaemonidae) from Honshu, Japan

Yusaku Minagawa, Yusuke Fuke

Aquatic Animals (2024) 2024, .AA2024-7 DOI:10.34394/aquaticanimals.2024.0_AA2024-7

The freshwater prawn Macrobrachium ustulatum is distributed throughout the western Pacific Ocean and was first identified in Japan in 2015 on Okinawa Island, Ryukyu Islands. Here we report an adult male specimen of this species collected from the small river in Izu Peninsula, Japan. This is not only the northernmost record of M. ustulatum, but also the second record from Japan based on a single male specimen, and the first from Honshu.

Figure: Macrobrachium ustulatum obtained in this study. This is the first male specimen of this species found in Japan.

Academic publishing requires linguistically inclusive policies

Henry Arenas-Castro, Violeta Berdejo-Espinola, Shawan Chowdhury, Argelia Rodríguez-Contreras, Aubrie R. M. James, Nussaïbah B. Raja, Emma M. Dunne, Sandro Bertolino, Nayara Braga Emidio, Chantelle M. Derez, Szymon M. Drobniak, Graham R. Fulton, L. Francisco Henao-Diaz, Avneet Kaur, Catherine J. S. Kim, Malgorzata Lagisz, Iliana Medina, Peter Mikula, Vikram P. Narayan, Christopher J. O’Bryan, Rachel Rui Ying Oh, Ekaterina Ovsyanikova, Katharina-Victoria Pérez-Hämmerle, Patrice Pottier, Jennifer Sarah Powers, Astrid J. Rodriguez-Acevedo, Andes Hamuraby Rozak, Pedro H. A. Sena, Nicola J. Sockhill, Anazélia M. Tedesco, Francisco Tiapa-Blanco, Jo-Szu Tsai, Jaramar Villarreal-Rosas, Susana M. Wadgymar, Masato Yamamichi, Tatsuya Amano

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2024)291, 20232840 DOI:10.1098/rspb.2023.2840

Press release (In Japanese only)

Scientific knowledge is produced in multiple languages but is predominantly published in English. This practice creates a language barrier to generate and transfer scientific knowledge between communities with diverse linguistic backgrounds, hindering the ability of scholars and communities to address global challenges and achieve diversity and equity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). To overcome those barriers, publishers and journals should provide a fair system that supports non-native English speakers and disseminates knowledge across the globe. We surveyed policies of 736 journals in biological sciences to assess their linguistic inclusivity, identify predictors of inclusivity, and propose actions to overcome language barriers in academic publishing. Our assessment revealed a grim landscape where most journals were making minimal efforts to overcome language barriers. The impact factor of journals was negatively associated with adopting a number of inclusive policies whereas ownership by a scientific society tended to have a positive association. Contrary to our expectations, the proportion of both open access articles and editors based in non-English speaking countries did not have a major positive association with the adoption of linguistically inclusive policies. We proposed a set of actions to overcome language barriers in academic publishing, including the renegotiation of power dynamics between publishers and editorial boards.

Source: Henry Arenas-Castro et al., Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2024) vol, pp.

Figure: Panorama and drivers of linguistic inclusivity in academic publishing. Linguistic policies of journals as communicated in author guidelines (n = 736, the upper half of the donut) and answered in our survey by editors-in-chief (n = 262, the lower half) alongside the predictors that are associated either positively (upward arrow) or negatively (downward arrow) with the level of linguistic inclusiveness in policies. Source: Figure 1 in the article of Henry Arenas-Castro et al.

Professor Masato Kanemaki of Molecular Cell Engineering Laboratory has been awarded the 23rd Yamazaki-Teiichi Prize. This award, presented by Foundation for Promotion of Materials Science and Technology (MST), is given to individuals who have made outstanding creative achievements which lead to practical applications through the publication of technical papers, acquisition of patents, development of methods and technology. The prize is presented in four fields: “Materials,” “Semiconductors and Systems, Information, and Electronics,” “Measurement and Evaluation,” and “Bio and Medical Sciences.” In the fiscal year 2023, selection was conducted in the fields of “Measurement and Evaluation” and “Bio and Medical Sciences,” and Professor Kanemaki was selected as the recipient in the field of Bio and Medical Sciences.

https://www.mst.or.jp/Portals/0/prize/japanese/winners/newwinners.html
The prize ceremony and acceptance lecture were held on February 28, 2024, at The Japan Academy in Tokyo.

• Kanemaki Group • Molecular Cell Engineering Laboratory