Reviewer under review: Prof. Rolf Georg Beutel
Best wishes for the New Year 2019! Last month we bid farewell to 2018 by putting our topical researcher-led collections in focus and organizing a prize draw for an Amazon Kindle Fire tablet for researchers reviewing any paper on ScienceOpen in December. Today we would like to thank everyone who participated in the drawing and are pleased to announce the winner: Prof. Rolf Georg Beutel, Friedrich-Schiller-Universitat Jena (Jena, Thüringen).
Prof. Beutel is editor of the collection ‘Coleoptera’, a comprehensive overview of over 9,000 research articles covering this immensely diverse group. This ScienceOpen collection goes beyond the traditional fields of taxonomy and morphology, and integrates an increasing number of open access records. Curated by an evolutionary biologist who considers himself primarily a systematist, the collection covers multiple lines of research, such as phylogeny, classification, genetics, and physiology. ‘Coleoptera’ is an indispensable tool in biodiversity research and provides an essential reference system for studies in other fields. Evolutionary biology of Coleoptera relates to topics such as physiological and genetic backgrounds of feeding habits or reproductive biology, making it an exciting group to study. This is especially true in our “age of phylogenomics”, when rapidly growing molecular data opens new fascinating perspectives in the research on beetles and other organisms.
In contrast to most entomologists, Prof. Beutel states that he was not interested in insects at all as a child or later as a student of Zoology at the University of Tübingen. He was inspired by his “eccentric but outstanding academic teacher”, Dr. G. Mickoleit, who prompted him to investigate the head and mouthparts of a very small and cryptic beetle larva. Prof. Beutel was hooked already from working with his first objects of study, despite initially having a hard time conducting this research. He has continued studying beetles and other insects for the rest of his scientific career.
In December, Prof. Beutel reviewed the paper “On the identity of the fossil aquatic beetles from the Tertiary localities in the southern part of the Upper Rhine Graben (Coleoptera, Hydrophilidae, Dytiscidae)” (2011) by Fikáček Martin, Jiří Hájek, Heiko Schmied from his collection ‘Coleoptera’. His clear and concise review is an excellent example of successfully using the open peer review feature on ScienceOpen. We welcome further reviews of articles in this diverse collection! Read our peer review guidelines and contribute to spreading the word about the intricate world of ‘Coleoptera’. As a reminder, all reviews are published with a CC BY Open Access license and receive a Crossref DOI.
ScienceOpen discovery environment features over 50 million article records and over 150 researcher-led collections. We invite you to share your expertise in 2019 by reviewing an article or even curating your own collection. Your feedback is always welcome!
