Journal of Threatened Taxa |
www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 December 2021 | 13(14): 20307–20308
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893
(Print)
https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.7788.13.14.20307-20308
#7788 | Received 15 December 2021 | Finally
accepted 22 December 2021
If habitat heterogeneity is
effective for conservation of butterflies in urban landscapes of Delhi, India?
Unethical publication based on data manipulation: Response of original authors
Monalisa Paul 1 & Aisha Sultana 2
1 University School of Environment
Management, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha
University, Dwarka, New Delhi 110078, India.
2 Biodiversity Parks Program,
Centre for Environmental Management of Degraded Ecosystems, University of
Delhi, Delhi 110007, India.
1 monalisapaul28@gmail.com
(corresponding author), 2 aishasultana28@yahoo.com
Date of publication: 26 December 2021 (online & print)
Citation: Paul, M. & A. Sultana (2021). If habitat
heterogeneity is effective for conservation of butterflies in urban landscapes
of Delhi, India? Unethical publication based on data manipulation: Response of original authors. Journal of Threatened Taxa 13(14): 20307–20308. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.7788.13.14.20307-20308
Copyright: © Paul & Sultana 2021. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License. JoTT
allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution of this article in any
medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of
publication.
Das & Singh (2021) published
a paper representing serious flaws, forgery, and data manipulation in the paper
published in the same journal in 2021 by Paul & Sultana, which may have led
to an inadvertent understanding developed by Das & Singh (2021). Therefore,
through this communication, below-mentioned facts and circumstances are shared
which should resolve the queries raised by Das & Singh (2021).
The title of the original paper
is “Is habitat heterogeneity effective for conservation of butterflies
in urban landscapes of Delhi, India?” and not “If habitat heterogeneity
is effective for conservation of butterflies in urban landscapes of Delhi,
India?” which totally changes the concept of the paper.
Thesis is objective based writing
as per the guidelines of the University whereas paper writing is solely an
exclusive style of concept presentation by the author. The data presented in
the paper were not included in the thesis as they don’t comply with the
objectives of the thesis. Such raw reanalysed data
were published in the paper (Paul & Sultana 2021). This paper was updated
with new idea and improved by the considered comments and suggestions of
reviewers. Authors agree that in the thesis (Paul 2019) the word microhabitat
was used which are in fact small specialised
‘habitats’ only within a larger habitat. It is clearly mentioned in the study
area and methodology section that three random transects were laid at each six
different sites and habitats were sampled on those transects only. The data
were collected on different habitats on different transects at these sites.
Those habitats were pooled together irrespective of sites because the objective
was to check the effect of habitat heterogeneity on butterfly species and
accordingly diversity indices were calculated after normalising
data only. The unequal sample size can be standardised
for the analyses. The data were collected on different scales, so it was
transformed to normalise and thus reduced the
heteroscedasticity. These lines of action are prerequisite before analyses, so
they were not mentioned in the paper. The mentioned paper (Paul & Sultana
2020) comprised totally different objective and not dealt with habitats
therefore should not be seen as repetition.
The data were collected and was
available with first author and it was utilised to
calculate diversity indices. Diversity indices were calculated habitat wise for
‘Pollard walk’ method. That’s why the diversity indices were ‘0’ for the
‘Artificial light’ as only one species was found, and it was sampled by other
type of study which is clearly mentioned in the paper. Transects were laid at
different sites not in different habitats (mentioned in methodology). Nine
habitats were identified on these transects at different sites. So as mentioned
in Table 3, bird droppings were present at all sites. Melanitis
leda was sighted in dense forested habitat
throughout the day.
Artificial light is considered a
microhabitat/habitat by many researchers (Usman 1956; Donahue 1962; Shull 1964;
Shull & Nadkerny 1967; Sharma & Chaturvedi
1999; Nair 2001; Sharma & Chaturvedi 2005; Chowdhury & Soren 2011). The
diagram was accordingly presented in the paper which was somehow not considered
in the thesis and therefore should not be considered as tampered. It may be
noted that many other views of reviewers are also incorporated in the paper in
general to further bring new ideas. Figure 2 shows data in a graphical mode
with species name only whereas Table 2 represents numerical data which is not
reflected in Figure 2 and therefore should not be seen as duplication.
Generalist and specialist butterflies name have not been included in the paper
as the scope of the paper is always limited in any journal. It is not written
anywhere in the paper that species found in flowerbeds and grass are specialist
so should not be seen as misinterpretation of data. The actual percent
overlapping among various habitats are clearly mentioned in Table 2. The
independent sharing was calculated for overlapping of different habitats in
terms of species shared and it was not calculated for the species. The
percentage sharing of habitats (Table 2) between artificial light and
Hedges/crops/bushes was 2.5%. Coincidentally, Melanitis
leda was the only butterfly species found in the
artificial light during the study, Similar kind of sharing was shown by other
habitats too like between trees and Hedges/crops/bushes for Colotis
fausta.
The raw data were reanalysed to discuss the effectiveness of habitat
heterogeneity for conservation of butterfly species in urban landscape. Das
& Singh (2021) were right that in the thesis the preference of habitat was
discussed in terms of number of sightings but in the paper the authors have
discussed the diversity of butterfly species, i.e., number of species which was
considered as new idea. The flowerbeds were absent in the randomly transect
laid in Northern Ridge and discussion was based on results only. Das &
Singh (2021) may be right in saying that flowerbeds must be present in Northern
Ridge.
COVID 19 statement should not be
considered as mere speculation but may be seen as increasing the scope of study
in urban centres for butterflies as have been
published for other faunal species (Rutz et al. 2020;
Gilby et al. 2021) during lockdown.
The first author sincerely
apologizes to her supervisor and co-supervisor for not bringing the manuscript
to their knowledge before publication. She had some hearing mistake while
having verbal discussion with her Ph.D. supervisor to publish the research
papers without their names in the authorship. However, the first author
thoroughly acknowledged everyone (including both of her supervisors) who so
ever helped her during her Ph.D. work in her thesis. It happened unintentionally and first author
sincerely apologizes for her mistake. The co-author of the original paper
provided all technical contribution to the paper for publication and therefore
became co-author as per the desire of the first author.
In the light of the above facts
and circumstances these issues should be closed with learning for the co-author
to think before extending any support and help to students to avoid such
unnecessary controversies.
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