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On November 7, Beijing time, Biology Letters said in a new statement that it would not retract the paper suspected of falsifying the lionfish behavior, and concluded that no misconduct undermined the study. The paper was found to be forged in another paper published by the same first author. Portal: A lot of fish? Looking for a difference? Swedish scientists are suspected of academic misconduct), but Biology Letters expressed "concern" about the collage photo submitted by the author during the investigation.
The whistleblower, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the decision was disappointing. He said the journal, published by the Royal Society of London, chose to ignore key parts of the evidence.
The controversy stemmed from a 2014 paper showing that the Zebra Lionfish (Dendrochirus zebra), which lives on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, can attract other companions to participate in group hunting by showing its pectoral fins. The paper's lead author, Oona Lönnstedt, was convicted in 2017 of fabricating data from the Science paper, and the whistleblower warned Biology Letters editors that data for that paper in 2014 could also be fake.
He noted that the number of fish needed for the study described in the paper, including 86 zebra lionfish and 16 Pterois Antennas, far exceeded the number of lionfish owned by Lönnstedt, who was working at James Cook University in Australia at the time (2012). Scientists conducting research on the Great Barrier Reef are required by law to record their catches. Lönnstedt reported that they caught only 12 zebrafish and 3 spotted lionfish. Anne Hoggett, an administrator at the research station, said zebra lionfish and spotted lionfish around Lizard Island are uncommon, and she said she had worked there for decades and was very familiar with marine animals. "If someone proposes to need these numbers of lionfish, then I think it's extremely difficult," she said. ”
In November 2018, Biology Letters made a correction to this, explaining above that, contrary to what the paper described, some fish were reused, which would reduce the number required for the experiment to 40 zebra lionfish and 9 spotted lionfish. Biology Letters also posted 50 fish collages as evidence of the number of lionfish caught during the study (click on the bottom left corner for the complete collage to read the original article). But independent image experts found that there were at least three sets of duplicate images in the collage, apparently to hide the duplicate parts, and many photos that looked very similar and appeared to show the same fish.
Lönnstedt, who made the collage, has stopped contacting the magazine and has not responded to Science's request for comment. Her two co-authors, Douglas Chivers and Maud Ferrari of the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, were both authors of last year's correction, but later said there was an error in the revision process that they hadn't noticed at first. They argue that the collage was by no means intended to prove that Lönnstedt had 50 fish available to her.
Biology Letters has embraced this explanation. In a statement issued today, it was said that the collage photo was published incorrectly. It also added that an independent expert reviewed the details of the experiment provided by Lönnstedt, including experimental notebooks and photographs, and concluded that the study did indeed take place. However, this collage was not used in the survey.
The editors wrote: "We remain concerned about the ambiguity of collage photos as part of the documentation provided. However, we are pleased with the independent expert's findings that neither the experimental work in this article nor its reports involve any misconduct. ”
The statement did not explain what the purpose of the collage photos was, even if not to prove the number of fish collected, nor did it explain the difference between the number of fish recorded in the collection and the number of fish used in the study.
David Beerling, editor-in-chief of Biology Letters at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, was contacted by phone, who referred the question to a spokesperson for the Royal Society, who had not yet answered Science's question about the investigation. Chivers and Ferrari said they had nothing to say, writing in an email: "The correction is self-explanatory. ”
The whistleblower said: "This decision, while confusing, is not surprising. It's just another case where the journal withholds and denies evidence in order to protect its reputation. I think I'm confident that the evidence is so convincing that it will speak for itself. ”
The whistleblower said he would report the case to the Publication Ethics Committee and the agencies that funded the study.
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