My First Withdrawn Manuscript

I've done something I had hoped never to have to do, pull a manuscript from the review process and put it on ice. Specifically, I requested that the black darter article in revision at Southeastern Naturalist be withdrawn. The editor had requested some changes in data calculation and presentation, and I wasn't able to do them because I don't have the original raw data. This is stupid and ultimately unethical if it reaches print, but I was hoping to find the other author, Rachel, who had agreed to the publication of her thesis and then disappeared over a year ago. Finally, hope ran out on Friday that I could find her. For a variety of bad reasons she had all of the original notebooks, and there was no way I could fake it. This kills me because we were able to characterize the seasonality and reproductive effort of black darter spawning. I'm tempted to re-do the work next spring, at least in some form. Gack.

Happy Earth Day, including the climate change deniers.