It's always risky to embark on a discussion thread which rocks the apple cart when one has only just joined a discussion group, but........

Having just started up a new lab on a shoestring budget that is dedicated to gastropod neuroscience research (see my profile), I was particularly pleased to discover the MN gateway. I think it has great potential, and could offer researchers working in molluscan neuroscience the same kind of support and community as esteemed examples such as flybase and wormbase. But......I also think that it's not going to progress much for new members such as myself unless we come up with a way to develop it as a community. It's clear from my relatively short time in the field that a few people probably know each other and each other's research very well and that beyond this "core" there are satellite research labs that dip in and out of view. Couple this with a diverse range of species rather than one to focus our attention on and we have a functioning but never vibrant research community.

OK....what should we do?  

1. Having joined the invertebrate neuroscience @ citeUlike.org, I was surprised to find just 29 references, mainly submitted by Robert. I have accumulated in my short time in this field, tens of articles, many of which overlap in terms of techniques, focus, significance with a range of gastropods including my own, Planorbis. I'm about to upload these to CiteULike for the community, sure some of them will be well known, but at least they will be accessible to everyone.  For some of you who have worked for many years in this research area, the articles you have indexed would be of great help to us newer researchers. 

Suggestion: please post your bibliographies............

2. Where's the discussion?  I can't believe that there are no big (or for that matter small) questions that we could take on as a community. Techniques, approaches to answering research questions and general discussions about the common patterns and processes found across our different gastropods are vital to a developing community.

Suggestion: how about posting some of the questions we are hoping to solve as discussion topics, not every last detail of course...

3. Where are the technical resources?  As someone who spent the last 25 years in human molecular genetics, I am eager to get to grips with the techniques that my new community uses to 'dissect' and understand the nervous system of the gastropod. I am developing my own techniques for my research on the neuroethology of Planorbis, but I hope not in splendid isolation! 

Suggestion: Perhaps we could cover a technique per week and members of the community could contribute their own experiences? We are a small and diverse community, but many of the gastropods we work on share common features that demand similar technical and theoretical approaches.

Sorry if this seems to be a negative rant, it's not. I am very keen to see this community flourish, I have made a choice to use the last 1/3 of my research career studying a small aquatic gastropod because I think it can provide answers to some bigger questions about human behaviour....but also mainly because it's fun, surprisingly complex, amenable to many different lab techniques and different. I'm here for the long term, so I don't want to rain on my community at the start...just provoke a little dynamic discussion.

Regards

Steve Hodgkinson