Species Names - spaces or not?

Our page proofs for Nucleic Acids Research were changed according to a journal 'style'. The change was to remove the spaces in species names. So instead of saying 'E. coli' we have 'E.coli' in our paper. While this may seem to be an innocent enough change, it affects searching for terms.

For example, page searches in browsers SeaMonkey and Mozilla (and presumably and Firefox) give different results. Thus PEOPLE WILL NOT FIND THE TEXT IN A PAPER! They will think that 'E. coli' is not mentioned!

Here are web pages that indicate a preference for using a space:

• Google searches are different:
  • 'H. sapiens' about 1,400,000 for H. sapiens
  • 'H.sapiens' about 1,010,000 for H.sapiens
  and
  • 'E. coli' about 21,700,000 for E. coli
  • 'E.coli' about 17,700,000 for E.coli
• Pubmed searches differ sometimes. (Sorry, the current PubMed does not allow me to give you searches!!)
  • 'H. sapiens' 531
  • 'H.sapiens' 178
  and
  • 'E. coli' 211115
  • 'E.coli' 211115
• PubMed Central searches differ sometimes. (Sorry, the current PubMed Central does not allow me to give you searches!!)
  • 'H. sapiens' 3628
  • 'H.sapiens' 1056
  and
  • 'E. coli' 103543
  • 'E.coli' 103543
• The Binomial nomenclature Wikipedia entry DOES use a space.
• A Smithsonian Homo sapiens page DOES use a space
• The Binomial nomenclature at EvoWiki uses a space in their definition.

Either I'm ignorant of current standards in scientific nomenclature or this is an inappropriate journal style that will cause problems when people search.

Schneider Lab
origin:    2006 Dec 14
updated: 2006 Dec 14