A guest post by an ecologist who works at a European university and specialises in pest management. Both for agricultural and forestry pests which infect crops, and for papermill fraudster pests who infect scientific journals. The problem is that the journals are not just defenceless, but often do not really mind being infected by those papermill parasites.

The author, whose identity is known to me, wishes to remain anonymous. They comment on PubPeer as Orthopyxis integra.

Note: I provided some editing.

Pest management

By Orthopyxis integra

I work in the areas of pest management and around 2019, I began receiving a flurry of papers to review, all from China, all very similar, featuring the same type of figures, linking single effectors to mechanisms of pathogenicity in agricultural and forest pests via effects on some plant defence pathway. The papers follow a consistent pattern: transcriptome data identify a promising candidate effector secreted by the pest, which is upregulated during infection. Most of the experimental validation of the effector role is done in Nicotiana benthamiana, the tobacco plant. Subsequent inoculations on the target plant crop or host show that silencing of the effector reduces or eliminates the pest’s pathogenic effects. The effector is then linked with some proteins and defensive pathways of the plant hosts.

The pathogens or pests are often nematodes, but they can also be fungi, bacteria, or even plasmids or virus. The hosts can be any agricultural, ornamental or forest plant species. 

These papers invariably include photos of N. benthamiana leaves, microscopy images of protein expression or interaction in this model plant, and, of course, tons of Western blots. These papers also always present photos of the affected plant crop, but as carefully curated studio-like photos, never the actual experimental setups, such as greenhouses or growth chambers.

At the 6^th or 7^th paper on these effectors, I started to feel particularly unimpressed with this type of work, not seeing where all of it was going. 

In 2023, I reviewed a submission The Plant Journal entitled “A key virulence effector from pine wood nematode targets host thaumatin-like protein (TLP) to inhibit the salicylic acid pathway”. In this study the authors characterized an effector peptide, which they named BxSCD4, secreted by the pine wood nematode Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, considered a major pest of pine trees. This number 4 in BxSCD4 means there were already 2 or 3 papers about this specific type of effector from the same pest, published or submitted. The authors described BxSCD4 as a “suppressor programmed cell death-4”, and reported its interaction with proteins in the salicylic acid pathway in pines, which suppress its activity. However, I found it puzzling how a “suppressor of programmed cell death” could inhibit a plant defence pathway involved in producing defensive compounds and mentioned that the authors did not quite explain this. Additionally, I pointed out to the editors that the paper closely resembled a previous publication by the same group:

Tong‐Yue Wen , Xiao‐Qin Wu , Long‐Jiao Hu , Yi‐Jun Qiu , Lin Rui , Yan Zhang , Xiao‐Lei Ding , Jian‐Ren Ye A novel pine wood nematode effector, BxSCD1, suppresses plant immunity and interacts with an ethylene‐forming enzyme in pine Molecular Plant Pathology (2021) doi: 10.1111/mpp.13121

The BxSCD4 manuscript was then rejected. 

However, a few months later I received a very similar paper from the same authors for review, this time submitted to the journal Plant Cell and Environment, entitled “Pine wood nematode BxNMP1 targets PtTLP-L2 to mediate PtGLU inhibiting self-defence mechanism in Pinus thunbergii”. This paper was almost an exact copy/paste version of the manuscript previously submitted to The Plant Journal, with the exact same photos, graphics, tables etc., but in all the text the effector was changed from BxSCD4 to BxNMP1. I guess the authors decided that an effector named “Nematode Manipulator of pathogenesis-related proteins 1″ (BxNMP1) would raise less questions when relating it to the salicylic acid pathway. I warned the editors about the fraud, sending them the pdf previously submitted to The Plant Journal. I clearly warned the editors of Plant Cell and Environment that I had strong suspicions about the activity of a papermill injecting these papers on the literature. The paper was rejected by this journal. It ends up being published by MDPI in International Journal of Molecular Sciences, this time I had nothing to do with the revision. 

Dan Yang , Lin Rui , Yi-Jun Qiu , Tong-Yue Wen , Jian-Ren Ye , Xiao-Qin Wu The Bursaphelenchus xylophilus Effector BxNMP1 Targets PtTLP-L2 to Mediate PtGLU Promoting Parasitism and Virulence in Pinus thunbergii International Journal of Molecular Sciences (2024) doi: 10.3390/ijms25137452 

To my surprise, Plant Cell and Environment recently published a review of all these wonder effectors of the pinewood nematode:

Limei Song , Wenyu Liu , Yafei Ma , Yitong Zhao , Rongzhu Zhao , Jianghua Sun , Bin Zhang Comprehensive Insights Into Pinewood Nematode Effectors: Evolutionary Diversity, Functional Roles, and Implications for Pine Wilt Disease Management Plant, Cell & Environment (2025) doi: 10.1111/pce.15655 

The over 30 effectors described on Table 1 of this paper includes BxNMP1, and thus this review includes a paper previously rejected by Plant, Cell & Environment after suspicious of fraud were raised by a reviewer. This leading journal on the area of plant sciences, of the Wiley portfolio, with an impact factor of 6.1, decided to publish a review based on papers they had been previously warned by a reviewer as being fraudulent. Additional another paper included in the review has a record on PubPeer due to suspicious of image manipulation:

Yi‐Jun Qiu , Xiao‐Qin Wu , Tong‐Yue Wen , Long‐Jiao Hu , Lin Rui , Yan Zhang , Jian‐Ren Ye The Bursaphelenchus xylophilus candidate effector BxLip‐3 targets the class I chitinases to suppress immunity in pine Molecular Plant Pathology (2023) doi: 10.1111/mpp.13334 

Another common type of study frequently published in recent years, and which I have often been asked to review, involves the isolation and testing of some “miracle” biological control agents for various agricultural and forest pests. These studies typically begin with screening of a community of organisms, usually bacteria or fungi, though sometimes of chemical composites (particularly herbal extracts from traditional medicine). Following a painstaking process of isolating and screening dozens or even hundreds of different strains or species, the authors ultimately identify a single isolate which demonstrates superior effects. However, only a minimal information is typically provided about the non-selected strains, which are often relegated to supplementary materials that may be either non-existent or inaccessible. When such supplementary materials are available, they usually contain nothing more than a basic listing of these unselected strains/species. The chosen “superior” biological agent then undergoes detailed characterization, with analysis of its genetics, metabolome, etc.. and identification of potential protein targets in the pest organism. The molecular assays employed are generally complex and sophisticated, while the papers always feature highly polished photographs of both the target pest and cultures of the biocontrol agent. 

Here is one example, the authors selected one strain of bacteria that they named JCK-1233 out of over 500 as a biocontrol agent against the pinewoode nematode:

Ae Ran Park , Se-In Jeong , Hee Won Jeon , Jueun Kim , Namgyu Kim , Manh Tuan Ha , Mohamed Mannaa , Junheon Kim , Chul Won Lee , Byung Sun Min , Young-Su Seo , Jin-Cheol Kim A Diketopiperazine, Cyclo-(L-Pro-L-Ile), Derived From Bacillus thuringiensis JCK-1233 Controls Pine Wilt Disease by Elicitation of Moderate Hypersensitive Reaction Frontiers in Plant Science (2020) doi: 10.3389/fpls.2020.01023 

The bacteria were selected from several locations and hosts. The authors provide a Suplementary Material listing all these 504 strains of B. thuringiensis, but no further information is provided besides the one already in the paper of induced GUS expression. Each one of this strains should have a location, host/habitat from where they were isolated and the date, including the selected JCK-1233. This information is important to add context and understand the ecology of these organisms.

In 2020, coinciding with the publication of the Frontiers paper, a patent for the bacterial strain JCK-1398 was filed by this group of researchers in Korea. The patent was subsequently filed in the USA in 2023. However, the patent does not reference the Frontiers paper. Furthermore, the JCK-1398 strain is not included in the batch of strains described in the Frontiers paper; instead, its number follows immediately after the last strain listed in Table S1. The methodology described in the patent publication for obtaining JCK-1398 is also very similar to the one described in the Frontiers paper.

An in 2024 we have this magnificent STOTEN paper by the same Mohamed Mannaa and his Korean colleagues, with the very same JCK-1398:

Mohamed Mannaa , Ae Ran Park , Jungwook Park , Hee Won Jeon , Hyejung Jung , Hyo Seong Jeon , Gil Han , Jin-Cheol Kim , Young-Su Seo Eco-friendly biocontrol of pine wilt disease: Enhancing tree defense with Bacillus subtilis JCK-1398 for sustainable forest management The Science of the total environment (2024) doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.177233 

I do not see a reference to the patent previously filed for this bacterium in the STOTEN paper. Regarding the methodology for obtaining the bacterium, the authors cite a paper published in Plant Pathology, not Park et al. 2020 published in Frontiers. There is no detailed information on the exact origin and date of isolation of these strains in this Plant Pathology paper:

N. Kim , H. W. Jeon , M. Mannaa , S.-I. Jeong , J. Kim , J. Kim , C. Lee , A. R. Park , J.-C. Kim , Y.-S. Seo Induction of resistance against pine wilt disease caused by Bursaphelenchus xylophilus using selected pine endophytic bacteria Plant Pathology (2019) doi: 10.1111/ppa.12960 

In STOTEN, the authors mention 92 bacterial isolates, and the numbering of these isolates closely resembles that used in the Plant Pathology paper, except for the isolate JCK-1398, as seen in the Supplementary Material of the STOTEN paper.

The discrepancies in the methodology used to obtain strain JCK-1398 are still a mystery to me. My guess is that, since the authors claim that they dispersed the bacteria in the forest using a helicopter, it may have seemed more credible and/or less questionable, if they also stated that the bacterium was originally isolated from the canopy of those same trees in that region of Korea.

It is concerning that there is no mention of permits from the appropriate authorities or any pre-release risk assessments to disperse JCK-1398 in the environment. However, this may not be that bad if we consider that the STOTEN paper is more science fiction than science. It’s difficult to know exactly what these researchers are doing, but my theory, though I could be proven wrong, is that much of this work is fake. Still, they needed bacterial strains to deposit in a type collection to maintain the appearance of legitimacy, and they claim to have deposited the bacteria in a type collection in Korea. This might explain why, in the Frontiers paper, we see Bacillus thuringiensis, one of the most widely used biocontrol agents in the world, and in the STOTEN paper Bacillus subtilis, a well-known model organism that is readily available commercially and present in many laboratories.

The following study I reviewed last year for Pest Management Science, and I advised rejection because I suspected this was a fraudulent paper, but it was published by this journal anyway. 

Md Kamaruzzaman , Lijun Zheng , Shun Zhou , Wenhua Ye , Yongqiang Yuan , Qiu Qi , Yongfeng Gao , Jiajin Tan , Yan Wang , Bingjia Chen , Zhiguang Li , Songsong Liu , Renjun Mi , Ke Zhang , Chen Zhao , Waqar Ahmed , Xinrong Wang Evaluation of the novel endophytic fungus Chaetomium ascotrichoides 1‐24‐2 from Pinus massoniana as a biocontrol agent against pine wilt disease caused by Bursaphelenchus xylophilus Pest Management Science (2024) doi: 10.1002/ps.8205  issn: 1526-4998

This is the advice I gave to the editor, which illustrates the basic problems with this type of papers:

This work was assessed by two other reviewers, one of them was very positive, the other raised serious questions about the analytical procedures. The Editor decision: “major revisions”. They sent me this manuscript for a second round of revision, which I simply ignored.

More recently, I looked at the published paper and found a really dumb image manipulation, and the paper ended up on PubPeer:

Of course the paper has much more problems than lousy images.

The worst part of all of these is that I think journals are on-board with this: Pest Management Science is full of this type of fraudulent papers and is a one of the leading journals on pest management, published by Wiley. After ignoring my advice about not to publish a fraudulent paper, they gave me a “Reviewer Certificate”. They really valued my advice, didn’t they? They even asked me to review two more times, something I simply ignored.

I also found another bad Photoshop job on a very similar paper from this author Md Kamaruzzaman, this time about mold in apples:

Md. Kamaruzzaman , Md. Samiul Islam , Md. Amit Hasan , Razia Sultana , Mohammad Omar Faruque , Chunhao Jiang Characterization of a hypovirulent strain of Botrytis cinerea from apple and quantification of the ICs related gene expression Mycological Progress (2021) doi: 10.1007/s11557-021-01737-1 

Here is another such papermilled effector study, with “a potato ribosomal protein, StRPS5, as a target of the P. infestans RxLR effector, Pi16275“:

Jing Liu , Yaping Hu , Xiaoqing Lu , Jifen Xu , Hongyang Wang, Wei Tang, Canhui Li The role of ribosomal protein StRPS5 in mediating resistance of Solanum tuberosum plants to Phytophthora infestans Plant science (2025) doi: 10.1016/j.plantsci.2025.112539 

The coauthor Hongyang Wang explained on PubPeer that “This is a non-subjective intentional error” which was however “not intentional and does not affect the conclusions of the study“.

Back to the fraud-infested Pest Management Science, here a sleuth expert provided some very helpful analysis:

Jia Tang , Ruoqing Ma , Najie Zhu , Kai Guo , Yiqing Guo , Liqun Bai , Hongshi Yu , Jiafu Hu , Xingyao Zhang Bxy-fuca encoding α-L-fucosidase plays crucial roles in development and reproduction of the pathogenic pinewood nematode, Bursaphelenchus xylophilus Pest Management Science (2020) doi: 10.1002/ps.5497 

Pines are very important in the timber industry, also in China, a lot get invested to study pine pests. And where’s a lot of money, there are papermills. Thus, even the literal papermill industry (wood) is connected to the metaphorical papermill industry of fake science.

Quan Li , Yuxin Zou , Jing Chen , Miao Su , Wenjia Jiang , Wenyi Liu , Jinghan Wang , Kai Guo , Hudie Shao , Liqun Bai , Jiafu HuBxy-glp-1 gene in the Notch pathway regulates the reproductive development of the pine wood nematode Journal of Forestry Research (2025) doi: 10.1007/s11676-025-01836-9 

I guess fraud in these areas of research doesn’t have such serious consequences for people’s lives as in other areas, such as biomedicine. I mean, you do not kill people with this bad science. It’s not a priority; thus, I think fraudsters are feeling emboldened, and publishers are all too eager to publish this trash. Yet the consequences are still serious: this trend distorts scientific understanding of pests and its management, creates obstacles for solving real-world agricultural problems, wastes valuable research resources, and ultimately is making agricultural and forest pest science a joke.

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