Dr. Bill Shear has been appointed to the advisory board of the Journal of Cave and Karst Studies, the scientific journal of the American Speleological Society. JCKS publishes research articles on geological, hydrological, biological and engineering aspects of caves and karst terrain. Karst terrain occurs wherever there are extensive deposits of limestone on the surface, and is charactrerized by subterranean drainage, caves and sinkholes. Dr. Shear will be advising on publications about the animals that inhabit spaces underground, and has himself discovered and named many species throughout the world found only caves. In addition to his new duties, Dr. Shear is an Associate Editor of Zootaxa, a megajournal of systematic biology that in 2010 published over 30,000 pages and accounted for about 20% of all new taxa of animals described that year. He is also on the editorial board of the Journal of Arachnology, and frequently reviews manuscripts for many other journals, including Naturwissenschaft, Nature, Science, and American Scientist.