All Taxa Biological Inventory Workshop Report
Scott Miller
scottm at BISHOP.BISHOP.HAWAII.ORG
Mon Aug 2 09:47:21 CDT 1993
1993
ALL TAXA BIOLOGICAL INVENTORY WORKSHOP, APRIL 1993: AN OVERVIEW
Scott Miller, Bishop Museum, Box 19,000-A, Honolulu, Hawaii 96817
In April 1993, 57 specialists convened for a three day workshop
at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia to discuss the
concept and mechanics of an All Taxa Biological Inventory (ATBI).
Participants had backgrounds in managing biotic surveys or infor-
mation, and represented more-or-less the full range of terrestri-
al and freshwater taxa. For logistic reasons, the marine envi-
ronment was excluded from discussion, although several represen-
tatives were present to provide cross linkage to similar process-
es underway among marine scientists. Most participants came from
the United States, but Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil, Nor-
way, England, and Australia were represented. The workshop was
organized by Dan Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs with funding from
NSF. An overview recently appeared in SCIENCE (260: 620-622, 30
April 1993), so I will focus more on details here.
For discussion purposes, the physical characteristics of an ATBI
were expected to be as follows. Some of the parameters are
determined by biological needs, others by logistic or political
realities. A single large site, 50,000-100,000 hectares, includ-
ing diverse habitats. The site should be subject to long term
preservation (e.g., national park or similar status), but should
include disturbed habitats. An ATBI would be a complete inven-
tory of all taxa to the maximum extent possible, including fungi,
bacteria, and viruses. Collections will be made within a grid
system (GPS/GIS-referenced) via sampling strategies that allow
maximum information retrieval in the future, and will be appro-
priately vouchered. Modern information management, including
global interactive access to data via Internet, is crucial. For
simplicity, I refer here to one ATBI site, but it is expected
that once one gets underway, others would be started in other
countries.
An ATBI must be a cooperative, synergistic effort, with all
involved working closely together. For example, birds have
insect parasites, which have protozoan parasites, so sampling
strategies must be coordinated. Training of systematists, as
well as land managers and others, will be built in. The inventory
would include passing the species collected "through the filter
of what we know" to add biological and phylogenetic information
to the knowledge base.
As has been recognized by Association of Systematics Collections
workshops in recent years, there is a serious lack of trained
systematists, as well as collections and research facilities, for
microbes and many invertebrates (especially non-arthropod, non-
mollusk invertebrates). Diana Lipscomb observed that "the bio-
sphere of systematists has more holes than the ozone layer." An
ATBI would require a major infusion of effort into these fields.
Where will the people come from? If training opportunities and
jobs are available, experience with other projects shows that
people will emerge to meet the challenge (this was referred to as
the "Field of Dreams" concept -- "If you build it, they will
come").
In order to be successful an ATBI must be fully collaborative.
The plan must be developed and managed by local constituents in
cooperation with scientists and the various user communities.
This workshop focused on ascertaining the technical and scientif-
ic issues of feasibility to carry out an ATBI. Further workshops
must focus on user needs and local involvement, including such
areas as biodiversity prospecting, ecotourism, education, and
science-based industries.
A single ATBI would cost $50-150 million. After two years of
planning and gearing up, the inventory would take about five
years. It is hard for systematists, accustomed to their tradi-
tional budgets, to plan in numbers this large or time frames so
short! We tend to limit ourselves by this mindset, because clear-
ly this is cheap compared to current expenditures in space,
physics, or military. NASA has already spent over $8.5 billion
just planning the space station! An ATBI site might include some
100,000 to 150,000 species, yielding a unit cost of something
like $1000 per species.
After an ATBI has been "completed" the site would continue to be
used for monitoring, research, education and training. Thus,
although the major inventory activity would occur during five
years, an ATBI would be an ongoing process. Depending on the
site, it may even convert to a region of renewable resource
exploitation, such as ecotourism.
The products of an ATBI will include: complete inventory of a
site; a step toward world taxonomic inventory; benchmarks and a
"known universe" for research in ecological and environmental
change; standards, protocols, and methodologies for sampling and
monitoring; a platform for ecological studies; training; demon-
stration of the significance and capabilities of systematics;
detailed knowledge of patterns in biodiversity of all taxa on a
landscape scale; paper and electronic manuals of the biota that
will be useful far beyond the local site; public exposure for the
importance of systematics and conservation. The importance of
the last item cannot be over stated -- the scale of the ATBI will
attract public and governmental attention in a way that almost no
other systematics activity can!
Involvement of the systematics community is vital to an ATBI. In
providing an example of the value of systematics and as an oppor-
tunity for building international funding for systematics in-
frastructure, an ATBI could contribute greatly to the health of
systematics. Both the proponents of ATBIs and the Systematics
Agenda 2000 steering committee have arrived at the importance of
building world systematics infrastructure in order to understand
the diversity of life on Earth. Now we just need to find a way
to do that!
The ATBI concept can be perplexing if viewed in traditional
terms. The group dynamic at the workshop was interesting in this
regard. For the first day or so, many of the participants were
greatly concerned by the scale involved and doubted the ability
of our community to rise to the challenge. But as they saw the
power in the concept and the potential for international partner-
ships to develop the resources, the mood changed to remarkably
positive. Shortly after the mood shift, the group heartily
endorsed the importance of choosing a site with "spectacular
diversity." Most systematists at the workshop, when asked about
their particular specialties, thought it was feasible.
After the workshop, I undertook my own non-scientific survey of
some members of the public and found that the concept of knowing
everything about what lives in one place was exciting to people
who might not find most of biology of interest. There is an
intrinsic appeal to the ATBI concept that provides a major hook
for funding.
What happens next? The workshop report should be distributed in
August 1993 and will lay out a plan in more detail. First, an
initial site must be identified, starting with local and national
commitment to support an ATBI. After national support has been
assured, funding must be solicited internationally. Then the
scientific and management team must be put together. Then de-
tailed planning and action will continue.
Some interesting remarks overhead during the workshop:
An ATBI is "a tool for monitoring the health of life on Earth"
"There is a need to restructure taxonomy - by planning versus
historical accident - driven by societal needs"
"ATBI is as much a political as scientific act, calling attention
to the biodiversity problem"
[end of file]
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