Time to update taxonomy? Article from BioMedNet [Snip w/link]

[Jim Bass]

The summary article below may be a bit more accessible for
some than the Vol. 18, No. 2, February 2003  issue of TREE
suggested by Rich Pyle on 20 January.
Jim
_________________________________________________________
Time to update taxonomy?
BioMedNet
by Henry Nicholls

Taxonomy is stuck in the 18th Century, claims Canadian zoologist
Paul Hebert, who calls for a molecular revolution. "There is no more
likely death of a discipline than the failure to innovate," he warns.

With the right funding and support from the taxonomic community,
Hebert, professor of zoology at the University of Guelph, predicts
that using DNA to identify and help categorize new species would
make a complete inventory of life a feasible goal in as little as 20 years.

Traditionally, species have been identified and categorized on the basis
of morphological differences, but parts of the academic community are
becoming increasingly concerned that "morphological taxonomy",
pioneered by Linnaeus in the 1750s, is no longer equipped to account for
the extent of earth's biodiversity, frequently estimated at between 10- and
15-million species.

"Let's face it, the morphological approach has had 250 years to advance
the task, and we're only 10% of the way towards the goalposts," Hebert
told BioMedNet News. His solution, to which many taxonomists are
strongly opposed, is to distinguish between species on the basis of
similarities and differences in their DNA.

A DNA-based taxonomy would vastly accelerate the final inventory of life,
says Hebert. Each novel organism would be described rapidly and simply
by a "barcode" - a number that corresponds to a sequence of its DNA. Hebert
envisages this "gene species" as a first, mandatory step towards describing
a
real species. At a later stage, traditional taxonomists could make the
formal
morphological description of the specimen, which would then become
associated
with its DNA barcode, he suggests.

Although most taxonomists support a role for DNA in taxonomic research, some
have expressed strong concerns about any move that would make DNA sequencing
a mandatory step in the description of a new species.

Many think that describing a species using DNA is expensive and unnecessary.
"In most instances, a quick survey of morphology will serve the same
purpose," write
Ole Seberg, professor of evolutionary botany at the University of Copenhagen
in
Denmark, and colleagues in a letter to be published in the February issue of
Trends in
Ecology and Evolution (TREE).
[Snip]
http://news.bmn.com/magazine/specialreport?uid=SREP.030109-1
http://news.bmn.com/magazine/specialreport?uid=SREP.030109-1