[Taxacom] Taxonomy - crisis, what crisis?

[Chris Thompson]

Thanks, Rod, for bring this to the Taxacom community attention. 
Unfortunately the article is not open access.

So, I can respond with only one little significant fact and suggest further 
analysis along similar lines.

Look at the MAJOR collections which hold the only real scientific vouchers 
of our biodiversity.

Consider the insect order DIPTERA or flies. Depending on various estimates 
this group represents from 10% to 16% of the known species diversity. And it 
is one of the most critical groups in relationship to us. As the group 
includes vector of diseases which kill millions annually, others are major 
agricultural pests (fruit flies), some are critical models for research 
(Drosophila), some are useful biological control agents, others are used in 
forensics, many are critical pollinators, et cetera.

The largest and most important (based on primary types and number of 
represented species) collection of these creatures is at the Smithsonian 
Institution, Washington. Back in the 1970s when I joined the staff of 
scientists employed to do research on flies and curate this collection there 
were a dozen (12) full time scientists working here (supported by USDA, 
Smithsonian and DoD*). Today, there are only THREE (3) employed to do 
research and maintain the collection. [Yes, there is a growing Emeritus 
staff (4), but that will pass on soon).

Look at The Natural History Museum in London, The Zoological Institute in St 
Petersburg, et cetera, and you will see the same trend. And, take at look at 
home, how well are your basic Museum taxonomists being supported? [Or should 
I ask Geoff?]

Oh, well ...

Chris Thompson
from home
Emeritus at Smithsonian

*go to the Department of Entomology website (http://entomology.si.edu/) and 
click on the bottom of the page for the history of the collection up until 
the mid 1970s. Unfortunately we no longer have the staff to up-date and 
revise this history!

-----Original Message----- 
From: Roderic Page
Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2011 12:37 PM
To: taxacom
Subject: [Taxacom] Taxonomy - crisis, what crisis?

Hot on the tail of the recent paper son the number of species comes Joppa et 
al.'s paper in TREE http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2011.07.010 , which 
concludes:

"Conventional wisdom is highly prejudiced. It suggests that taxonomists were 
a formerly more numerous people, are in 'crisis', are becoming endangered 
and are generally asocial. We consider these hypotheses and reject them to 
varying degrees."

It's an interesting paper. I've written a short blog post on the irony that 
it will be hard to test their conclusions because the taxonomic data they 
use isn't freely available, see 
http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2011/10/taxonomy-crisis-what-crisis.html

Regards

Rod

---------------------------------------------------------
Roderic Page
Professor of Taxonomy
Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine
College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences
Graham Kerr Building
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

Email: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
Tel: +44 141 330 4778
Fax: +44 141 330 2792
AIM: rodpage1962 at aim.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1112517192
Twitter: http://twitter.com/rdmpage
Blog: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
Home page: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html


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