[Taxacom] Taxonomy - crisis, what crisis?

[Stephen Thorpe]

I suspect that the reasons why descriptions are becoming more and more detailed is somewhat more complex than that. Many species still could be perfectly adequately diagnosed in a short, concise paragraph. I supect that sociological/economic factors are at play ...
?
just my 1 cent!
?
Stephen

From: Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com>
To: Neal Evenhuis <neale at bishopmuseum.org>; Roderic Page <r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk>; taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Friday, 7 October 2011 7:37 AM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Taxonomy - crisis, what crisis?



On 10/5/2011 4:05 PM, Neal Evenhuis wrote:
> I think their analysis missed a very important point.
>
> They say that given the decline in numbers of species described per
> taxonomist since 1950 there must be a declining pool of species. This
> does not take into account that some taxonomists are simply not
> publishing new taxa anymore

I suspect that we see a reduction in species descriptions in part by the 
ever increasing size of those descriptions. The descriptions become more 
and more detailed so that we can distinguish more and more species, but 
that takes more and more time to do.

Just my 2 cents.

Kim

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