I have noticed an increasing trend in reviewing multidisciplinary project funding proposals the exclusion of the associated costs of organism naming, the collection and curation of the research materials, and other taxonomic services such as mounting and preparing specimens for their incorporation into collections. Parallel to this is the now well-established knowledge of the rapid decline in the number of taxonomists, and the huge accumulation of research materials that are sitting in envelopes, cupboards and boxes and not yet incorporated into curated collections (mostly because of lack of financial resources and technicians to process them). Added to this is the well-established evidence of a now quite ageing cohort of experienced taxonomists. Why is this important? Journals are increasingly requiring statements that research material cited in papers (especially molecular papers) actually be available publicly and accessible to other researchers. I will illustrate the importance of this with an example from my own experience. I looked at the characterisation and variation of quinolizidine alkaloids on the Neotropical legume genus Ormosia to see if the chemical variation could provide useful taxonomic insights into relationships. I had been intrigued by Martin Ricker et al's paper (Article Alkaloid Diversity in Eleven Species of Ormosia and in Clath...
) in which they had found that alkaloid diversity in Ormosia was high and that the taxonomic distribution of specific alkaloids was not congruent with morphological taxonomic criteria. What was even more interesting was his earlier work where he had found that to conserve this Ormosia alkaloid diversity one need not have to preserve all the species and that most were already in some protected areas (irrespective of course of the need to conserve as many other species for other reasons). In following up on some other researcher's work I wrote to the authors asking if they had any seeds to send me so I could check the identity of some of the species names as there seemed to be anomalies in the data. Unfortunately, only a few of these studies had actually preserved any seeds or any vouchers and had just used the names of their seed suppliers. Of the few that I could obtain, left in cupboards, three species turned out to represent three unrelated genera. This small example seriously questions the validity of any research which is not based on correctly identified and accessible vouchered materials.There is an emerging collapse in the taxonomic support system and services that will hinder future research; an increasing loss of university museums and herbaria, a decline in the teaching of taxonomy, etc. Users of taxonomic services need to take this seriously. The credibility of their own work may be questioned in the future. I am at the end o my careers taxonomist and have lived this demise. I would like to hear people's thoughts on this general topic.
How many time 3.2 billion DNA bind randomly with 20 base primer?
please anyone solution this question!!
@Charles H Stirton, you have raised a very important issue, especially in countries and regions that lag behind in the collection, identification and curation of specimens. There is a clear need for investment in taxonomy because, with the changing climate, we are losing many species before we even describe them. This is a major challenge in Africa where many species in remote locations are yet to be identified and described.
I fully agree.
There has recently been a paper on the importance of herbaria as a guarantee of reproducibility of results in plants sciences:
Article How FAIR are plant sciences in the twenty-first century? The...
The autors are right. However, if a paper on such a self-evident question is being published, this means there is a serious problem in general understanding of science basics.
Growth of some form of contempt for taxonomy has been a long process and I do not see how a fast reversal might be possible. Things to be done include teaching taxonomy in schools (I remember plant identification keys were still part of a school library when I was a kid) and repeating and re-repeating that, contrary to the common opinion, primary data on biodiversity are still very incomplete even in allegedly well investigated areas. But this would require internationally concerted adequate decisions by governmental and educational institutions, which seems exceedingly difficult to achieve.
Some do take them into account, but others do not, they simply forget the vital importance of taxonomists.
Yes, this is a problem for ecologists who often revert to lumping species or genera together, analyzing and reporting grouped data at higher-level taxa, in so doing compromising the granularity of the original available data due to a lack of reliable taxonomic keys and resources.
Dear Charles H Stirton In Balochistan province of Pakistan no herberium is exist, The Floristic diversity of Northern Balochistan, western Pakistan Bordering with Afghanistan,The territory of Afghanistan adjacent to Pakistan border not fully explored
The native people cutting, uprooting the wild plants for fuel, as A food (Wild edible plants )as Medicine (Selling in market for medicinal uses ) etc. Some plants are cutting on large scale.
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