Few years back there was an article in Nature "India needs taxonomists".
My colleagues and myself want opinion of or RG colleagues to give their views on this aspect
Respected Sir I think you got it wrong. Here is the text of that article from Nature.
"India, with its wide range of geographical and climatic conditions, has a rich and varied flora of some 45,000 species — almost 7% of the world's flowering plants. But their documentation is seriously compromised by the country's dearth of plant taxonomists.
Although DNA sequence data and barcoding are well on the way to being accepted as the global standard for species identification, India's plant taxonomists are struggling to keep up. A lack of proper training and infrastructure hampers molecular-systematics studies, so the evolutionary lineages of most of the country's plants remain poorly understood.
India's many outstanding botanists, familiar with regional flora, must help plant taxonomists to advance molecular-systematics studies and improve the evolutionary understanding of the country's rich biodiversity."
The small note in Nature published few years back was such a badly written mini note. Although in Nature, I was shocked by the content. What I understood from the article was, the people doing molecular stuffs are taxonomists and rest are botanists with knowledge of regional flora. On the contrary, I will urge the molecular systematicists to come forward with their DNA tools and methods and aid indian taxonomists in getting a better understanding of the evolutionary understanding of the country's rich biodiversity. Both of the authors of this article were at that time sitting outside India.
India does lack good taxonomists and hence the taxonomists at present should breed good plant taxonomists for the future who are equipped with good training and better understanding of other tools like DNA to do a better taxonomy.
In India and outside MOST but not all, of the molecular systematicists are not even taxonomists.
Nevertheless, yes, more and more experts from different field should come together and help the taxonomists in India, do better taxonomy, OR, the taxonomists in India should learn more interdisciplinary approach to do better taxonomy.
Not only India, the whole world needs plant taxonomists. It is a matter of great concern that some reputed Indian colleges have discontinued teaching plant taxonomy.
A classical plant taxonomist might not have expertise in multidisciplinary aspects. However, he can be utilised by scientists working in various other fields to correctly identify their plant material.
Yes. We need plant taxonomist. Taxonomy is mother branch of science. To study the plants in various aspect one should know the correct identity of plant species.
Respected Sir I think you got it wrong. Here is the text of that article from Nature.
"India, with its wide range of geographical and climatic conditions, has a rich and varied flora of some 45,000 species — almost 7% of the world's flowering plants. But their documentation is seriously compromised by the country's dearth of plant taxonomists.
Although DNA sequence data and barcoding are well on the way to being accepted as the global standard for species identification, India's plant taxonomists are struggling to keep up. A lack of proper training and infrastructure hampers molecular-systematics studies, so the evolutionary lineages of most of the country's plants remain poorly understood.
India's many outstanding botanists, familiar with regional flora, must help plant taxonomists to advance molecular-systematics studies and improve the evolutionary understanding of the country's rich biodiversity."
The small note in Nature published few years back was such a badly written mini note. Although in Nature, I was shocked by the content. What I understood from the article was, the people doing molecular stuffs are taxonomists and rest are botanists with knowledge of regional flora. On the contrary, I will urge the molecular systematicists to come forward with their DNA tools and methods and aid indian taxonomists in getting a better understanding of the evolutionary understanding of the country's rich biodiversity. Both of the authors of this article were at that time sitting outside India.
India does lack good taxonomists and hence the taxonomists at present should breed good plant taxonomists for the future who are equipped with good training and better understanding of other tools like DNA to do a better taxonomy.
In India and outside MOST but not all, of the molecular systematicists are not even taxonomists.
Nevertheless, yes, more and more experts from different field should come together and help the taxonomists in India, do better taxonomy, OR, the taxonomists in India should learn more interdisciplinary approach to do better taxonomy.
Taxonomic research in India is declining, despite its mega-diversity status. It is important to reprioritize the focus on issues like targeting the neglected taxonomic groups, networking of people and conservation agencies, modern approaches in systematics and bioprospecting programmes for a better conservation strategy through a participatory manner. These activities will provide a better future for biosystematics in India. [Hariharan and Balaji]
Here is the link:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/50267697_India_needs_more_plant_taxonomists_httpwwwnaturecomnaturejournalv471n7336full471037dhtml
Really its needed.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/50267697_India_needs_more_plant_taxonomists_httpwwwnaturecomnaturejournalv471n7336full471037dhtml
It is said that “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name” and naming the diversity of life on this Earth, off-course by binomial names, is the prime duty of all taxonomists. Have we explored the entire diversity (even at species level) of the world? Seven years ago Mora et al. (2011) estimated that 8.7 million species live on present Earth and to describe unknown species (6.5 million) we need 303000 taxonomists who if work continuously for 1200 years will be able to describe it and it will cost about 365 billion US$. Further, the recent estimates by Larsen et al. (2017) indicate presence of 6 billion species on Earth and we at the end of 2017 were able to describe only 21,18,297 species + 3186 viruses (Catalogue of Life 2017) which means we know a drop of the ocean only. Species are the 'babies' of organic evolution on Earth and in present scenario it is certain that billions of these babies will vanish even without a name. It is an embarrassing fact to the wisest subspecies of Earth, Homo sapiens sapiens (we the human being) who today rules the world. Billions of species need to be identified and described; can we say world do not need taxonomist? India certainly have a dearth of quality taxonomists, those who are working are already overburdened. We still have no national level flora for angiosperms, pteridophytes, bryophytes, algae, fungi or lichen. What exist today are either checklists for few specific groups or fragmentary flora of India. The scenario is changing in the west where classical taxonomy have reached to an advanced stage and now they are exploring true relationship of taxa by molecular systematics. Here in India we are still in first phase (exploration) and unfortunately world class expertise even at genus level is hard to find. It doesn’t mean we do not have but what we have is very little. We, in India, not only need quality taxonomists but also need to develop them as quality molecular systematicists. So that the information generated by them is reliable and stand at global level.
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