Those teaching classical taxonomy should first have a love for this subject. They should teach in an interesting way to attract the students.

Taxonomists should be given sound knowledge of molecular studies too. Both theoritical and practical.

Those doing molecular studies in most of the cases do not have sound knowledge of classical taxonomy.

So persons having sound knowledge of classical as well of molecular taxonomy will definitely have edge over others during future recruitment of jobs

Thank you for your contribution. It is aimed to discuss the subject by taxonomists around the world and to create a platform.

Hello Huseyin; In the US the heart of the problem is in the scant nonacademic career opportunities outside of agriculture/forestry and public health. It isn't clear to me what can be done about that. Taxonomists, like artists, are mostly on their own in finding a modest livelihood. Best regards, Jim Des Lauriers

Hi Dr Hüseyin Özdikmen . See the following link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/18601

See the following RG link: Article Scientific Autonomy and Public Oversight

Also see the following link: https://direct.mit.edu/dint/article/3/1/52/94906/About-Open-Science-and-Autonomy-of-Science

Also see the following link: https://engineering.lehigh.edu/research/resolve/volume-1-2021/science-autonomy

Kindly see also the following link: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1604.02979

Dear James and Aref, thank you very much for your valuable comments.

To the extent that the importance of conservation and knowledge of biodiversity is emphasized in order to investigate the health of ecosystems, taxonomy will occupy the fundamental position that it corresponds to. Fortunately, there appears to be a worldwide increase in conservation awareness. Of course, formal education would have to increase the hours devoted to the study of biodiversity and governments should increase protected areas, among other strategies.

I am unsure what this topic is really about. There seem to be at least three discussion threads on variations of this topic. I am an academic at a University which is very strongly committed to trying to understand biodiversity and to explore this through systematics. Systematics is what old style Taxonomy seems to have morphed into and in academia there are numerous journals and thousands of individuals exploring these topics, but these people seem to have abandoned Linnaean style taxonomy.

Are you trying to resurrect Linnaean style taxonomy, or are you willing to learn enough about systematics and phylogenetics to make yourselves relevant in the modern world? This seems to be the real issue. To me it seems like "taxonomists", i.e. people who become "expert" on a specific group are trying to swim upstream against a strong current, which dominates Academic approaches to biodiversity. I am sure you are all very accomplished in your knowledge, and i sympathize if you feel ignored and pushed aside, however systematics and phylogenetics are supplanting simple expert based knowledge. Like all growing sciences, they make mistakes and are overenthusiastic at time, but the it seems the way to get your knowledge taken seriously is to try and lat least become familiar with the approaches that are supplanting your expertise.

The real strength that Phylogenetics brings is it is clearly rooted in evolutionary thinking and provides possible resolutions to problems which have seemed insurmountable in Taxonomy, i.e. how to describe the diversity of organisms that do not reproduce sexually or don't show obvious morphological features, which serve as the backbone on Taxonomic classification. These include what we used to refer to as Monerans, i.e. the vast diversity of prokaryotic organisms, and also fungi and slime molds.

It is relatively easy to be a taxonomist on Animals and perhaps on plants as well. I am a Vertebrate Zoologist, however I look at evolutionary questions. Molecular approaches seem to offer useful insights, although they sometimes create issues that seem to not make sense, and can be overly dogmatic.

Obviously you cannot all become molecular systematists overnight, but my advice would be to see what is being done, and not to resent it, but to offer your expertise through publications that can serve as correctives where you think molecular evidence is leading science down unproductive paths.

On the other hand, simply to complain is to become irrelevant. You need to publish articles in systematic journals, and work with your communities to share the knowledge you have.

the problem is valid for all taxonomic approaches (Linnean style taxonomy, molecular taxonomy etc.). I think that systematic and phylogenetic studies are also within this scope since they are basically based on taxonomic studies. Thanks.

Taxonomic theory can be developed as a meaningfully interpreted quasi-axiomatics, where O-models act as axioms, E-models act as inference rules (principles); The C-model serves as a "constructor" for all quasi-axioms. The problem of correct definition of taxonomic reality, in which the object component is taxonomic diversity as a specific aspect of biological diversity in general. Currently, taxonomic diversity cannot be defined uniformly for

all biological taxonomy. Taxonomic theory is built as a "conceptual pyramid", to the top of which the general theory belongs, to the middle level - its particular interpretations (particular theories), to the bottom - specific classifications. General taxonomic theory is "aspect", since its subject area is one of the aspects of biological diversity. Private taxonomic theories can be “aspect” (cladistics, typology, etc.), “elemental” (they consider the concepts of a species, character, etc.), “relational” (they consider the concepts of similarity, kinship, etc.), “methodological” (numerical taxonomy), “level” (macro- and microsystematics), “fragmentary” (for different groups of organisms). The ontological substantiation of the unity of biological systematics is the most important fundamental problem in the development of its theory.

Regards, Sergey

Many problems are in this discussion. "Systematics is what old style Taxonomy seems to have morphed into," is not a correct statement, though many younger professors as well as students would agree with it because they were told that. The winners write history. It was funding for taxonomy that morphed into funding for systematics almost exclusively, after an aggresive effort on the part of humans to monopolize funding for the latter. Also, the use of molecular methods cost more, so brought in more overhead to departments, and thus more hires for nearly exclusively molecular-based research. This is politics, not necessarily best science. The goals of each discipline remain different, though methods often overlap. Taxonomy is the process of identifying a taxon and its close relatives, for purposes of identification and the ability to extrapolate information across the group. This requires setting limits to a taxon's identity versus the limits of it's relatives, and it is also helpful to be able to identify its range, in part for future comparison, ie: tracking the impact of global weather change, and for studying interactions between taxa. Taxonomic research can include morphological, genetic, epigenetic, biochemical and other data, and is best when it uses all methods relevant for understanding a particular taxonomic group, dictated by it's/their unique biology. It is still needed, because organisms continue to evolve in the wild, and a lot was never known in the first place. Systematics on the other hand is concerned primarily with evolutionary relationships between and among individual taxa. You cannot (or should not) sample or extrapolate results for/from systematics studies without a good taxonomic foundation from which to start, or your results may be useless, even misleading, and you may choose genes to track and compare that don't really distinguish organisms at the level you are addressing. Both taxonomy and systematics are important, and morphological, biochemical and molecular methods are useful for resolving problems in both disciplines. Both require a great deal of time and energy to understand, and both deserve funding and cooperation, as does developing expertise on the many aspects of each. There is too much to know now for any one person to truly become an expert at all aspects of all areas within either taxonomy or systematics, or within morphology or genetics or epigenetics, or for that matter bioinformatics. The best work requires cooperation with all parties compensated for their time. Respect among disciplines will be developed with an attempt to familiarize oneself with what those with other expertise can do. It's a multi-directional street.

I don't disagree with Dr. Van Zandt's statements. She reveals how this situation came to be, however unless you can break the stranglehold that molecular studies have, not only on funding, but on the ability to publish in prominent journals, e.g., Science and Nature, this is bound to be frustrating exercise. I have been trying to ague for years that DNA is not the most important form of evidence, and that DNA and morphology are not the only characters in a "Full Evidence" analysis.

Paleontology, which has only morphology for its data has teamed with molecular approaches to try and dominate evolutionary studies. As one example that i work on, it has been obvious for decades that Pinnipeds are both diphyletic and paraphyletic, however paleontologists have thrown in the towel and some have even ben making up false characters to support molecular results.

Dr. Pierotti,

I am surprised by your statement of four days ago. I had the impression from your previous post on this question that you were of the opposite mindset, advocating for molecular research over morphology. Apparently you are hoping to return to using morphological data for phylogenetic studies only. Your previous post was the deciding one for me to respond to this question. Apparently you do not see modern phlogenetic studies and molecular biology as inseperable, though they usually are for purposes of funding and publication. You are correct that sometimes molecular evidence is not the best form of evidence for addressing a particular problem, true whether taxonomic or phylogenetic, and that doing morphological and other kinds of research, and getting it out to other researchers, is important for its own sake, and difficult to fund or publish by itself now. This is a problem for passing peer review and finding money to publish in highly reputable, mostly expensive journals. Molecular biologists can fund and publish strictly molecular studies in every relevant field. There was a time of transition, in which many people originally trained in classical taxonomy had students who were primarily doing molecular phylogenetic studies. They worked together, and used the same data sets, when useful, to solve both taxonomic and phylogenetic questions. Not every taxonomic group resolves well for every kind of data. We don't know what works until we apply different kinds of data to the question at hand. If the organisms you work on resolve well, you may conclude that the kind of data that worked for your research will work for all organisms, or at least all mammals or all flowering plants, etc. This is not always the case. Those earlier taxonomists and their molecular students were funded for and could publish in both disciplines. The majority of that generation of morphological taxonomists are mostly gone from leadership positions in the plant sciences now. The United States funds more investigator initiated biological research than any other country, and also funds more researchers who are not citizens or professionals at home, than any other country. Unfortunately, US funding agencies, whose decisions therefore have heavily contributed to this imbalance, are currently behind the times. Countries including Australia and Great Britain have quietly reknewed funding for morphological taxonomy, though US researchers are unable to compete for this funding. Programs that address whole organisms and include morphological training are beginning to attract students at a few US universities. A student I talked with who committed to that kind of program this year, had a molecular biology background like most of his peers, and will continue to want to grow in that area, so I'm a little scepticle that these programs will be able to produce true experts in morphological taxonomy who are simultaneously experts in molecular genetics and epigenetics, ecology, and agriculture, especially with the more difficult groups to resolve that still need morphological work, in the time allotted for grad school. Still, we need more broadly trained people, so it's a step in the right direction. Morphology is the least expensive and most thorough way to address biologically significant epigenetic variation at this time. The only epigenetic system we have any hope of studying for taxonomic or phylogenetic purposes at this time is methylation, because we can address it with sequencers. There are more than 60 known pathways that are still more difficult to study than methylation, that may turn out to be of greater importance than methylation for resolving the taxonomy and or phylogeny of a particular group. The methods are in their infancy for being able to measure these other kinds of variation. Fortunately, if there is a significant impact of any kind of epigenetic variation on taxonomy or phylogeny, morphological taxonomy provides the best opportunity for revealing it, especially to a taxonomist who has made themselves very familliar with the variation of that particular group. Taxonomists also need to be paid for their sometimes considerable time and effort, and to be able to publish their findings.

As I pointed out, there are at least three similar questions circulating on research gate that address the relevance of taxonomy. I do NOT think that morphology is sufficient, neither do I think that molecular results are sufficient. I think both should be used in combination with evidence fro physiology, ecology, behavior, and biogeography. A colleague once told me that if molecular data do not make sense from a biogeographic perspective they must be wrong in some way.

The issue is as many of you indicate that molecular approaches have come to dominate the way phylogenetic analyses are carried out. This of course cannot work for paleontology, so we got isotope studies which indicate something, but not much about ecology. Paleontologists, in an effort to remain relevant capitulate to molecular evidence, leading to some absurd results which most seem to accept.

All I have tried to do is point out that molecular evidence is useful, but only if it reinforces other forms of evidence. If it makes no sense it should be rejected, but as several of you point out, it seems to have more power. We need complete evidence, and neither morphology nor DNA provide that.

Thanks to Miriam Kritzer Van Zant and Raymond Pierotti for their valuable opinions on the core disciplines of taxonomy.

It seems Raymond that we are in agreement after all. Thank you Hüseyin Özdikmen for your kind words. No one has enough money to fund research with every possible data set to address any one problem. However, we need to use a variety of approaches and return to funding that. Comparing the wrong genes, incorrect limits to what constitutes a taxonomic group, focusing on insignificant methylation, biochemical variation that is environmental vs inherited, all of these can lead to incorrect conclusions. Genomic data is plentiful and easy to produce statistics with. Read the old classic "How to Lie with Statistics" and understand that just because something looks good does not mean that it is right. Morphology at least gives a broad overview of an organism, especially in the hands of a skilled taxonomist who has put in the time to see many specimens from many locations and looked at many characters.

From my experience, I fell in love with taxonomy because I love working in the field. It was interesting for me to know the names of the species I meet, even more interesting was the identification. However, I paid more attention to the taxonomy when I chose the group that I would specifically research. This coincided with the research of the biographies of Line, Darwin, Lamarck, Josif Pančić. Then I decided to see which species from the group I am researching are described in my territory. After collecting the data, I proceeded to revise the scientific names. That's how I entered the world of taxonomy. Therefore, I believe that taxonomy can be popularized among students with well-organized teaching in nature and collections of species.

If you ask me, taxonomy should be given importance for publishing all scientific research papers. The researcher must know how to identify the species they are working with. If the researcher doesn't know which species are they working with, the results would be misleading....

The recent outbreack of covid 19 was another 'lost occasion' to popularize taxonomy. Virus research cannot be pursed without taxonomy of hosts, yet this aspect was totally forgotten in two years of talk shows. Formerly, the 'temples' of taxonomy were the museums of Natural History but, despite a growing interest for biodiversity, number of people studying taxonomy in museums is falling. At least in some Western countries, I fear only amatours are now working on taxonomy while academicians are working on 'evolutionary biology'. Do not ask me how, but taxonomy rebirth is probably linked to recognising the unique role of biological collections stored in our museums and the need of special people to let such collection explain life on Earth

I worked for the USGS for about 35 years doing geology intermixed with invertebrate paleontology. I was told early on that naming new species would not get me promoted but using invertebrate fossils aid in solving geologic problems was the way to go; and so it was with my career. In retirement I'm trying to name some of the new fossils mollusks I discovered over my career and there are over 100 of them from the Neogene of California that I know of. I don't have enough time left in my life to name them all and do them justice. However, I am naming a few as I can. If anyone in the western US would like to help with these many endeavors I am always looking for coauthors who may know a specific group better than I do and I can do the geology and fossil occurrences.

This does not solve the problem and nearly every time I look at a museum collection I find another species in need of description. The problem is I was not trained in taxonomy and no one today coming in the field on the West Coast of America appears to be either. In my late 60's I'm learning as I continue this work I love. Most people do not have the knowledge of the existing faunas to identify species properly, much less recognize new species. It seems to me that a first step is to bring taxonomy back into college curriculums.

Dear Professor Hüseyin Özdikmen thank you for opening this interesting discussion. I see many interesting answers and I will pick the first question from the title (there are too many Qs in the text!) and I can say that, as an ecologist, I do my part by teaching a course for doctoral students called "The EcoTaxo Interface" which is based mostly on showing non-taxonomists the critical importance of Good Taxonomy and Taxonomists for the rest of us to make Good Science (in ecology and any other biological field). In this course, I use any tool I can, from classic non-scientific literature (e.g., Romeo and Juliet, The War of the Worlds) and History of Science, to role games and acting exercises in order to make young scientists realize and reflect on how essential is Taxonomy for the existence of Biology (all its fields and forms) and for people in general. Classical or modern, morphological, genetic, molecular, more or less popular, well funded or not, etc etc ... everybody is entitled to have their opinion about those alternatives. However, what I do not think there is an open debate or doubts, is about the unavoidable need to have Good-Taxonomy/Taxonomists. Non-taxonomists need to be trained in order to recognize and value Good Taxonomy/Taxonomists. This may seem something obvious, but it is not. I think the entire discipline of Taxonomy was more "popular" (within the context of this RGDiscussion) when non-taxonomists were not as ignorant as most of us are now (on average) about it.

(Article Error Cascades in the Biological Sciences: The Unwanted Cons...

A suggestion:

Article The taxonomic impediment: a shortage of taxonomists, not the...

Just to offer my perspective on how can taxonomy be brought into the focus of attention again: by making it interesting to the young generations of researchers. I am predominantly interested in ecotoxicology, bioindication and biomonitoring which has a great tradition in using freshwater biota as reliable indicators of the aquatic ecosystem health. And as pointed out by Hüseyin Özdikmen , there is one main issue: we have a shortage of taxonomists. Therefore we are currently working on a project that will apply the artificial intelligence (deep learning) method to MI taxa to develop a reliable automatic identifier for aquatic macroinvertebrates. Besides the deep learning approach, the molecular identification will be applied additionally, to correct or confirm traditionally identified MI species. We have 5 taxonomists working on a project and a bunch of IT people, so researchers from different scientific fields are coming up with new ideas and improving the existing methods. Actually it is one of the most interesting projects for our students and I came to realize they are gaining great interest in the contemporary taxonomical issues through it. Once we develop a feasible deep learning model, we will focus on implementing software application that will substantially speed up the process of identification, which has been hindered by slow and imprecise traditional morphology-based identification.

Next-generation sequencing is doing the job!

When you can sequence the DNA of many populations cheaper and cheaper, we are able not only to reassess the taxonomy of these species but also to understand how the demographic histories affected their genetic makeup.

As a young researcher, I found this fascinating!

Dear Viviani Mantovani, no one is denying the value of DNA studies, yet you rightly state that "not only to reasses the taxonomy"...this means that taxonomy is the main point of reference and if a taxonomic group lacks a taxonomic revision from a century, it is really hard to propose a new arrangiament even with molecolar studies.

Dear Gippoliti Spartaco,

Of course, that's why one has to provide enough evidence with morphological and behaviour data as well.

Hello all; Where have all the taxonomists gone? Young students LOVE natural history. Funding agencies not so much. In the USA secondary schools, Community Colleges and liberal arts colleges can afford to be insensitive to funding agencies' research priorities. They can develop programs that emphasize natural history topics and so ignite the spark. The enthusiasitc students' interest can support more interest and so produce more taxonomists among them...even if they are like Charles L. Powell who commented earlier. Here's hoping. Regards, Jim Des Lauriers

There are two questions being debated here: 1) does the public especially kids like to learn names of what they are seeing? and 2) Is classical Linnean Taxonomy still the state of the art in universities and research institutes? The answer to #1 is yes, the answer to #2 is basically no, even though Taxonomy usually gets taught as part of introductory courses in classification. Basic taxonomy still exists, but as Dr. Des Lauriers points out it is not well funded because of the emphasis on molecular (DNA) methods ins systematics, which has replaced Linnean classification in most of science. I wish ResearchGate would stop promoting such empty debates.

The answer is simple, the world's universities have minimized or even eliminated taxonomy courses altogether, promoting only identification by genetic sequencing.

The two disciplines are complementary and should be tools that try to fill the gaps left by the individual disciplines.