Think that many if not everybody would agree that without taxonomy we would be nowhere in biology and paleontology. These articles by taxonomists will be used for centuries, but often receive not many citations in part because a part of the research community does not list the author and date after they mention a species for the first time in an article. In my view, doing this consistently would help taxonomists tremendously in the long run.

Think that many if not everybody would agree that without taxonomy we would be nowhere in biology and paleontology. These articles by taxonomists will be used for centuries, but often receive not many citations in part because a part of the research community does not list the author and date after they mention a species for the first time in an article. In my view, doing this consistently would help taxonomists tremendously in the long run.

Publications of taxonomists get cited almost exclusively when someone else published a paper demonstrating they were "wrong". Their work is of great value to the biological sciences, but that value cannot be captured simply by a citation metric. We should just accept that, and not even try to use citations as an index for the value of the work of taxonomists.

Likewise, we should never try to compare citations or impact factors BETWEEN disciplines; they are only meaningful WITHIN a narrow-defined discipline.

Take citations and impact factors (and RG scores, in particular) with an enormous grain of salt, I'd say.

That is exactly right, but reality is that a part of the search committees and administrators look at citations and other metrics. How to convince them that taxonomy remains very valuable within and across disciplines? I'd say cite them whenever a species is mentioned. Secondly, at the very least journals publishing regularly on taxonomy/systematics should make it mandatory to cite the reference that erected a species referred to. An interesting article discussing the use of the work of taxonomists in databases as it relates to the lack of crediting their work can be found here:

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iapt/tax/2012/00000061/00000006/art00030

I have served on several evaluation and search committees, and would not blindly look at citations, without taking the discipline into account.

Interestingly, I just noticed you did your degree at the university where I was a professor before moving to Australia.

Just now I am dealing with a paper to Zootaxa is aimed to demonstrate that the traditional taxonomists themselves are partly responsible for the apriori discrimination of taxonomy. I believe that taxonomists themslves MUST be more active and, let's say, ambitiuos in publishing of the taxonomic results.

I fully agree with Kotov. But, taxonomists must also join with workers of other disciplines,understand their problems and try to find out viable solutions instead of holding to their own hardcore ideas.This is what 'clever' taxonomists' do now a days to have joint publications and increase their own and subject Taxonomy's market.

Taxonomists should be active in leading the research projects wherein taxonomic data provides the baseline. And add to their expertise by using tools from other sister disciplines.

@ Let me add to the discussion that taxonomy was important, is important and will be more important in the days to come. Anyone working on any aspect of the plants needs to know about the plant they are using. Sooner or later, anything published with regard to taxonomy will get its due credit. Further number of persons working on taxonomy has reduced. This may be one of the reasons for less publication in taxonomy. I am of the opinion that people working on taxonomic aspects can add advanced parameters in their study to make it more authentic. If someone has to utilize the advanced technology in plant research, the identification of the material is important. At some places, the number of wild species has reduced drastically due to various reasons. This needs documentation so that preventive measures can be taken accordingly. I think, the taxonomic research will gain its position soon.

Regards

The main problem is that taxonomical information is mainly contained in floras, that are not indexed and therefore do not appear in bibliometric staistics. Taxonomical papers are usually revision of small groups, and are cited only by very few specialists

The publication value of pure morphological based taxonomical research is and will be low measured in Impact Factors (IF) because it will be published generally in ‘pure’ taxonomic papers with low IF. Why this IF does not increase in such journals is explained by the answer of Adiel. I agree with Hans, that it is not meaningful to compare IF between disciplines. But what is the fact. Open in ResearchGate e.g. Q&A. You will find a very helpful list of related researchers and with the names go their RG score and the Impact Points. Like Adiel I think it could increase the value of taxonomy if the name(s) of the author(s) are cited with the first mentioning of a species name in a paper. There are journals where it is required but in the majority not. I wonder why ‘journal makers’ should change their politics. Often enough the trivial names are used. If you look at Natural History Museums the value of taxonomy is high (morphology and molecular biological based). If you look at Universities, the value of taxonomy (especially morphology based) is low. And our students are educated at universities.

As scientists we are part of the society and societies are part of the market(s) in a globalizing world. How much costs the hour on a Raster-Electron-Microscope and how much the hour of a taxonomist? I do not know the REM prices, but those of most taxonomists are free. If you are lucky you are mentioned in the acknowledgements for identification. But sometimes you find yourself thanked for the confirmation of identification. This is really something ;-)

Scientists are not better and not worse than other business groups. If you help me I’ll help you – translated in science: if you cite me I’ll cite you? This is a little bit sarcastic but if you get a manuscript for review what do you check first after the title – the references? No!!? What a great guy you are

One way to increase citation of taxonomic papers is to include in those papers as much biogeographical and ecological data as can be achieved. This way the taxonomic paper begins to drift into the realm of other disciplines and gains at least a small amount of citation. Beyond that, if the paper is purely alpha taxonomy, it may be fifty years before a taxonomic paper is valued or assessed again.

Perhaps taxonomists need to better adopt the approach of biologists in general now and produce more multi-disciplinary papers, i.e. not just focus on the taxonomy but introduce other aspects such as ecology, behaviour, genetics, etc in their papers. In that way they can target more high impact journals. Yes, it requires more work and is time-consuming, but the trend nowadays is for collaboration with other experts in order to generate the data necessary to produce a manuscript of broader appeal. Highly specialised journals (discipline-specific) tend to have lower impact factors than general ones.

A part of the taxonomists already do that is my impression. Still, when working on taxonomy (even with additional angles) the number of journals one can submit to remains limited compared to other subjects. However, adding additional angles, especially when the focus is on these topics instead of taxonomy, increases the number of journals one can submit to.

Here is another link that discusses a similar topic: https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_do_think_of_this_solution_to_solve_the_plight_of_taxonomists?pli=1&loginT=F648SWQkVWQPGu090YgruTvamIdsyXxkVhJ8gFI_SMRbbeuP7H9OPg**&uid=e76f03e9-95b1-4976-941d-179f0b929d9d&cp=re221_b1m_p52&ch=reg

I am consistently citing every taxonomic paper that belongs to a cited species or any higher taxon. Therefore, a good portion of my literature lists consists of papers and monographs from the 19th century.

I think this is a good practice that should be adopted by all taxonomists (and hopefully ecologists as well).

It is not only difficult to be cited, but even more to get pure species descriptions published. Mostly it is demanded by journals that a whole group has to be revised. This is principally desirable from a scientific point of view. From the point of view of urgency due to rapid species extinction it is not.

I am not a taxonomist, but I know many who have lots of undescribed species in their collections. However, they only rarely manage to publish descriptions due the tedious process of writing long revisions. So they postpone this until later - and die with their knowledge.

An exclusive citation index platform for biodiversity & systematic studies is much needed. At the university level, a seperate School/Department of Biodiversity should be started that rely only on taxonomic/molecular studies on plant, animal, fungi, microorganism & ecosystem. (~ Primarly for serious updation of IUCN Red list of Threatened species & Red list of Threatened ecosystems)

I am really happy to know the '' price tag'' is essential for the taxonomy. But in my opinion do we need this tag or do we need to enhance the knowledge of the known and unknown organisms by doing more serious field and lab studies.

Yes I do agree that citation of pure taxonomic papers or research is very low but do all the journals really interested to publish these information.   However asking to collaborate and incorporate other more information to get acceptance in multidisciplinary journals is not a good idea as it enhances competition among our colleagues or friends which may enhance the conflict of interest.