@Traditional taxonomy is very important. Traditional taxonomy is used to identify the species. Molecular and other techniques are used to confirm the traditional findings about the species. Traditional taxonomy is basic and very important for plant biologists and researchers. Yes., the number of people working on traditional taxonomy has reduced. Researchers are in search of alternate methods to identify the species with latest technology. But i am of the opinion that traditional taxonomy must be kept alive and other techniques may be used for its authentication and improvement.

Hi, taxonomy and DNA barcoding should be tightly interlock.

Both research fields are very important.

Cheers, Nadine

In my mind the future of taxonomy is on applying different methods or approches (so called polypasic approach). The improvement of some new methods can't cause full rejection of the classic and traditional methods or techniques. These are located in different areas of use, based on differen principles and able to give us absolutely different kinds of data. As for barcodind - it is the techique for only species delineation (but nowadays not always successfull). But we have no efficient barcodes for very and very huge amount of species. Some species can cause very big problems with it's identification through barcodes. But for at least phylogeny constructing to know ways of evolution DNA barcoding isn't good to use.

You must to note that the main aim of taxonomy is unambiguous identification of any organism. In some cases we can to reach this aim only by processing different data from different metods. In general if we can provide pricise identification by morphology or anatomy, we'll do this as a cheaper methods. If we can't identify object by such methods, we use molecular genetic approach and so on. But the best way is to combine different methods.

You also can find the discussions of similar questions from different authors on ResearchGate

Best wishes

As I can judge on current systematic of the Euonymus genus, traditional taxonomic markers and approaches are not comprehensive and cannot provide us unambiguous answers about taxonomic position of given species.

Question is of course too, if the traditional taxonomy will die out sooner or later, because there is a lack of taxonomists working with "traditional" methods.

In my point of view both fields are complementary. The knowledge of the morphology of a specie is necessary in order to begin a study of biodiversity and identify closely a specific taxon, however , sometime can result in a problem specie or Cryptic species, so in this case is necessary to use molecular tools. In this way both field are complementary.

@Traditional taxonomy is very important. Traditional taxonomy is used to identify the species. Molecular and other techniques are used to confirm the traditional findings about the species. Traditional taxonomy is basic and very important for plant biologists and researchers. Yes., the number of people working on traditional taxonomy has reduced. Researchers are in search of alternate methods to identify the species with latest technology. But i am of the opinion that traditional taxonomy must be kept alive and other techniques may be used for its authentication and improvement.

I would agree with everyone that believes that taxonomy is still important. Not only is this useful for identification, but studying the characteristics of a particular species could help bring a better understanding to the environmental conditions that brought about change. For example, what environmental conditions resulted in several species of birds (penguins) to adapt to swimming in a cold environment. With so many species yet to be discovered, taxonomy would be the first step in species identification.

I found an article relating taxonomy and bar coding that you may find interesting at

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0021326

The boundaries of these methods considered separately gives the correct answer.

The future of taxonomy is addressed toward an integrated approach that merges both traditional and new methods. Taxonomy is not died. Taxonomy should be only reconsidered and progressively integrated with the new methods and then applied to each specific context. A good knowledge of the ecology of the specie and of its hystory, also related to the environment, can help in this process.

Only in this perspective, we can more easily detect the increasing biodiversity.

In my opinion the taxonomy is more or less the same, it is whether we use morphological characters or molecular characters that differs? Unfortunately morphological methods have become less popular due to the more extensive learning it requires to become a good taxonomist within a certain organism group. Molecular methods are easier to learn and since they are more or less the same for all organisms they don't require deeper knowledge about a certain organism group. Hence there is a notion that instead of a number of "traditional" taxonomists you can hire a molecular taxonomist instead. They are of little use however unless there are identified specimens to compare the barcodes or sequences to, then they are a great complement to morphological methods.

The taxonomy is the same but some techniques and tools are being invented, improved, modified and replaced according to the changing requirements of the time. With the advancement in science, technology and our understandings, almost every discipline of life has adopted latest methods, techniques and technologies and this is natural and an evolutionary process. No matter how much advancement is attained in systematic, the traditional taxonomy will be indispensable and will run parallel to molecular taxonomy. Because for initial assessment and identification in the field, one must be familiar with morphological parameters.

However, in most of the cases, traditional taxonomy is in practice mostly by those working for EIAs and IEEs whereas; researchers prefer mostly to collect some blood / skin / fecal material sample in the field and get them analysed in the labs. Therefore, traditional taxonomy will also be in future and traditional taxonomists being less in number, will be more important.

My point of view is in favor of traditional taxonomy. Molecular technique provide tools for better understanding of certain topic, such phylogenetic evolution, but not all can it do with a molecular approach. We can not describe a species only with it COI. What can we do with all the holotype and material deposited for more than 100 years in museums? We can not destroid it trying to extract DNA.

Barcoding is not the "philosopher's stone" for taxonomy. It is just a tool; of course an important tool. Traditional morphology-based classical taxonomy should not be discarded at all. Rather, it should be used together with the more modern molecular and biochemical techniques. The current problem is that, on one hand, each housewife is able to do a PCR; on the other hand, classical taxonomists are "species in extinction".

There will be a need for traditional taxonomy describing external and internal morphological and anatomical traits also in the future, e.g. how to put fossils in a phylogenetic frame? How to understand the biodiversity in an environment not knowing which species occur in this environment and not being able to identify them properly? Not forgetting that we are humans generally communicating with our languages. We want to give names to everything and we have to do this. Otherwise we cannot communicate successfully. To do so on a scientific way we give, since Linnean times, one scientific name to a species. Of course it is an artificial system which has to be adapted continuously – and which is done since then. Nevertheless, to be traditional means to take care of the fire and not of the ashes.

Before there can be conservation, management and appreciation of any of our natural resources, there must first be recognition and identification of organisms found in areas of interest, be it a backyard, state, country or the world. This cannot be done without traditional taxonomy, and training future scientists to rapidly and accurately classify and identify unknown organisms is essential and critical to our future well being as humans.

From my point of view molecular taxonomy is very useful to try to resolve ambiguities, although sometimes it generates another ones. Nevertheless, molecular taxonomy has revolutionized the tree of life. However, molecular taxonomy rarely contributes to an understanding of the evolution at the adaptation level. I have an open question about the evolution of the Fabaceae flower, I invite all of you to participate. This is an example of how molecular taxonomy is changing our point of view of the phylogenetics: lots of changes have been accepted in the phylogenetic trees, but little information is added to explain the consequences of these changes to the evolution of the group.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_about_the_evolution_of_the_Fabaceae_flower

I think the key word which some have used previously is that DNA barcoding is a tool. You can use a tool correctly and you can use it incorrectly. Will DNA barcoding take over traditional taxonomy? No, certainly not. Molecular tools cannot answer nomenclatural problems, or determine field based characters for identification. I consider myself a traditional taxonomist but I also work closely with geneticists and my belief is the way forward is good collaboration between these two fields. DNA barcoding is great at highlighting where potential species complex issues may lie, but they cannot solve them. The use of DNA barcodes alone to identify a taxon is in my opinion bad practice, but that is based on my personal taxonomy expertise (fish) so I cannot comment on the other organism .

We will have "taxonomists" who are very skilled in performing PCR and sequencing DNA of animals they have not ever seen before in their life. Systematics, Anatomy, Nomenclature, Biogeography, Ecology..... what is it?

Are such Researchers worthy to be called skilled"taxonomists"??

New molecular technologies are foundamental of course, but not an heal-all tool in Taxonomy.

Everything should be used "cum grano salis".

Thank you.

For a number of taxonomic groups and regions, we have not yet passed the exploratory phase. Undoubtedly, the ‘taxonomic impediment’ – the acute shortage of taxonomic expertise has resulted into poor knowledge of global biodiversity, particularly in the developing world. Besides, the funding for conventional taxonomic research is meager in contrast to that is siphoned for biotechnology. In developed world, alpha-taxonomy has reached to a satisfactory, if not a saturation level; at this stage, other modern tools such as DNA barcoding can prove promising. Pertinently, DNA barcodes can identify the already described species but have little impact on the major issue of taxonomically undescribed and unknown taxa. Use of this technology for resolving the taxonomic complexes can be profitable. DAN barcoding can only supplement and never supplant, the conventional taxonomy (Refer to the following articles for more information: Hebert, P. D. N. et al., Biological identifications through DNA barcodes. Proc. R. Soc. B, 2003, 270, 313-321; Ebach, M. C. and Holdrege, C., DNA barcoding is no substitute for taxonomy. 2005, Nature, 434, 697; Dar, G.H., Khuroo, A., Reddy, C.S. & Malik, A.H. 2012. Impediment to Taxonomy and Its Impact on Biodiversity Science : An Indian Perspective -in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences Sect. B. Biol. Sci.82(2): 235–240).

I see an underlying problem in this question. When talking about 'traditional taxonomy': do you mean that e.g. 'morphology' (in a restricted sense, i.e.: non-molecular morphology) is 'traditional' and other techniques such as e.g. DNA Barcoding are 'advanced'? All parts of Science have made use of methods and ideas that were abandoned after some time, this is normal. Here the question is: will you identify the trees in your garden using a lab kit, or just by eye? Would you go out in the field and record the birds nesting in your area after amplifying samples of their genetic materials? Would you urge all the human population to depend on DNA sequences for such subjects? (Once all the still living species were sequenced by 2093).

So I think that (1) taxonomy is a wide and varied occupation which includes phylogenetics but also other tasks such as identification, and (2) some of our present day techniques will become 'traditional' in one to five decades.

As a fish taxonomist I am very much agree with the views of M.C.Sidhu . DNA bar coding alone is not going to solve identity of an organism but help to solve the ambiguity  of misidentification.