Great necessities, baffling priorities, and taxonomic leadership

Perhaps the reasons for prioritizing DNA sequences, rather than pursuing them alongside traditional sources of evidence, are baffling not because they are profound, but because they are wrong

“There are many qualities which we need in order to gain success, but the three above all—for the lack of which no brilliancy and no genius can atone—are Courage, Honesty and Common Sense.”—Theodore Roosevelt, The Key to Success in Life, p.5

Of personal qualities contributing to success, Theodore Roosevelt considered courage, honesty and common sense to be important above all others. Taxonomists are well advised to cultivate these virtues as they work to restore the integrity, stature and sovereignty of their science. It will take considerable courage to resist tremendous and growing peer pressure to submit to a popular trend toward an increasing reliance on molecular data. In spite of its limited information content, DNA-based studies are favored by users of taxonomic information because they are seen as a simple, easy path to identifications, which is the extent of their interest in taxonomy. And DNA-based studies have the supposed additional benefits of avoiding the intellectual challenges of interpreting complex characters, the labor-intensive requirements of revisionary taxonomy, the costs of growing and curating collections, and the need to educate, employ, and fund taxon experts. For creators of data who measure success in grant dollars and popularity, rather than knowledge of species, characters and history, the comparative ease of securing funds, and generating data and publications, has obvious appeal. It is easier to go along with the crowd, emphasize molecular data, neglect other evidence, and betray the core mission of taxonomy which is to create knowledge, not identify species. It is significantly more difficult to defend the traditions, excellence, and broad aims of taxonomy against the narrow, self-serving desire of general biologists for identifications. Like anyone else, taxonomists would prefer to be accepted instead of marginalized; to be praised instead of denigrated; to have their accomplishments celebrated, not misunderstood or ignored; and, of course, to compete favorably for positions and research funding. But jobs and funding secured by participating in the trend toward a molecular-based taxonomy can only be seen as successful in a monetary, not a scientific, sense, because they require abandonment of important aims of taxonomy as a science.

Thanks to The Beatles and Sammy Davis, Jr., Nehru jackets enjoyed a brief period of popularity in the U.S. and Europe in late 1960s and early 1970s —I had two when I was in ninth grade. This fine example is from Shobitam. Source: shobitam.com.

The dominance of experimentalism in biology, and a pervasive penchant for technology, has stacked the deck against taxonomy which is non-experimental, observational, comparative, and descriptive. This helps explain the growing emphasis on molecular data—but it does not excuse it. Taxonomists have an ethical obligation to resist compliance with such fads, and to defend and promote their science in all its dimensions, done to its own high standards, and animated by its own agenda. If taxonomists do not explore species diversity and history, if they do not discover and interpret the complex pattern of similarities and differences among species and clades, if they do not complete an inventory and classification of species, if they do not pursue, analyze and synthesize all relevant sources of evidence, if they do not develop collections as a permanent record of species, if they do not describe the combination of characters making each species unique and the synapomorphies illuminating their relationships, who will? To achieve these things, to live up to taxonomy’s potential, to demonstrate its importance to colleagues and the public, taxonomists must be leaders, not followers.

It will take considerable courage to resist the tremendous and growing peer pressure to submit to a popular trend favoring molecular data which is driven by the need to identify species, not the pursuit of knowledge.

Taxonomy’s mission has little hope of success unless taxonomists are introspective. They must take a long, hard, honest look at their science: it’s aims, priorities, and motives. To create the most, and most reliable, knowledge of species, clades, characters, and history; to create classifications of maximum information content and predictive value; to preserve a record of species diversity, and of evolutionary history; to contribute to societal welfare and maximize biodiversity conserved, taxonomists must be uncompromising in their commitment taxonomy’s integrity, excellence and mission. They must be of service to biology and society by making species identifiable, as they have for centuries, but do so as an application of knowledge, not as an end in itself. We cannot truly know species unless we know also the combination of characters that makes each unique and the synapomorphies shared with related species. Simply identifying species, and even assessing relationships, based on DNA, we fail to learn and understand that which makes species most biologically and evolutionarily interesting and worth knowing. Identifying species means very little in the absence of knowledge of characters. Imagine being able to point to and name each of the planets in our solar system while knowing nothing of their orbits, relative size, the gases in their atmospheres, if they have them, surface temperatures, or details of topography. Without knowledge of their properties, being able to tell Mars and Venus apart means almost nothing. For this reason, in order that taxonomy remains a rigorous science, we must aim to know species, monophyletic groups and as many relevant characters as possible. We must recall that our exploration of earth’s species is in its infancy. We have discovered and described many of the largest and common species, at least in long-studied places like Europe and North America, but we know nothing about the vast majority of species. Only by discovering the characters of species are we are empowered to understand the history and diversification of life, to find our way around the biosphere, to understand the players in ecosystems, to interpret the functions of adaptations, and to achieve meaningful conservation goals. For most biologists, the goal is simply to recognize what species are included in their studies; for taxonomists, knowing species, characters, and cladogenetic history is the goal. Only by addressing taxonomy’s broader goals can both of these needs be met.

While sophisticated theories and methods are required to practice taxonomy at a high level of excellence, supporting taxonomy as an independent, fundamental science demands only common sense. It is common sense that biodiversity conservation has a much better chance for success if we know and are able to recognize the species we hope to save. It is common sense that the depth of our appreciation of, and commitment to conserve, species is related to the degree to which we know them. It is much easier to accept the loss of species when they are known to us only as numbers in a spreadsheet—or DNA sequences in GenBank. Looking a species in the eye, so to speak, knowing it intimately, appreciating the characters that make it unique, seeing it as the amazing result of millions of years of evolution that it is, emphasizes its inherent worth as a distinct kind of living thing, inspires respect, and makes it more difficult to accept its extinction.

Learning characters, and their distribution among species, is necessary for appreciating human origins, too. We can fully grasp that which makes us human only if we see our species—and its characters—in the context of all species, all characters, and all of evolutionary history. Taxonomy is the only science dedicated to the exploration, description, and analysis of characters, of reconstructing relationships among species and characters, and of synthesizing all informative evidence in a phylogenetic classification. The same curiosity that drives us to venture into space, to construct powerful telescopes, to probe the subatomic particles of matter, and to reconstruct the history of the universe, compels us to explore species, characters, and their history. It is not enough to identify species. It is not enough to recognize them with DNA. Curiosity and the minimum expectations of science demand that we explore, study, compare, and learn as much as we can about the characters of species and clades—all of them. For others to appreciate the significance of taxonomy to science, the environment, human welfare, and intellectual fulfillment requires only common sense, and the willingness to look beyond their immediate self-interests. When taxonomy is trivialized as an identification service, or its evidence restricted to DNA, when it is eliminated from our institutions, and when funding for its mission is withheld, we deny our deep, innate urge to explore, learn and understand. To support other fundamental sciences, while relegating taxonomy to molecular data and making identifications, is a tragic mistake that we shall soon, and long, regret. After millions of species have been lost to extinction, the only ones truly remembered will be those represented in natural history collections. Scientists in the future will look back in disgust and horror at our generation’s singular focus on molecular data at a time when other, far more informative, evidence was abundant, free for the taking, and about to disappear.

In spite of ecology’s equally diverse goals, from understanding the autecology of individual species to the complex and dynamic functions of ecosystems and the biosphere as a whole, its overarching mission is universally understood and respected. Ecology is perceived to be a science whose mission is clear, in spite of diverse goals, decentralized activities, and organizations with different priorities. Professional ecology societies vary from umbrella organizations, like the Ecological Society of America, to those focused on particular systems or interests, such as tropical forests, oceans, agroecology and conservation biology.

At the same time, the overarching aim of taxonomy—to explore, inventory, describe, understand, name, and phylogenetically classify all species—is misunderstood by many. An alarming number of biologists seem to think that taxonomy exists to identify species, and taxonomy is unknown to much of the public. As a result, its equally complex organizational structure—from umbrella societies, like the Linnaean Society, Willi Hennig Society, and Society of Systematic Biologists, to hundreds of organizations focused on particular taxa, as general as botany, zoology and microbiology, and as specific as pteridology, ichthyology, and acarology serves to fragment the community and obscure a mission that should be just as easily understood.

Many fail to acknowledge contemporary taxonomy’s mission, theoretical rigor and methodological efficiencies, for reasons of ignorance, greed or malice. A surprisingly common assumption is that taxonomy is fundamentally unchanged from earlier centuries when its classifications were nakedly subjective, based on intuition rather than explicitly testable hypotheses. Molecular data is perceived to be “modern,” because sequencing technology is a relatively recent development. But that says nothing of its information content or reliability which depend on background assumptions and methods of analysis. Meanwhile, that seismic advances in theory have made taxonomy’s hypotheses among the most rigorous in the life sciences goes unrecognized, in part because they apply to “old” sources of evidence like morphology, ontogeny, and fossils. Astronomers’ claim that that the moon is a satellite of earth is old, too, like many ideas about morphology, but that does not make it any less true. To the contrary, old ideas, at least those formulated as testable hypotheses, may have greater credibility because there has been time to extensively test and corroborate them. If you check the closets of those who elevate the importance of DNA simply because it is new and fashionable, you may find a stash of bell-bottom jeans, paisley shirts, and Nehru jackets from their previous mistakes.

Other, equally ancient, sciences, like astronomy, are not judged by limitations and practices from earlier times in their history, but appropriately celebrated as the modern, rigorous sciences they have become. In spite of fantastic advances in theory, taxonomy is viewed by many as though it were mired in limitations from its past. This is due, in part, to the fact that while all biologists rely on taxonomy for identifications, few have thought deeply about the science behind scientific names. And, in part, because taxonomy, or at least a caricature of it, is familiar to them. Any fool can purchase a field guide and think that, by matching a common insect or flower to a picture in a book, he or she is doing taxonomy. That is making an identification, not doing taxonomy. And, depending on the taxon and geographic region, possibly not doing identification very well. Guides frequently omit scores to hundreds of related species, many of which are easily confused with the few common, pictured ones. And, behind the scientific name of each species exists a body of accumulated evidence and hypotheses, none of which are evident to the casual user of a field guide.

No one assumes that astronomy is less of a science because backyard stargazers can, with no formal training, purchase a telescope and identify planets and constellations. Or that professional astronomy is no longer needed because, from time to time, amateurs make significant observations and discoveries. In spite of amateurs, we accept that professional astronomy—as a serious science, requiring formal education and training, and an investment in sophisticated instruments and research infrastructure—is necessary in order for us to explore and understand the universe, discovering and describing all that exists in the heavens, and how it all came to be. Why, then, when a technician uses a DNA barcode to identify a species, do we conclude that there is no longer a need for professional taxonomists? In no other science do we so eagerly accept less, rather than more, knowledge, or so willingly ignore information-rich evidence for the sake of convenience. It would be convenient to limit astronomy to what can be observed with optical telescopes through the interference of earth’s atmosphere instead of engineering and deploying space-based telescopes and launching spacecraft to probe distant reaches of the solar system. Like molecular taxonomy, that would be simple and convenient, but it would miss the point of astronomy almost entirely and tragically limit what we ultimately know and understand of the universe. For reasons beyond me, we are increasingly resigned to an equally dumbed-down, molecular-based version of taxonomy that is at odds with its scientific aims, best traditions, and greatest potential.

If you look up the meaning of “divide and conquer,” there should be a diagram of the balkanized taxonomy community. Its many specialist groups, each working in near isolation, divides, and thereby mutes, the voice of taxonomy as a whole. Making matters worse, the rise of cladistics was accompanied by disagreements and debates so heated that more than a few outside observers concluded that taxonomists are an il-tempered, mean-spirited lot. If these nasty souls can be replaced by rote analyses of molecular data, so much the better. But the raucus theoretical revolution that gave taxonomy this black eye also transformed it into a rigorous, modern science. Users of taxonomic information simply want species identified and have little interest in theoretical issues or the relative efficacies of competing methods. They are like travelers using a map without questioning who drew it, or even if it is accurate and reliable. While users of taxonomic information should not be expected to make a deep dive into the intricacies of taxonomy, they should be concerned whether taxonomy is done well, whether it takes into account all relevant evidence, and whether its results are as complete, informative, and reliable as they can be made.

Intense competition among ideas, sometimes in the form of knock-down, drag-out fights, is the lifeblood of science. Ideas, like evolution, plate tectonics, and cladistics, were only generally accepted following periods of intense debate. Arguing, forcefully and with conviction, is the “natural selection” process of science, weeding out bad ideas and elevating, refining, and justifying good ones. This sausage-making is necessary for the advance of science. And because reputations and careers are at stake, debates are more likely to be confrontational than cordial chats over tea and crumpets. While good for science, there are political advantages to keeping such fights within the community.

Many years ago, at a meeting of the Association of Systematics Collections, Tom Nicholson, then director of the American Museum of Natural History, shared with me lessons learned by astronomers. They fight just as passionately, disagree just as much, and yell just as loudly as taxonomists, but they have learned to do so behind closed doors. When a consensus, or at least a truce, has been reached, astronomers present to the world a set of priorities that appear to have the full support of their community. With such apparent community endorsement, such priorities are more easily funded. For obvious reasons, granting agencies look favorably on proposals that support and advance an entire community, such as shared, advanced instruments.

It's important to recognize that balkanization is not all bad. Each taxon has its own set of characters and challenges that must be addressed by specialists with appropriate expertise. An ichthyology society does great scientific good by facilitating communication among fish experts, at meetings and in publications. The downside is that the voice of taxonomy, as a science, has been lost in the cacophony. With a dissipated message, competing voices, and a pressing need for identification services, it is easy to see how the mission of taxonomy can become misunderstood and its needs marginalized.

The downside (of balkanization) is that the voice of taxonomy, as a science, has been lost in the cacophony

For decades, there has been talk of the need for an international, overarching, taxonomic umbrella organization that represents the taxonomy community in all its dimensions. Such an organization could speak for taxonomy as a whole, advocate for collections, infrastructure, research priorities and funding, and bring attention to advances in, and impacts of, taxonomy. At times, we have approached this idea. The Systematics Agenda 2000 initiative was one effort at collaboration and community-wide planning. While SA2K enjoyed modest success at the time, it did not persist and its gains have since been overshadowed by an emphasis on technology and one data source.

A negative side of balkanization is evident on university campuses. If taxonomists remain part of the faculty at all, they are few in number and scattered among academic departments. There are benefits of having taxonomists within such departments, but the practice has not served taxonomy well. With their non-experimental, comparative, and historical focus, taxonomists are not an easy fit among experimentalists.

The fact is that taxonomists working on diverse groups of organisms have more in common with one another, with respect to theories, methods, use of collections, and questions asked, than with experimental biologists working on the same group of organisms. Taxonomy could be better served on campuses if it were organized in departments—diverse with respect to taxa, but unified by common interests in species exploration, study, and classification.

As we wait for universities of courage and vision to create taxonomy departments, natural history museums are, tragically, moving in the opposite direction. Once unquestioned world leaders in taxonomy, as centers for theoretical advances, species exploration and classification, with unparalleled stature due to their collections and taxonomic expertise, many museums are today giving up taxonomic preeminence for also-ran, university-style, eclectic research programs. With a few dozen doctoral-level researchers at most, museums cannot compete with research universities with hundreds of biology faculty. By focusing on taxonomy, and taking full advantage of collections, however, museums can differentiate themselves, rise above the competition, and attract visibility and resources. It is ironic that museums are abdicating taxonomic leadership now, during a mass extinction, when their unique strengths are needed most and opportunities for fantastic impacts are abundant. Instead of stepping up to meet the challenge of exploring species, museums are in retreat. Talk about not reading the room!

With few options for morphology-based projects, species inventories, revisions, or monographs, and even fewer institutional leaders with the vision and political courage to prioritize taxonomy, the community is increasingly focused on one data source, sacrificing its greatest scientific potential to follow the path of least resistance. This lack of leadership comes at a steep price. Identifying species, while learning little or nothing of their characters, is chipping away at the intellectual integrity and information content of taxonomy. Making species identifiable, while their characters remain unknown, undermines taxonomy’s own mission. We should take full advantage of all that molecular data has to offer, of course. But, at the same time, we should not miss the opportunity to learn all that we can through studies of morphology, ontogeny, and the fossil record. Ignoring such evidence unnecessarily limits what we ultimately know about species and their history. Self-imposed ignorance is not in anyone’s best interest. We deserve species based on corroborated hypotheses, not measures of genetic similarity, and scientific names and classifications that are gateways to abundant, reliable information.

With a mass extinction fast approaching, taxonomists must get their act together soon or risk irreparable ignorance of species, characters, and history. There are no other sciences capable of creating this knowledge. And, there will be no second chances to explore, collect, study, describe, and classify earth’s species, so what we do in the near future will seal the fate of our science and determine the extent of knowledge and understanding of the diversity and history of life on what may be the only species-rich planet we ever have the opportunity to explore. This calls for serious soul-searching, and the clarification and reassertion of taxonomy’s goals. There is nobility in providing identification services, but none in the sacrifice of taxonomy’s own mission.

There is nobility in providing identification services, but none in the sacrifice or dilution of taxonomy’s own mission.

As a community, we must develop a plan of action that includes short-, medium-, and long-term milestones toward a planetary-scale inventory of species, a rigorous study of the similarities and differences among species, and an information-rich, hypothesis-based, predictive, phylogenetic classification. Some priorities should impact the whole community, such as innovative infrastructure, instrumentation, and collection growth and development; others should address specific needs of taxon-focused interest groups; and yet others assure that opportunities exist for lone wolves, for individual taxonomists working on neglected taxa or pursuing ideas of great potential that fall outside of current beliefs and norms.

Taxonomy’s mission and goals must be made clear and asserted with defiant confidence. A new generation of taxon experts must be inspired, educated, and empowered. A commitment must be made to aggressively grow collections as a full reflection and archive of species diversity. GenBank, even if it included complete sequences for each and every species, would fall far short of what should be expected as evidence of the diversity and history of life. Every kind of informative evidence should be pursued.

Goals of the community, while diverse, must be understood as parts of an overarching mission to create knowledge of species, characters, clades, and history. Identification services are important, but they should be understood to be an application of knowledge, not an end in themselves. Molecular data have an important role in taxonomy, but also demonstrated inherent limitations that make the pursuit of other evidence a high priority.

Taxonomy is essential for science, society, and understanding life on our planet. We have the theories and tools needed to immediately increase the rate of species discovery, description, and classification by an order of magnitude, or more. Existing natural history collections are an impressive beginning for a planetary-scale inventory of species.

A clear vision of taxonomy’s mission must be the nucleus around which a fragmented community is united. We have traveled dangerously far down the road of becoming no more than an identification service; of being reliant on a single source of data that is, in important respects, less informative than the alternatives. Individual taxonomists, professional societies, natural history museums, universities, and institutional leaders must forcefully explain, defend, and promote taxonomy’s purpose, priorities and needs.

Abigail Adams wrote, in a letter to her son, John Quincy Adams, dated January 19, 1789, that “Great necessities call out great virtues.” How much greater necessity do we need than a mass extinction to wake up to what is happening to taxonomy? Taxonomic ignorance threatens human welfare, the integrity of ecosystems, biodiversity, and scientific understanding of the diversity and history of life.

As taxonomists elevate one source of evidence over others; value quantity of grant money over quality of knowledge; and follow fads instead of pioneering species exploration, they are being foolish, not virtuous. It is time to reject efforts to reduce taxonomy to one data source and an identification service; to ignore naysayers who believe an inventory, description, and classification of all species is unrealistically ambitious; to adopt priorities based on scientific importance, not popularity; to reject technology in the place of knowledge; to invoke common sense in our response to mass extinction; and to organize taxonomists and natural history museums in a mission, of unprecedented scale, to meet the challenge to explore, document, describe, analyze relationships among, and classify life on our rapidly changing planet.

How the idea that molecular-based taxonomy is an improvement over the scientifically and intellectually rich traditions of comparative morphology, revisions and monographs; that one data source should be preferred over the synthesis of all relevant evidence; or, that merely identifying species is enough, when we can easily learn what makes each species unique and interesting, and about its place in evolutionary history, is difficult to understand. Perhaps it is because, as Ed Wilson once said, “Sometimes a concept is baffling not because it is profound but because it is wrong.”