Removing the roadblocks and disincentives in taxonomy's way

Biodiversity conservation requires taxonomic knowledge. Taxonomy requires clarity of purpose and intellectual freedom to create it.

I keep copies of the House of Lords reports on the state of taxonomy on my shelf, in part because they contain useful, and sobering, insights into the plight of taxonomy in the U.K., and in part as reminders that, with attention from prestigious bodies, such as parliament, hope remains that we may come to our senses and restore support to this fundamental science.  Today, more than twenty years on, these reports are also important reminders that taxonomy’s situation is little improved.

House of Lords. Source: https://civilservicelocal.blog.gov.uk/2015/02/26/learning-about-the-workings-of-parliament/

It is true that steps have been taken with the laudable intention of increasing the availability of information about species to conservation biologists and environmental decision-makers, but these address only symptoms of taxonomy’s neglect, not its root causes.  I would characterize most so-called advances in recent decades as feel-good diversions from the actual taxonomic crisis and avoidance of necessary, common-sense responses yet to be made.  Such efforts are well-meaning, but misguided with respect to what taxonomy needs. Only by meeting the needs of taxonomists can we assure that complete and reliable taxonomic information exists.

A good example is the Encyclopedia of Life, a project inspired by the vision of E. O. Wilson that a page on the World Wide Web exist for every species.  Rather than being organized as an initiative that would put wind in the sails of taxonomy, then capture the latest, most reliable, and most complete information about species on openly-accessible Web pages, the project focused on digitizing existing, frequently outdated, information from printed pages in libraries.  It acted as though taxonomic information were static data and that access were the primary concern.  But much of taxonomy is based on hypotheses.  And the recent neglect of revisions and monographs means that most taxonomic hypotheses have not been critically tested in decades, or longer.  Making old literature more easily accessible has value, of course, but for users of taxonomic information it would be far better to truth information before it is digitally mobilized.  Not all initiatives have had such admirable, if misdirected, motives.  The scientific integrity of taxonomy, along with the quality and quantity of information available, have been compromised by projects aimed at creating short-cuts to meet the needs of biologists to identify species while delaying the hard work and serious scholarship required to truly know species.  Need I mention DNA barcodes and so-called “minimal” taxonomy?

In 2002, an article in the journal Science, by Melissa Mertl, emphasized the importance of taxonomy to conservation.  While I agree with her central point whole-heartedly, the regrettable truth is that many conservationists do not, at least not in practice.  Many focus on saving more or less intact natural habitats around the world with the implied goal of thereby saving all the species that live therein.  Some conservationists have said plainly and emphatically that we should not waste time and money on taxonomists discovering and describing species now.  Instead, we should put all available resources into saving places, then get around to doing an inventory of species living at those addresses at some future date.  Their heart is in the right place, but this leaves too much to chance, too much knowledge at risk.

Few really believe that setting an artificially bounded plot of habitat aside for conservation will result in the survival of all species found there.  If we really want to know what is happening to biodiversity, then there is no alternative to discovering and making known the species existing today as baseline knowledge against which future monitoring may measure conservation successes and failures.

Another bit of essential knowledge from taxonomy are phylogenetic relationships.  Current conservation efforts seem to be based on a naïve assumption that saving some patchwork quilt of places will necessarily result in saving the most biodiversity.  This approach, developed in E. O. Wilson’s book Half-Earth is sound, but is most realistic given basic knowledge of what species exist and where, and their relationships, so that we may know which and how many places to conserve in order to achieve the optimal results for both numbers and diversity of species saved.  As a taxonomist, I believe that the overarching aims of conservation should be to minimize the number of species lost and, no less importantly, to maximize the phylogenetic diversity of species surviving.

Aiming for phylogenetic diversity, not just conserving as many species as possible, is important.  It would assure that humans retain access to living representatives of as many of the major branches of the tree of life as possible.  We have no idea of what the properties of most species are, or if or when they may come to be important to humans.  It would allow scientists to maintain access to the greatest diversity of living things in support future biological discovery.  It would create a permanent record of the results of billions of years of evolutionary history, and of the organization of the biosphere at the zenith of its complexity.  It would protect the greatest number and diversity of potential biomimetic models.  And, it would give evolutionary processes of the future the greatest diversity of gene pools to shape through natural selection as biodiversity rebounds from mass extinction.  I hasten to add that assuring that as many extinct species as possible are represented in the world’s natural history museums is also important to create a permanent record of biodiversity and the biosphere at the dawn of the Anthropocene, to maximize the number of species available for study, and to enrich our intellectual lives by an ever-deeper appreciation of the results of evolutionary history.

For conservation, knowing both species and their phylogenetic relationships would allow for priorities that assure the survival of the greatest diversity of living things… not just the largest number.  If we could save only 25,000 species of flowering plants, saving every one of the 25,000 named species of the family Orchidaceae would make the world a beautiful place and be welcomed by certain botanists, orchid fanciers and pollinators, but it would result in a very different outcome for biodiversity and biosphere than saving one species each of 25,000 diverse branches across the angiosperm ‘tree of life.’ This statement illustrates the impact of conservation priorities carried to an unrealistic extreme to make a point. I am not suggesting that we do not try to save every species possible, including as many orchids as we can, but emphasizing that we may achieve greater success conserving biodiversity if our plans are guided by knowledge of both species and their position in the tree of life.  And such knowledge requires taxonomy.

Joan Walmsley, who chaired the 2002 report on taxonomy in the United Kingdom, cautioned that saving taxonomy “will take more than money… Taxonomy, which evokes images of white-haired scientists examining dusty museum specimens, needs a makeover.  Young people need to get the message that ‘it is very exciting work.’”

During my twenty-four years as a professor in Cornell University, teaching principles of systematics, and insect taxonomy, I observed that there are, in every generation, a small percentage of students innately drawn to the intellectual challenges and rewards of taxonomy.  I don’t believe that we need to do much to encourage a new generation of taxon specialists beyond introducing students to taxonomy and letting their curiosity, drive to explore, and urge to make sense of it all take root.  Investing in modernization of the infrastructure and cyber-infrastructure of taxonomy, establishing reliable sources of research funding, and creating educational and employment opportunities should be priorities, obviously.  But far more than reforming taxonomy, what we must do is remove the roadblocks and disincentives that have been put in its way.

As a student, I was told in no uncertain terms that the odds were slim that I would find a job as a professional taxonomist.  My response was that I would gladly pump gas by day for the privilege of having an education that prepared me to competently pursue taxonomy on evenings and weekends.  Fortunately, it didn’t come to that. But I am concerned that students who are aspiring taxonomists today face more and even greater obstacles.  They are told, falsely, that revisionary taxonomy is an anachronism, museum collections a relic of the Victorian era, and that the only opportunity in taxonomy is found in a sterile molecular lab. While lab coats and DNA sequencers have an important place in taxonomy, they are merely tools and thus secondary to what makes the science most exciting, rewarding, and impactful.  Those who put technology above concepts, theories, and knowledge, or who put one source of evidence above others with equal or greater information content, deprive themselves of the deepest scientific, intellectual, and personal rewards that a life of species exploration has to offer.

A basic understanding of morphology ought to be among the bare minimum knowledge mastered by anyone claiming to be a taxon expert.  I once learned of a graduate student in plant pathology who had spent years accumulating molecular data for a dissertation focused on a particular species of mold.  More interested in molecular data than fungi as organisms, he never bothered to learn how to recognize the chosen fungus on sight.  It turned out that most of his labors were wasted, and his data useless, because he had been culturing the wrong mold, a different species, one that had, unnoticed by him, contaminated his cultures early in his project.  This was a tragic case with a lesson worth learning.  Molecular data is most valuable when it is combined with other evidence as part of getting to know species and the particular combination of characters that make them unique.

Walmsley was correct that taxonomy is exciting work, but it is most exciting when it is motivated by a passion for, and fascination with, the species being studied.  It is impossible to have intellectual passion for a taxon and not be driven to learn all that you can about morphology, natural history, and phylogenetic history.  If we stop discouraging students, telling them that there is no future in taxonomy without arbitrary, molecular guardrails; if we restore positions for well-prepared young taxon experts; if we appropriate research funds for revisionary studies; if we stop treating technology as though it were more important than ideas, knowledge and understanding ; and, if we adequately support natural history museums to achieve what they alone can, an inventory of life forms, then the supply of fresh blood to replace we white-haired, dusty-museum dwellers will be assured.

From university administrators to students selecting an academic major, decisions are overly influenced by the pursuit of money.  This is a problem in science because the coin of the realm is knowledge, not money. And because the greatest advances and discoveries are rarely imagined or accomplished by mercenaries.  Solving practical problems, yes; but making unexpected breakthroughs, not so much.  Administrators should value faculty for more than the external funds that they can attract.  And students should not be forced to either study molecular data or abandon hope of becoming a taxonomic authority.  We need molecular systematists and the wealth of knowledge they create, of course.  But no more or less so than taxonomists focused on comparative morphology, ontogeny, fossils, or some combination of the four. Without every source of evidence being respected and pursued, we diminish our understanding of species, biodiversity, and evolutionary history.

So, while I agree with Walmsley that saving taxonomy will take more than money, it is important to recognize that saving taxonomy will be impossible without it.  Funding agencies, universities and natural history museums have put their thumb on the scale in favor of molecular evidence at the expense of deeper and broader knowledge far too long. We must remove the obstacles that we have set in the path of taxonomy, before it is too late.  We either revive taxonomy in its full form now and explore the diversity, distribution and history of life on our planet, or condemn all future generations to irreversible ignorance.  Ignoring molecular evidence as we explore species would be foolish; but no more so than sacrificing all that we might learn from morphology, fossils and ontogenetic pathways.

References

House of Lords. 2002. What on earth?  The threat to the science underpinning conservation. Select Committee appointed to consider Science and Technology, 3^rd report.  2 May.

Mertl, Melissa. 2002. Taxonomy in danger of extinction. Science, 22 May.

Wilson, E. O. Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life. New York: Liveright.