[Taxacom] Taxonomy in Europe in the 21st century

[Jim Croft]

Posted on behalf of Cameron Slatyer, Director of ABRS.  Cameron is not
a member of taxacom so those interested in pursuing the topic may want
to follow up with him off list at cameron.slatyer at environment.gov.au

jim

---

Gidday Jim,

Can you post this on Taxacom for me? I am not a member.

regards

cam

-----Original Message-----
From: Slatyer, Cameron
Sent: Thursday, 8 May 2008 9:34 AM
To: Buz Wilson
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu; Jim Croft; Torbjorn.Ekrem at vm.ntnu.no
Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Taxonomy in Europe in the 21st century

 Hi Buz,

I can't let a comment like that get by without a response!

The Australian Biological Resources Study funds taxonomic research.
Modern taxonomy requires investigation on both the morphological and
molecular level. There is a suite of tools available to taxonomists
for investigating and describing species. It is patently ridiculous to
ignore part of the toolkit available for describing and identifying
life. I, as Director, owe a responsibility to the scientific community
to invest in projects involving new techniques as well as traditional
morphological techniques.

We do not fund molecular work in preference to morphological work. Nor
am I going to fund morphology in preference to molecular work. We fund
good science proposed in well-drafted proposals.

regards Cam

Cameron Slatyer
Director Australian Biological Resources Study Parks Australia
Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and Arts GPO Box 787
Canberra ACT 2601 phone 02 6250 9506 mobile 0418 672777
cameron.slatyer at environment.gov.au

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: George D.F. (Buz) Wilson <buz at mail.usyd.edu.au>
Date: Wed, May 7, 2008 at 8:44 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Taxonomy in Europe in the 21st century
To: Torbjørn Ekrem <Torbjorn.Ekrem at vm.ntnu.no>
Cc: Bob Mesibov <mesibov at southcom.com.au>, TAXACOM <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>


"DNA taxonomy" isn't taxonomy, or perhaps I should say it isn't
descriptive  systematics.
 It might be an identification tool, but it has problems (see many
previous posts here):
 1. It doesn't distinguish some species (for many possible reasons);
2. it may distinguish lineages (again for many possible reasons) that
may or may not be definable species-level taxa;

 3. I could go on, but the biggest problem is not a empirical scientific
 one: funding agencies provide research support in a zero-sum
competetion. If "DNA taxonomy" gets funding meant for descriptive
systematics (actually describing taxa), then less funding will be
available for  those who describe new taxa. This is happening here in
 Australia: our Australian Biological Resources Survey has given
grants  to researchers who do not describe species but only collect
mtDNA  sequences. This nomenclature of "DNA taxonomy" is also
encouraging  Museum managers to hire molecular-only researchers, who
do not use  Museum collections. These managers claim that such
scientists can bring  in more money. Maybe so, but what about the
hundreds & thousands of  undescribed taxa in the collections? And even
more in our rapidly  degrading global habitat?

 So in my view, the concept of "DNA taxonomy" steals both the focus
and  the funding from our need to build global taxomomic capacity.
Doing so  is a complex problem; we should not make it more complicated
by the use  of poorly defined concepts.

 Disclaimer: I use genetic data, but for me its role is in
understanding  patterns and timing of speciation, rather than being
directly involved  in the descriptive part of the research. In one of
my mtDNA data sets, I  have encountered both problems 1 & 2.  [OK
that's my "one screen" post  limit - I'm outta here!]

 Buz Wilson
 Australian Museum


 Torbjørn Ekrem wrote:
 > I think you might be confusing DNA barcoding with DNA taxonomy (or
> perhaps you are equalling identification with taxonomy)? In any
case, I  > would like to point out that taxonomy is much, much more
than  > identifying species, and as a traditional taxonomist (who
works with  > species description, delimitation, identification,
phylogeny,  > classification, biogeography) I have discovered what a
great tool DNA  > barcoding is in my work on non-biting midges. In my
opinion, DNA  > barcoding will increase the need for taxonomists and
not the opposite  > since the DNA library on which DNA barcoding
depends needs to be made  > and maintained by taxonomic experts. - and
as we know taxonomy is a very  > dynamic science. As I see it, the
possibility for automated species  > identification will enable
numerous large scale, multi taxon inventories  > and biomonitoring.
Something that we are quite unable to achieve with  > our declining
population of taxonomists today. And if DNA barcoding is  > only able
to identify the 90-95% most common species, that's just fine  > with
me: we can concentrate our efforts on the much more scientifically  >
interesting 5-10%. Wouldn't that be nice?
 >





-- 
_________________
Jim Croft
jim.croft at gmail.com