Comments on: “New” species gather dust on museum shelves for 21 years before being described

By: Gordon Ramel

Gordon Ramel — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 06:41:14 +0000

Perhaps those with so much to say should learn a little about the number of organisms and the amount funding available to pay people.

To put it simple whole animal sciences like taxonomy and ecology are the the very very poor relatives of genetics and molecular biology, which in turn is the poor relative in relationship to physics.

If the world spent 10% of what it has spent on trying to find the Higgs boson, or looking for planets around distant suns, to support taxonomy or ecology it would be a great improvement.

Far too many of the worlds top taxonomists work full time in a day job, (as a bank teller for instance) and do their taxonomy in the evenings because no governement is will to pay for taxonomy. Which is a crime. Species are going extinct fater than we are identifying them.

By: Barbara

Barbara — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 19:51:33 +0000

I’m a plant taxonomist in a small consulting firm. We find that there are little bits of funding available for taxonomy. Our favorite projects are contracts with U.S. government agencies for taxonomic evaluations of groups that are hard to identify. We find that agency botanists generally know where the problems are and want to get them solved, though few of those scientists are skilled working the bureaucracy to extract the funding.

We can’t get really long term, large scale studies funded this way, but its surprising how much we have accomplished – lots of articles, several new species, two book projects. Of course, our incomes depend heavily on purely commercial projects like wetland delineations and weed surveys, which exercise our taxonomic skills in other ways.

We do find people want identification done for free, especially non-profit organizations doing projects on a shoestring. We give away identifications for one or a few samples because (1) billing for small jobs can take more time and effort than the identifications and (2) we hope to build up the good will and the reputation for skill that will help us get contracts later. We charge for larger lots, generally giving clients the option of paying by the hour (usually cheaper) or the sample (more predictable).

To sum up: if you enjoy taxonomy in your particular group enough that you do it as a hobby, you may, at least in some countries, be able to work it up into a (poorly) paying job, if you are flexible about what kind of project you’re willing to do. Enjoy.

By: Terry Tavita

Terry Tavita — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 01:18:41 +0000

there are probably more flying foxes/fruit bats in Samoa than American Samoa (just 50 miles across the sea)..How do I know? Because I live in Samoa and shoot bats in the weekends..the article is rubbish..

By: ZL 'Kai' Burington

ZL 'Kai' Burington — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 22:57:02 +0000

I find the “we need more taxonomists!”/”we can’t get jobs” situation particularly frustrating. The issue at the heart of this is that taxonomists have tended to be good natured, helpful people who will assist others with identifications and other projects in their group of interest at the drop of a hat. Thus, much of a taxonomist’s work is often done for free. This leads funding agencies to believe that taxonomy isn’t worth funding, because if something is free, if taxonomists are just sitting around at the ready to do this work for nothing, then obviously it doesn’t need funding. The best reaction, though sort of Randian, is to take that away. You want an identification of this specimen that is probably just some common species but could be something rare or new? 75 dollars on the table before I even see it. No dollars? No ID. Sorry, all this knowledge I have took years to build, many dollars spent on education and books, and many hours killing my eyes with the bright light of a stereo microscope. If you need this done, then you need to compensate me. There’s also the issue mentioned above with bureaucratic duties, and that ideographic or descriptive science is seen as a lesser occupation. But I think we could persuade with the above policy.

As for why it takes so long to describe the new species after they are collected, there are two major “taxonomic impediments”. The first is that research cycles in taxonomy are incredibly long. It may be 100 years before another worker comes along to learn a group well enough to do comprehensive revisions of genera. The second is that, despite well funded collecting trips, the description process often ends after initial sample sorting, probably due to the aforementioned good natured distraction. Neil Evenhuis covers a path for getting around the latter in his article “The Other Taxonomic Impediment”, but there’s little any individual taxonomist can do about the first one.

By: Ed Yong

Ed Yong — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 16:19:23 +0000

That’s American Samoa, which is a separate island to the east of Samoa.

By: Terry Tavita

Terry Tavita — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 09:17:20 +0000

there’s plenty of fruitbats in Samoa..

http://pacificislandparks.com/2010/10/27/going-batty-in-american-samoa/

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 00:19:46 +0000

I appreciate this post, but show me an example when Kristofer Helgen doesn’t open up a museum tray and describe a new species and I will be shocked! ; p

By: Allyson

Allyson — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 23:15:02 +0000

Leilah, John’s right, so most researchers that do taxonomy do it in combination with other work like phylogenetics (like me), ecology, or other natural history. Taxonomy gets done as a side project, gets funded by supporting researchers at museums, or other ways, but I think big NSF taxonomy projects are unlikely to be funded under current circumstances. I work on pitviper relationships and the temple viper mentioned here is part of a very complicated group – luckily there are good researchers trying to pick apart the variation. I’d love to get my hands on the new species and see where it fits, but there are no individuals here in the U.S. so I’m basing its placement on data gleaned from the species description. I don’t think the pitviper is really a glaring exception to the trend of new species coming out of poorly-understood groups because although there’s been a lot of work on pitvipers as a whole subfamily, the species-dense studies, particularly of Asian species, haven’t been done yet. We have a ways to go before we identify all of the green Asian species.

By: John S. Wilkins

John S. Wilkins — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 21:16:58 +0000

Funding agencies do not recognise taxonomy as a worthwhile scientific activity, even though so many sciences rely upon it, and so the do not make funding available for it. I suspect this has to do with the idea that taxonomy is not theoretical enough, and so is at best just preparation work, when to do it well takes a long time. There’s a disconnect of expectations. I blame the theory-heavy focus of current big science.

By: Leilah

Leilah — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 20:58:04 +0000

So, where is the disconnect between taxonomists/jobs/descriptions? I always find alternating articles that say “we need more taxonomists!” followed by taxonomists saying “we can’t even get hired!”

Is it a question of not finding specific funding? Or institutions redirecting resources to more exciting areas? I’d love to go into taxonomy, but I’m really hesitant to go anywhere near it if I’ve got no chance of getting a job.