AUSTRALIA’S TAXONOMIC IMPEDIMENT GLOBAL SOLUTIONS AND CYBERTAXONOMY GERRY CASSIS SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL, EARTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES.
Download ReportTranscript AUSTRALIA’S TAXONOMIC IMPEDIMENT GLOBAL SOLUTIONS AND CYBERTAXONOMY GERRY CASSIS SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL, EARTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES.
AUSTRALIA’S TAXONOMIC IMPEDIMENT GLOBAL SOLUTIONS AND CYBERTAXONOMY GERRY CASSIS SCHOOL OF BIOLOGICAL, EARTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES State of Australian Taxonomy Australia’s taxonomic capacity is decreasing Australia’s biota is poorly known Taxonomic Impediment Taylor 1976, 1983 Canopy Fogging Erwin 1982 Global Species Estimates Estimated no. of species (in millions) Reference Year 30 7-80 Erwin26 Stork28 1982 1988 5 Gaston75 1991 1.8-2.6 Hodkinson33 1991 12.5 Hammond76 1992 ≈5 Ødegaard et al.27 2000 2.0-3.4 Dolphin and Quicke77 2001 4-6 Novotny et al. 29 2002 ≈10 Ødegaard et al.32 2005 Tree of Life Cassis et al. 2007 BIG 5 ORDERS >100,000 SPECIES TOP 20 FAMILIES OF INSECTS CASSIS ETAL. 2007 HYPERDIVERSE FAMILIES ~10,000 species Diptera ________________________________________ Coleoptera Curculiionidae 50000 Tipulidae 10203 Staphylinidae 47000 Tachinidae 9451 Cerambycidae 35000 Chironomidae 7739 Chrysomelidae 35000 Carabidae 30000 Hymenoptera Scarabaeidae 25000 Ichneumonidae 15000 Tenebrionidae 18000 Braconidae 15000 Buprestidae 15000 Formicidae 11839 Lepidoptera Hemiptera Noctuidae 25000 Cicadellidae 20000 Geometridae 21000 Miridae 10200 Crambidae 11630 Arctiidae 11000 US National Science Foundation Planetary Biodiversity Inventory – PBI Complete a global inventory of all the species of any major group Establish multi-investigator, multi-institutional, multi-national teams Integrate the best of the IT revolution into the taxonomic process to expedite the documentation process (cybertaxonomy) Train the next generation of professional taxonomists Funded PBI Projects Funding: US National Science Foundation, 2003 Criteria: Worldwide and monophyletic taxa Duration: 5 years Projects: Eumycetozoa (slime molds): 1000 species Solanum (Solanaceae): 1500 species Siluriformes (cat fishes): 2500 speciess Miridae subfamilies Orthotylinae and Phylinae (plant bugs): 5500 species SupragenericClassification of Orthotylinae Alternate Arrangements ________________________________________ SPECIES DESCRIPTION ACCUMULATION CURVE CASSIS ETAL. 2007 ORTHOTYLINAE AND PHYLINAE SYSTEMATIC SURVEY CASSIS, SCHUHANDOTHERS (1995-2001) – COLLECTION SITES ~1,000 NEW SPECIES PLANT BUG PBI GOALS Describe ~ 1,500 new species Improved supraspecific classification Fieldwork program to collect for gaps ~ 500,000 specimens databased ~4000 vouchered host plants ~ 20,000 habitus, morphology, host, and habitat images DNA sequencing BUSINESS AS USUAL? International, team-based approach, post- graduate and postdoctoral training Information Technology – Develop web-based tools for data entry and management, as well as distributing the data UNSW GBIF BIOINFORMATICS ARCHITECTURE Content area responsibilities of GBIF Biological Specimen Data DDBJ / EMBL / GenBank Other Sequence Data (RNA, protein, e tc.) Catalog of Names of Known Organisms Geospatial Data Climate Data “SpeciesBank” Biodiversity Literature Resources GBIF would enable synergism among existing investments that is not possible at present. Ecosystem s Data Ecological Data Existing responsibilities of other organizations What we have learnt? Strengths Cultural change in way we do business Less territorality New ideas, big ideas Increase in multi-author publication of taxonomic papers Data entry, management and access efficiency IT creates time gains Real-time access to high volume of data Very fast publication preparation Framework for future research Globally-scoped supraspecific classification Species description is expanding rapidly Development of a systematic field program Need presence/absence data Informed survey design to account for sampling gaps and biases What we have learnt? Weaknesses Difficulty in attracting students Australian pool of students interested in taxonomy is small and diminishing Unrealistic goals Target setting is elusive IT maintenance after the grant period? Documenting Australia’s biota document hyperdiverse taxa team-approach, national to international flagship projects, attract corporate dollars, Maslin and Van Leeuwin’s project on mulgas globally-scoped supraspecific classifications Northern Hemisphere genera and family-groups applied to Southern Hemisphere taxa erection of ‘unnecessary’ monotypic taxa high rates of species-level synonymies new phase of systematic surveys integrate separate biodiversity surveys by taxon >Taxonomic Capacity Enhance stakeholder understanding of taxonomy/systematics Service role vs research role Hypothesis-driven science Parataxonomy fiasco Taxonomic research outputs are fundamental to environmental decision-making? Inflating our capacity to contribute to issues of the day? Inflating value of historical collections? >Taxonomic Capacity Need a critical mass of within-country taxonomic expertise Taxonomist/systematist impediment in universities needs addressing recruit systematists in universities undergraduate training in theory and practice of systematics postgraduate scholarships and postdoctoral fellowships Museums and herbaria are under strain to maintain taxonomic staff Institutional partnerships need further exploration, e.g. U of Adelaide & SAMA Development of taxon-based research clusters centres of excellence, value-adding attached leverage off the ‘silverback’ systematists promote early career ‘stars’ Funding enhancement Order of magnitude increase in funding National funding program ABRS, leadership, clearing house, funding ARC – funding support for phylogenetics, biogeography, etc State of Taxonomy in Australia ACKNOWLEDGMENTS • • • • • • • • • • • Sheridan Hewson-Smith Lorenzo Prendini Michael Schwartz Steve Thurston Michael Wall Christiane Weirauch Denise Wyniger Anouk Mututantri Celia Symonds Nik Tatarnic Hannah Finlay • • • • • National Science Foundation ABRS American Museum of Natural History Australian Museum University of NSW http://research.amnh.org/pbi State of Australian Taxonomy Australia’s biota is poorly known Australia’s taxonomic capacity is decreasing Unique Specimen Identification - USI • Facilitate specimen tracking • Machine readability - Matrix codes • Human readability DIGITAL LIBRARY: ~ 27,000 PAGES AREAS OF HIGH ENDEMISM AND SPECIES RICHNESS ORTHOTYLINAE AND/OR PHYLINAE SYSTEMATIC CATALOG: ON-LINE RELATIONAL DATABASE Digital Imaging of Specimens Georeferencing Collections without Lat/Longs GEOLCATE