Abstract
We feel that two of the biggest challenges taxonomy is facing are the same as during the last twentyfive years since the biodiversity crisis moved to the center
of attention: (1) inadequate funding combined with (2) the lack of succession planning, training and recruitment into permanent positions of competent taxonomists. Another significant issue, to us the third big challenge for taxonomy, is represented by the increasingly difficult and complex legislative side of biodiversity research.
References
Adamson, E.A.S., Britz, R. & Lieng, S. (2019) Channa auroflammea, a new species of snakehead fish of the Marulius group from the Mekong River in Laos and Cambodia (Teleostei: Channidae). Zootaxa, 4571, 398–408.
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4571.3.7
Bebber, D.P., Wood, J.R.I., Barker, C. & Scotland, R.W. (2013) Author inflation masks global capacity for species discovery in flowering plants. New Phytologist, 201, 700–706.
https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.12522
Bickford, D., Lohman, D.J., Sodhi, N.S., Ng, P.K.L., Meier, R., Winker, K., Ingram, K.K. & Das, I. (2006) Cryptic species as a window on diversity and conservation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 22, 148–155.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2006.11.004
Butcher, B.A., Smith, M.A., Sharkey, M.J. & Quicke, D.L.I. (2012) A turbo-taxonomic study of Thai Aleiodes (Aleiodes) and Aleiodes (Arcaleiodes) (Hymenoptera: Braconidae: Rogadinae) based largely on COI barcoded specimens, with rapid descriptions of 179 new species. Zootaxa, 3457, 1–232.
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3457.1.1
de Carvalho, M.R., Bockmann, F.A., Amorim, D.S., de Vivo, M., de Toledo-Piza, M., Menezes, N.A., de Figueiredo, J.L., Castro, R.M.C., Gill, A.C., McEachran, J.D., Compagno, L.J.V., Schelly, R.C., Britz, R., Lundberg, J.G., Vari, R.P. & Nelson, G. (2005) Revisiting the taxonomic impediment. Science, 307, 353.
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.307.5708.353b
Ceballos, G. & Ehrlich, P.R. (2009) Discoveries of new mammal species and their implications for conservation and ecosystem services. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 106, 3841–3846.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0812419106
Costello, M.J., Wilson, S.P. & Houlding, B. (2012) Predicting total global species richness using rates of species description and estimates of taxonomic effort. Systematic Biology, 61, 871–883.
https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syr080
Dubois, A. (2003) The relationships between taxonomy and conservation biology in the century of extinctions. Comptes Rendus Biologies, 326, S9–S21.
https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syr080
Ebach, M.C., Valdecasas, A.G. & Wheeler, Q.D. (2011) Impediments to taxonomy and users of taxonomy: accessibility and impact evaluation. Cladistics, 27, 550–557.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1096-0031.2011.00348.x
Godfray, H.C.J. (2002) Challenges for taxonomy. Nature, 417, 17–19.
https://doi.org/10.1038/417017a
Hebert, P.D.N., Cywinska, A., Ball, S.L. & deWaard, J.R. (2003) Biological identifications through DNA barcodes. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 270, 313–322.
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2002.2218
Hebert, P.D.N., Ratnasingham, S. & deWaard, J.R. (2004) Barcoding animal life: cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 divergences among closely related species. Proceedings of the Royal Society London B, 270 (Supplement 1), S96–S99.
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2003.0025
Ihlow, F., Vamberger, M., Flecks, M., Hartmann, T., Cota, M., Makchai, S., Meewattana, P., Dawson, J.E., Kheng, L., Rödder, D. & Fritz, U. (2016) Integrative taxonomy of Southeast Asian snail-eating turtles (Geoemydidae: Malayemys) reveals a new species and mitochondrial introgression. PLoS ONE, 11, e0153108.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0153108
Kaila, L. (2015) New Palearctic species of the Elachista bifasciella group (Lepidoptera: Gelechioidea, Elachistidae). Shilap, 43, 385–423.
Korn, M., & Hundsdoerfer, A.K. (2016) Molecular phylogeny, morphology and taxonomy of Moroccan Triops granarius (Lucas, 1864) (Crustacea: Notostraca), with the description of two new species. Zootaxa, 4178, 328–346.
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4178.3.2
Krell, F. (2000) Impact factors aren’t relevant to taxonomy. Nature, 405, 507–508.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/35014664
Larsen, B.B., Miller, E.C., Rhodes, M.K. & Wiens, J.J. (2017) Inordinate fondness multiplied and redistributed: the number of species on earth and the new pie of life. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 92, 229–265.
https://doi.org/10.1086/693564
Mutanen, M., Kaila, L. & Tabell, J. (2013) Wide-ranging barcoding aids discovery of one-third increase of species richness in presumably well-investigated moths. Scientific Reports, 3, 2901.
https://doi.org/10.1038/srep02901
Neumann, D., Borisenko, A.V., Coddington, J.A., Häuser, C.L., Butler, C.R., Casino, A., Vogel, J.C., Haszprunar, G. & Giere, P. (2018) Global biodiversity research tied up by juridical interpretations of access and benefit sharing. Organisms, Diversity & Evolution, 18, 1–18.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s13127-017-0347-1
Petzold, A., Vargas-Ramírez, M., Kehlmaier, C., Vamberger, M., Branch, W.R., Du Preez, L., Hofmeyr, M.D., Meyer, L., Schleicher, A., Široký, P. & Fritz, U. (2014) A revision of African helmeted terrapins (Testudines: Pelomedusidae: Pelomedusa), with descriptions of six new species. Zootaxa, 3795 (5), 523–548.
https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3795.5.2
Prathapan, K.D., Pethiyagoda, R., Bawa, K.S., Raven, P.H., Rajan, P.D., Acosta, L.E., Adams, B., Adl, S., Ahyong, S.T., Anderson, R., Arango, C.P., Arnedo, M.A., Armbruster, J.W., Avila, L.J., Azevedo, C.O., Baldo, D., Barclay, M.V.L., Baron-Szabo, R., Bauer, A.M., Bentlage, B., Bezdek, A., Bird, G., Blagoderov, V., Bocak, L., Bonaldo, A., Bond, J.E., Borkent, C.J., Branham, M.A., Carranza, S., Carreno, R., de Carvalho, M.R., Castroviejo-Fisher, S., Chiba, H., Ciampor, F., Clarke, D.J., Collins, A.G., Constantino, R., Crespo, F.A., Daly, M., Dominiak, P., Dronen, N., Dubois, A., Duda, T.F., Eleaume, M., Erlacher, S., Estrela, P.C., Evenhuis, N., Fehlauer-Ale, K.H., Fery, H., Fritz, U., Gaimari, S.D., Garrison, R., Gaubert, P., Geiger, D.L., Gill, A.C., Gimmel, M.L., Goldschmidt, T., Goswami, R., Gonzalez, A.P., Gonzalez, V.H., Gordon, D., Gower, D.J., Greenslade, P., Gusarov, V.I., Hajdu, E., Harms, D., Heinicke, M.P., Hilton, E.J., Hodgson, C.J., Hormiga, G., Hughes, L.E., Hutchings, P., Jäger, P., Jennings, J.T., Kadej, M., Kaila, L., Kaminski, M.J., Karaman, G.S., Karanovic, T., Kathirithamby, J., Kerr, P.H., Kirkendall, L.R., Kitahara, M.V., Klautau, M., Kondratieff, B.C., Kroh, A., Labarque, F.M., Leavengood, J.M., Letardi, A., Liang, A.-P., Lima, F.C.T., Liu, Z., Löbl, I., Lohrmann, V., Malchus, N., Malipatil, M.B., Marques, A.C., Matzke-Karasz, R., Mayer, G., Mayoral, J.G., McInnes, S.J., Minelli, A., Moir, M.L., Monks, S., Morrone, J.J., Muster, C., Nagy, Z.T., Narayanan, K.S., Nearns, E.H., Nekola, J., Nihei, S.S., Nutzel, A., Ohler, A., Orrico, V.G.D., Padial, J.M., Page, L.M., Passos, P., Paulson, D., Perkins, P.D., Pfingstl, T., Prieto, C., Pinheiro, L.R., Pinto-da-Rocha, R., Prendini, L., Price, B., Prins, J.D., Ramirez, M., Rasmussen, C., Rasmussen, P., Redei, D., Ribera, I., Ricarte, A., Rivera, J., Rix, M.G., Rossaro, B., Roy, A.D., Ruiz, G.R.S., Salles, F.F., Sanborn, A.F., Sartori, M., Scholler, M., Schmelz, R.M., Schrödl, M., Segniagbeto, G.H., Serrano, J., Shimano, S., Shin, M.K., Sidorchuk, E., Siler, C.D., Sket, B., Smith, A.D., Smith, A.B.T., Smith, R., Smith-Pardo, A.H., Sparks, J., Sterrer, W.E., Stroinski, A., Svavarsson, J., Toledo, M., Twomey, E., Vasudevan, K., Vences, M., de Voogd, N., Wang, Q., Watson, G.W., Weiner, W.M., Weksler, M., Wesener, T., Whitmore, D., Wiklund, H., Williams, P.H., Winterton, S.L., Wood, T.S., Yen, S.-H., Zaher, H., Zhang, Z.-Q. & Zhou, H.-Z. (2018) When the cure kills—CBD limits biodiversity research. Science, 360, 1405–1406.
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat9844
Riedel, A. & Narakusumo, R.P. (2019) One hundred and three new species of Trigonopterus weevils from Sulawesi. ZooKeys, 828, 1–153.
https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.828.32200
Riedel, A., Sagata, K., Suhardjono, Y.R., Tänzler, R. & Balke, M. (2013) Integrative taxonomy on the fast track – towards more sustainability in biodiversity research. Frontiers in Zoology, 10, 15.
https://doi.org/10.1186/1742-9994-10-15
Rodrigues, A.S.L., Gray, C.L., Crowter, B.J., Ewers, R.M., Stuart, S.N., Whitten, T. & Manica, A. (2010) A global assessment of amphibian taxonomic effort and expertise. BioScience, 60, 798–806.
https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2010.60.10.6
Silvestri, L., Sosa, A., McKay, F., Diniz Vitorino, M., Hill, M., Zachariades, C., Hight, S., Weyl, P., Smith, D., Djeddour, D. & Mason, P.G. (2019) Implementation of access and benefit-sharing measures has consequences for classical biological control of weeds. BioControl, in press.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10526-019-09988-4
Srivathsan, A., Hartop, E., Puniamorrthy, J., Lee, W.T., Kutty, S.N., Kurina, O. & Meier, R. (2019) Rapid, large-scale species discovery in hyperdiverse taxa using 1D MinION sequencing. BMC Biology, 17, 96.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-019-0706-9
Tancoigne, E. & Dubois, A. (2013) Taxonomy: no decline, but inertia. Cladistics, 29, 567–570.
https://doi.org/10.1111/cla.12019
Tautz, D., Arctander, P., Minelli, A., Thomas, R.H. & Vogler, A.P. (2003) A plea for DNA taxonomy. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 18, 70–74.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-5347(02)00041-1
Wemmer, C., Dallmeier, F. & Wilson, D.D. (1993) Training developing-country nationals is the critcal ingredient to conserving global biodiversity. BioScience, 43, 762–767.
https://doi.org/10.2307/1312320