Taxonomy, the fading field 2 Jun 2009 A very nice piece in The Scientist (free registration) points out how traditional taxonomy is being replaced by the sexier molecular techniques (no mention of barcoding), and how this means that important connections between species are being missed, as they rapidly disappear. Species and systematics Systematics
Evolution Birds up 6 Nov 200718 Sep 2017 I can’t believe Laelaps beat me to this (shows how on the ball he is) but he’s just noted a paper that I watched getting written, and discussed in detail with Chris Glen, a very smart and talented young paleontologist, before I got to. So I will now, before he… Read More
Ecology and Biodiversity Measuring extinctions 24 Jan 2008 In 1972, David Raup published an influential paper on taxonomic diversity during the Phanerozoic. In that paper, he estimated extinction rates based on the number of fossil families and genera for the period and before and after. The idea was to estimate the “kill rate” of major disruptions in earth’s… Read More
Evolution A periodic table of insects? More thoughts on classification 25 Aug 201225 Aug 2012 Seen by Malte Ebach at the XXIV International Conference of Entomology in South Korea: What’s fun about this (to a philosopher of taxonomy) is why a periodic table doesn’t serve to classify taxa in biology like this. Instead we get this: [From here] The answer is that elements are, and… Read More
But – is taxonomy being split into multiple subfields, or lumped in with other disciplines to become a superfield?
What seems to be happening is that taxonomy is dying as it is being overrun by one aspect of taxonomy, the molecular, to the detriment of field and museum taxonomy, for which there is no funding nor appreciable credit given. But without those aspects of taxonomic description and investigation, ecology, evolution and various other aspects that are fundamental to biology itself are incomprehensible. So we are seeing a major problem in the way biological research is being funded. One point that I find most intriguing here is that old-school taxonomy is alive and well in India, South and Latin America, and to a lesser extent in the Russian Federation. However, these tend to be local projects, so while the work done is of a good quality, it means large parts of the earth are presently not being well studied.