You may have heard of scientific names before, and perhaps you noticed that they contain two parts. Scientific names of organisms include the genus followed by the species name.
An example of a species within the sea slug family I am researching is Doto ussi. Taxonomy is important since other scientific disciplines like conservation and drug discovery hinge on organisms being classified and named. Prior to being able to sequence DNA, organisms were described and categorized solely by their distinct morphologies physical characteristics and ecological roles.
The ability to sequence DNA has revealed a great deal more about where an organism belongs taxonomically and helps pinpoint new species. A component of my graduate project is looking at the DNA of Doto sea slugs of two different morphologies from the Indo-Pacific. These morphologies include specimens with a short body and elongate body from Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines. Prior to in-depth study, these elongate individuals were placed within the sea slug family Dotidae, despite their unique appearance.
DNA sequences from these individuals will be compared to those of the short bodied to determine if these elongate specimens should in fact stay within the Dotidae.
We do not really know where these specimens belong taxonomically, since they are new to science. This is very exciting since a new genus or family may need to be created to accommodate these individuals. But how do decision-makers decide where to establish protected areas if they don't know what is being protected?
How can regulators identify and combat harmful invasive species if they cannot distinguish them from native species? How do developing countries ensure that they reap the benefits of the use of their biological diversity, if they don't know the biological diversity that is being used?
Taxonomy provides basic understanding about the components of biodiversity which is necessary for effective decision-making about conservation and sustainable use. Taxonomy is a branch of science that deals with the classification of the living organisms based on certain traits.
What is the importance of taxonomy? Biology Taxonomy and Systematics Taxonomy. Apr 2, Explanation: The importance of taxonomy are:- It helps to ascertain the number of living beings on Earth.
More than one million of species of plants and animals have been discovered and classified so far. A system that endeavors to impose similar controls over taxon concepts would likely be vastly more complex than, and in conflict with, the Codes. It is for good reason that the major Codes explicitly avoid interfering with taxonomic freedom. In addition, such a system raises many questions. Would it limit the kinds of characters used to assert taxonomically important distinctions, or be biased in favor of one class of characters e.
How would new knowledge be incorporated? Would it favor one particular species concept for all organisms and if so, which one?
Would newly discovered species automatically be acknowledged as legitimate new taxa or would they need to be approved before being considered valid? How often would the approved species lists be updated? Taking into account the vanishing taxonomic expertise, who would do this, and who would fund it? Can we afford to draw limited resources away from vital efforts to describe and catalogue biodiversity? These are peer-reviewed, published, and up to the community to accept or reject with further research.
Furthermore, given that hundreds of thousands of species remain to be discovered, and that about 18, new species are described and named every year [ 26 ], adding layers of bureaucracy to this process would be both impractical and expensive.
The governing structure proposed by Garnett and Christidis would need to include this peer review, consultation, and publication process regularly to reflect new knowledge. Therefore, it would add, and possibly duplicate, existing practice. The products of taxonomic research underpin all biological research, but the proposal by Garnett and Christidis would regulate taxonomy primarily in the context of conservation.
This has important potential ramifications because any supervisory body would implicitly have the power to direct, through its actions and judgments, the lumping or splitting of taxa according to conservation, economic significance, or political agendas to affect resource streams directed to those taxa. The process would also be vulnerable to conflicting pressures from advocacy groups in many areas, including conservation, trade, bioprospecting, and particularly politics.
Even within birds, one of the groups that exemplify the problem that the proposal seeks to solve, taxonomic committees for managing taxa have had a mixed track record [ 27 ]. Certainly, there are many ways taxonomists can improve the value and impact of their research to conservation biology and other biological disciplines, such as explicitly citing the species concept employed in new taxonomic descriptions and including information on distributions, ecology, conservation status, and potential threats.
Better and more modern approaches to organizing scientific names of organisms could also be expanded. The development of online nomenclatural registration and indexing systems e. These help avoid perpetuation of errors in the literature and thus increase stability and decrease ambiguity of taxon names.
Improvements are not limited to the Codes. Efforts such as the Catalogue of Life, with its numerous contributors and broad spectrum of users, already provide a valuable service for many taxonomic groups in asserting a reference classification and set of species concepts covering all life.
This illustrates the potential for building a robust framework for a stable taxonomy to serve those initiatives that benefit from such stability, including conservation.
These efforts can be improved by filling the existing gaps in taxa, training new taxonomists, improving the quality of information included for certain groups e. Dynamic taxonomy reflects the scientific nature and progress of the discipline. Artificially and arbitrarily constraining taxonomy through the system proposed by Garnett and Christidis would damage scientific credibility far more severely than misperceptions about the taxonomic process.
The dynamic nature of taxonomic progress may be at odds with some aspects of conservation legislation, resulting, in part, from a mutual misunderstanding of the fundamental processes involved with both taxonomy and conservation. Rather than redefine how one of the core disciplines of biological sciences is conducted, a more effective approach is to redefine how conservation legislation is enacted and implemented. The process of changing legislation requires acts of governments, which can take years to accomplish.
However, fundamentally altering a system of classifying nature that has successfully endured more than two and a half centuries would have many detrimental consequences. Most of the problems for conservation resulting from the dynamic taxonomic process could be avoided entirely if future conservation legislation followed the lead of existing international conventions by explicitly referencing the specific taxon concept implied by a name, that is, by citing the original species description or a recent scholarly taxonomic treatment.
Taxonomists and conservation biologists should join forces to promote effective legislative mechanisms to deal with a changing taxonomy rather than engage in infighting about the proper way to do taxonomy. This is exemplified by CITES, which adopts standard nomenclatural references [ 23 ] to define species or taxonomic groups and which periodically revises the adopted standards in response to evolving taxonomic consensus. Many have argued that conservation legislation should focus on protecting entire ecosystems rather than rely on enumerated lists of species e.
While this approach requires a solid taxonomic foundation to characterize the ecosystems in question, the legislation itself would be insulated from specific changes to taxon names and concepts. In cases in which legislation includes specific taxa by name, such as harvesting or endangered species regulations, it should make the intended taxonomic concepts clear with reference to published treatments.
That will allow unambiguous understanding even if the nomenclature and classification change because of taxonomic advances.
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