Are We Losing the Science of Taxonomy?

To find a reason that the world needs both more taxonomists and better training for them, mammalogist Michael Mares, director of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, has only to open a drawer. An authority on the mammals of Argentina, Mares can find specimens relevant to his work in collections all over the world. But more often than not, the labels are incorrect. During one recent visit to a museum that Mares will not name—“but it’s one everyone on this planet has heard of,” he says—he found that every one of roughly 50 specimens, representing seven species and three genera, was mislabeled. And they were all mammals, arguably the easiest life forms to identify. For Mares and a growing chorus of other experts, mislabeled specimens are a symptom of a much larger problem, one that starts with field research, far beyond museum walls. The issue, they say, is that even though our rapidly changing world makes the identification of species increasingly important for biodiversity science— and increasingly relevant to the very future of humankind—the field of taxonomy is underfunded and underappreciated. In the field, it may seem to be only common sense that botanists better trained in plant identification will nitrogen cycling. “Just as the need to catalog, study, manage, and protect species in their environments has never been greater, the pipeline of adequately trained professionals is trickling dry,” concluded a team of Botanical Capacity Assessment Project researchers, led by Marshall Sundberg of Emporia State University. One of the key problems with the training, they note, is the shrinking number of university courses that emphasize plant identification.