Let’s rise up to unite taxonomy and technology

What do you think of when you think of taxonomy?An 18th century gentlemen in breeches?Or perhaps botany drawings hung on the walls of a boutique hotel?Such old-fashioned conceptions to the contrary, taxonomy is alive today although constantly struggling for survival and recognition.The scientific community is losing valuable resources as taxonomy experts age and retire, and funding for morphological studies and species descriptions remains stagnant.At the same time, organismal knowledge (morphology, ecology, physiology) has never been more important: genomic studies are becoming more taxon focused, the scientific community is recognizing the limitations of traditional "model" organisms, and taxonomic expertise is desperately needed to fight against global biodiversity declines resulting from human impacts.There has never been a better time for a taxonomic renaissance.From a historical perspective, the work of "traditional" taxonomists has focused on collecting, observing, and comparing species.Taxonomy extends far beyond simple drawings of body parts and encompasses the entire history of a species: reproductive strategies and larval development, feeding methods and ecological competition, as well as evolutionary musings on how and why a species came to be found in a particular place.Modern applications of taxonomy take many forms-microbiologists culturing new species, marine ecologists sorting specimens according to body plan, and phylum-specific experts searching the globe for their elusive group of organisms.Taxonomy is paradoxically cheap (requiring only a few buckets and a microscope) yet expensive (education and training for taxonomic experts is often measured in decades), and this type of quiet, observational science has molded many scientific arguments across the biological sciences.Over the course of my research career, my encounters with formal taxonomy have been purely accidental.Unlike career taxonomists, I don't have the patience for long hours at the microscope, and drawing the minutiae of morphological features (as is required for formal species descriptions) sends me into shudders.Yet, my PhD work on nematode worms and continuing collaborations with ecologists and morphological experts have turned me into an outspoken advocate of taxonomists and their creed.As I continue to delve deeper into the world of genomics and computational biology, I've had an epiphany: my research program cannot survive without taxonomy.