Excuse me if I am always here. These things are interesting to me and I enjoy this discussion a lot.

The National Science Foundation is investing more than 10 million dollars in biodiversity issues. It is called the Partnership for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy. Each PEET project is 750.000 dollars, and they have over 20 of these. So the sum is higher. Their line of reasoning is simple:
- In order to study biodiversity we must know the species (I know it is not enough, but it is a necessary step).
- The people who know the species are taxonomists.
- Taxonomists are disappearing.
- We must train new taxonomists (of course not the "corpse in the vial identificators")
- The training of a taxonomist requires at least 5 years
- Then we have to enforce a policy that will give them jobs (money available for revisionary work and the like)

Here in Europe we speak about biodiversity a lot, and we invest lots of money in it. We also agree that the people who recognise and describe species (also identifying their roles, and phylogenies, you name it) are disappearing. But we do not invest a single cent to train more. And if a young researcher goes into taxonomy, s/he has to be prepared to face unemployment and frustration.

We need money and we need a policy. In Europe, both are missing. Paradoxically, we are the country with the longest tradition in taxonomy, and we are losing it. The Americans destroyed theirs and now they are desperately trying to build a new generation of taxonomists. We still have them (they send theirs to learn from us), but soon they will be gone. We are not taking advantage of a favourable situation.

I know that this is disturbing. Nobody dares say that taxonomy is useless, but once they have admitted it they want to go on without it anyway.

So, my answer to all these questions is: you cannot study biodiversity without a proper knowledge of taxonomy (and then we can discuss about what is taxonomy now, it is surely not only giving names to taxa). Are we enforcing a policy to revive taxonomy? The answer is no, we are not. Even Science and Nature have stressed these issues, but then the policy remains the same. You know why? Because taxonomists are not influential, and the people who sit in the steering committees (scientists!!!) do not like to see that research money might go in directions that are not theirs. Politicians are maybe ready to do something, but their advisors do not want such a policy. Things are made by people, and if things are going in a certain way the responsibility is of some people (the guys who are always at Bruxelles, know how to move in the corridors and know where the offices of the right functionnaries are).

I said this story already: I went to two big meetings to launch research on taxonomy and went away with lots of frustration. I do not want to invest my time in these enterprises anymore. I'd rather work at the Hydrozoan Fauna of the mediterranean while these guys build up their beautiful database that spread information and do not increase knowledge.

By the way, according to the NSF standards, with 10 million euros you can train about 30 taxonomists. For all Europe it is not much, it does not even cover all known phyla. And you know better than me that there can be a single specialist in the world for a single phylum, but there are phyla that require much more than one specialist. I've been saying these things for a very long time and I found support from the NSF, but not in Europe.

And now I promise (sort of) that I will keep my mouth shut for a reasonable time

Ferdinando

Ferdinando Boero
DiSTeBA (Dipartimento di Scienze e
Tecnologie Biologiche e Ambientali)
Universita' di Lecce
73100 Lecce
Italy