Advancing Taxonomy in the Global South and completing the Grand Linnaean Enterprise

Abstract

We propose three most important measures for addressing the Linnaean shortfall in the Global South such as, a) completing the Grand Linnaean Enterprise; b) massification of taxonomy; and c) creating an enabling legal and regulatory milieu, which would be our best hold against the global biodiversity crisis.

What would it take to describe the global diversity of parasites?

“…A Global Parasite Project, and its governance principles, would need to focus on supporting collections work and strengthening infrastructure around the world, with explicit priority on equity and local leadership. Recent developments in international law are particularly relevant to this end [65]. The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity establishes a regime to ensure that access to genetic resources-which some countries may define to include parasites-is coupled with the equitable sharing of benefits from their use.…”

New and poorly known “araphid” diatom species (Bacillariophyta) from regions near Lake Titicaca, South America and a discussion on the continued use of morphological characters in “araphid” diatom taxonomy

“…A note on our morphologically based approach to "araphid" diatom taxonomy Biodiversity conservation is a crucial endeavor in the face of climate change, pollution and habitat loss (Prathapan and Rajan 2020). It is already recognized that to carry out this conservation process "a good and constantly updated taxonomical knowledge is fundamental" (Khuroo et al 2007).…”

“…These revisionary activities and the results we have achieved over the years for the small “araphid” diatoms provide concrete evidence that much more work is still needed to describe in morphological terms the diversity of these diatoms and that this process is completely justified given the current needs and the state of the art in diatom diversity studies ( Mann and Vanormelingen 2013 ). Meanwhile, molecular studies continue their parallel advancement, not without problems similar to those encountered by morphologists ( Bailet et al 2020 ), nevertheless augmenting the chance that in the near future we will be able to produce a more complete molecule-phenotype system that allows building a natural compendium of “araphid” diatom biodiversity, perhaps even meeting the goals of the Grand Linnean Enterprise ( Wheeler et al 2012 ; Prathapan and Rajan 2020 ). But, a compendium must also be translated into a classification system that reflects evolutionary history ( de Carvalho et al 2014b ), a systematic approach that is of outmost importance in sustainable conservation practices for populations and communities are not static groupings, but rather they have evolutionary trajectories in the context of their environment, which are important to consider for their preservation, conservation and recuperation ( Olivieri et al 2015 ).…”

Megataxa for big science questions in taxonomy

“…• Megataxa 1 (1) © 2020 Magnolia Press classification (Christenhusz 2020). Other important issues discussed include developing and maintaining taxonomic databases (Boxshall 2020;Coleman & Radulovici 2020;Prathapan & Rajan 2020), pluralism in taxonomy (Minelli 2020), the impact of extinction (Borkent 2020), species concepts and delimiting/naming species (Christenhusz 2020;Longino 2020), and the negative effects of Nagoya Protocol and permits (Britz et al 2020;Lücking 2020;Prathapan & Rajan 2020).…”