Is the demise of plant taxonomy in sight? Maybe yes, maybe no…

Baldini, Riccardo M.; Cota-Sánchez, J. Hugo; Aedo, Carlos

doi:10.36253/jopt-10802

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Furthermore, E-infrastructures require long-term funding policies because they are of public interest and the eFloraMEX will need continuous support (Canhos et al 2015). International pleas to consider taxonomy as a modern and active discipline have been expressed previously in many international forums (Ebach et al 2011, Grieneisen et al 2014, Baldini et al 2021, Engel et al 2021. The online Flora of Mexico should be seen as a project that foments broad participation, and generates understanding of its value and funding from national and international organizations.…”

Section: O N L I N E F I R S Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

The online Flora of Mexico: eFloraMEX

Sosa¹,

Alvarado-Cárdenas²,

Stefano³

et al. 2023

Bot. Sci.

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Background: Mexico is a megadiverse country with an elevated diversity of species of vascular plants. A comprehensive Flora that includes all of the vascular plants distributed in Mexico does not yet exist. Electronic Floras have demonstrated the value of a compendium based on existing knowledge and published Floras, checklists and revisions. Questions: What is the best approach for publishing the Flora of Mexico? What resources are needed to create this Flora? What is the current status of these resources? Objective: The objective of this paper is to summarize and evaluate the taxonomic and digital resources and the bioinformatic tools needed to develop an online Flora for the vascular plants of Mexico, as well as to discuss its content. Results and Conclusions: An online flora using the EDIT Platform for Cybertaxonomy is proposed, with the collaboration of Mexican and international researchers. It will be based on approximately 5.3 million specimens deposited in Mexican herbaria, with an inter-operational portal to other biodiversity platforms. The name assigned to this online flora is “eFloraMEX”. As a starting point, the taxonomic backbone, the checklist for the Mexican vascular plants including approximately 29,000 species, was published in a portal (efloramex.ib.unam.mx) to be revised and updated by specialists. A council of taxonomists and computer experts will lead the eFloraMEX project on two fronts: taxonomic and digital resources. The main challenges to completing this Flora are building the team, training taxonomists, digitizing the specimens for most of Mexican herbaria and obtaining the required long-term funding.

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Section: O N L I N E F I R S Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

The online Flora of Mexico: eFloraMEX

Sosa¹,

Alvarado-Cárdenas²,

Stefano³

et al. 2023

Bot. Sci.

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“…Increasing capacity for marine species discovery and taxonomy is required to meet the current deficit in our knowledge of ocean biodiversity (e.g. Ebach et al, 2011;Fontaine et al, 2012;Baldini et al, 2021;Engel et al, 2021). This is not just human capacity but also institutional capacity to process samples and to store, maintain and curate specimen collections, including, for example, cryogenic storage of tissues for genomic DNA extraction (e.g.…”

Section: Capacity Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is not just human capacity but also institutional capacity to process samples and to store, maintain and curate specimen collections, including, for example, cryogenic storage of tissues for genomic DNA extraction (e.g. Paknia et al, 2015;Baldini et al, 2021) and associated images. For example, there are limited efforts underway to develop DNA tissue banks regionally in the Bay of Bengal of the Northern Indian Ocean and the Ocean Census can help accelerate such initiatives over the long term.…”

Section: Capacity Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accelerating ocean species discovery and laying the foundations for the future of marine biodiversity research and monitoring

Rogers,

Appiah-Madson,

Ardron

et al. 2023

Front. Mar. Sci.

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Ocean Census is a new Large-Scale Strategic Science Mission aimed at accelerating the discovery and description of marine species. This mission addresses the knowledge gap of the diversity and distribution of marine life whereby of an estimated 1 million to 2 million species of marine life between 75% to 90% remain undescribed to date. Without improved knowledge of marine biodiversity, tackling the decline and eventual extinction of many marine species will not be possible. The marine biota has evolved over 4 billion years and includes many branches of the tree of life that do not exist on land or in freshwater. Understanding what is in the ocean and where it lives is fundamental science, which is required to understand how the ocean works, the direct and indirect benefits it provides to society and how human impacts can be reduced and managed to ensure marine ecosystems remain healthy. We describe a strategy to accelerate the rate of ocean species discovery by: 1) employing consistent standards for digitisation of species data to broaden access to biodiversity knowledge and enabling cybertaxonomy; 2) establishing new working practices and adopting advanced technologies to accelerate taxonomy; 3) building the capacity of stakeholders to undertake taxonomic and biodiversity research and capacity development, especially targeted at low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) so they can better assess and manage life in their waters and contribute to global biodiversity knowledge; and 4) increasing observational coverage on dedicated expeditions. Ocean Census, is conceived as a global open network of scientists anchored by Biodiversity Centres in developed countries and LMICs. Through a collaborative approach, including co-production of science with LMICs, and by working with funding partners, Ocean Census will focus and grow current efforts to discover ocean life globally, and permanently transform our ability to document, describe and safeguard marine species.

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“…We are not the first to recognize this phenomenon of botanical knowledge loss. Multiple papers have discussed the decline of botany as a science (Crisci et al, 2020 ; Drea, 2011 ), but often these papers have focused on the threats to biodiversity (Baldini et al, 2021 ; Prather et al, 2004 ) without a focus on the broader existential threats.…”

Section: The Known Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

The botanical education extinction and the fall of plant awareness

Stroud

Fennell

Mitchley

et al. 2022

Ecology and Evolution

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Civilization is dependent upon plants for survival. Plants permeate our every moment and our relationship with them will dictate how we will manage the threats of climate change and ecological collapse defining the Anthropocene. Yet, despite the significance of plants and the critical role they have played in shaping ecosystems, civilizations, and human cultures, many people are now disconnected from the botanical world. Students are presented with little plant content, particularly identification, compared with animal content. Consequently, we are producing few plant scientists and educating fewer scientists about plants. This drives a self‐accelerating cycle we term the extinction of botanical education . A process of knowledge erosion, that in this instance contributes to our separation from the natural world, makes us blind to the biodiversity crisis and inhibits our ability to restore it. We argue that neglecting the importance of plants within education threatens the foundations of industries and professions that rely on this knowledge. Furthermore, this extinction of botanical education creates an existential threat: Without the skills to fully comprehend the scale of and solutions to human‐induced global change, how do we as a society combat it? We present key research agendas that will enable us to reverse the extinction of botanical education and highlight the critical role plants play on the global stage.

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Is the demise of plant taxonomy in sight? Maybe yes, maybe no…

Abstract: Taxonomy -the scientific discipline that explores, discovers, interprets, represents, names, and organizes organic beings -is an integral component of biogeography, evolutionary biology, ecology, conservation and other biodiversity studies (Ebach et al. 2011: 550).

Cited by 6 publications

References 58 publications

The online Flora of Mexico: eFloraMEX

The online Flora of Mexico: eFloraMEX

Accelerating ocean species discovery and laying the foundations for the future of marine biodiversity research and monitoring

The botanical education extinction and the fall of plant awareness

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