Revisiting the Taxonomic Impediment

Carvalho, Marcelo R. de; Bockmann, Flávio Alicino; Amorim, Dalton S.; Vivo, Mário de; Toledo-Piza, Mônica; Menezes, Naércio A.; Figueiredo, J F C; McEachran, John D.

doi:10.1126/science.307.5708.353b

Cited by 80 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Países em desenvolvimento, entre eles o Brasil, foram criticados quanto à sua função no processo de catalogação da biodiversidade (Geeta et al, 2004), muito embora contestações a esta posição tenham sido realizadas (Carvalho et al, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

<![CDATA[Taxonomia zool�gica no Brasil: estado da arte, expectativas e sugest�es de a��es futuras]]>

Marques¹,

Lamas²

2006

Pap. Avulsos Zool. (S�o Paulo)

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Brazil is a megadiverse developing country and the knowledge on the current situation of Brazilian taxonomy is a necessary step to establish future policies to deal with biodiversity. Certainly, the most important issue for the understanding of biodiversity is the installing capacity of taxonomists. In fact, little is known concerning the number of taxonomists, scientific production, and the problems faced by taxonomists in each country. Once Brazilian biota is the richest of the world, it is undisputable that its knowledge is critical to understand world biodiversity patterns and to base conservation policies. We produced a technical report on Brazilian zoological taxonomy for the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology, which provided a more objective view upon the Brazilian biodiversity challenge. Brazil accounts for 6.67% of the total species described (ca. 100,000 out of 1.5 million), but we expect a significantly higher number of species to be described. Brazil has 542 taxonomists: 415 with permanent positions, publishing in all fields of zoology. Their average age is 45-50 years old, with the majority still expecting to be active for more than 15-20 years. PhD Theses in taxonomy decreased during the 1990s, reflecting the worlds lack of interest in the area. The majority of taxonomists are concentrated in South East (51.7%) and South (21.6%) Brazil, and extensive regions, including biomes like Pantanal, Cerrado (Savannah), Caatinga and the Amazonian Rainforest, count with continuously fewer experts. Taxa with the larger number of taxonomists are "fishes" (53), Crustacea (39), Diptera (28), and Mollusca (27) although no taxon is considered to have enough experts. Several groups are in a more critical situation. Poorly known ecosystems and biomes are deep waters, continental shelf, northern coastline, semi-arid Caatinga, Amazon rainforest, though no region is considered adequately known. 7,320 species were described (1978)(1979)(1980)(1981)(1982)(1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995) 430/year), a rhythm very slow for the present needs, especially because many wild habitats are disappearing. Brazilian researchers have important contributions to make for their taxonomical groups, intensively collaborating with foreign colleagues. However, basic taxonomic work is still to be done: only a few groups have catalogues or manuals, basic taxonomic revisions are restricted (especially lacking for marine groups), databasing is needed for many museum collections. Brazilian researchers published 1801 papers (from ISI-Web of Knowledge, January/2000-March/2005), but only three states (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais) were responsible for 70% of these. The largest and most representative zoological collections are concentrated in a few cities (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Belém, Manaus). There are 22 graduate programs of Zoology, 14 of them

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Section: Introductionunclassified

<![CDATA[Taxonomia zool�gica no Brasil: estado da arte, expectativas e sugest�es de a��es futuras]]>

Marques¹,

Lamas²

2006

Pap. Avulsos Zool. (S�o Paulo)

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“…A multiplying factor to the cost of species monitoring costs, in most projects, is the requirement for expert participation and coverage over a long period of time and across vast spatial ranges. Furthermore, there are often "gaps" in the documentation of taxonomic knowledge and a shortage of experts in taxonomy, these two factors being commonly referred to as the "taxonomic impediment" (Dar, Khuroo, Reddy, & Malik, 2012;De Carvalho et al, 2005;Giangrande, 2003;Hardisty et al, 2013). In the developed world, the taxonomic impediment is an important challenge in biodiversity management.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards Citizen–Expert Knowledge Exchange for Biodiversity Informatics: A Conceptual Architecture

Kiptoo¹,

Gerber²,

Merwe³

2016

Afr. j. inf. commun. (Online)

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This article proposes a conceptual architecture for citizen-expert knowledge exchange in biodiversity management. Expert services, such as taxonomic identification, are required in many biodiversity management activities, yet these services remain inaccessible to poor communities, such as small-scale farmers. The aim of this research was to combine ontology and crowdsourcing technologies to provide taxonomic services to such communities. The study used a design science research (DSR) approach to develop the conceptual architecture. The DSR approach generates knowledge through building and evaluation of novel artefacts. The research instantiated the architecture through the development of a platform for experts and farmers to share knowledge on fruit flies. The platform is intended to support rural fruit farmers in Kenya with control and management of fruit flies. Expert knowledge about fruit flies is captured in an ontology that is integrated into the platform. The non-expert citizen participation includes harnessing crowdsourcing technologies to assist with organism identification. An evaluation of the architecture was done through an experiment of fruit fly identification using the platform. The results showed that the crowds, supported by an ontology of expert knowledge, could identify most samples to species level and in some cases to sub-family level. The conceptual architecture may guide and enable creation of citizen-expert knowledge exchange applications, which may alleviate the taxonomic impediment, as well as allow poor citizens access to expert knowledge. Such a conceptual architecture may also enable the implementation of systems that allow non-experts to participate in sharing of knowledge, thus providing opportunity for the evolution of comprehensive biodiversity knowledge systems.

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“…At the same time, most of the species described are those from biodiversity rich places, typically the tropics. With few exceptions such as Brazil, Argentina or Mexico (Carvalho et al, 2005), most of them are described and published in the developed world, and the scientific credit goes to the respective scientists and institutions, and the corporate world and some scientific institutions are getting the profit from selling those descriptions. This is hardly in agreement with articles 16 and 17 on exchange of the legally binding Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, 1992).…”

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confidence: 99%

Convention on Biological Diversity

Höft¹,

Yifru²

2017

Encyclopedia of Life Sciences

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The Convention on Biological Diversity is the key global instrument on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits from the use of genetic resources. Through a globally agreed Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 and related global Aichi targets, the Convention promotes, among other things, the maintenance of healthy ecosystems, the protection of threatened species and the conservation of the genetic material that underpins populations of wild and domesticated species. Increasingly, nongovernmental organisations, civil society groups and indigenous and local communities work through the Convention to urge governments to live up to their commitments and to support them, for example, in the establishment and effective management of protected area networks. As population growth and economic pressures enlarge humanity's ecological footprint, it remains to be seen whether the Convention is an effective tool for conserving the beauty, diversity and inspiring nature of our living environment for future generations to enjoy. Key Concepts International Conventions and protocols. Conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. Fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources. Biodiversity targets. National biodiversity strategies and action plans.

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Revisiting the Taxonomic Impediment

Cited by 80 publications

References 9 publications

<![CDATA[<B>Taxonomia zool�gica no Brasil</B>: <B>estado da arte, expectativas e sugest�es de a��es futuras</B>]]>

<![CDATA[<B>Taxonomia zool�gica no Brasil</B>: <B>estado da arte, expectativas e sugest�es de a��es futuras</B>]]>

Towards Citizen–Expert Knowledge Exchange for Biodiversity Informatics: A Conceptual Architecture

Convention on Biological Diversity

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