Memorandum submitted by the Centre for
Plant Diversity and Systematics at the University of Reading
Questions 13 and 14: The Skills Base
We answer Questions 13 and 14 first, as these
apply directly to the training role of the Centre for Plant Diversity
& Systematics at the University of Reading. We follow this
with our evidence under questions 1—12.
Question 13: The State of Training
The Centre for Plant Diversity and Systematics
in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Reading
provides a "full service" university training and research
centre, focused on plant taxonomy and systematics. We pride ourselves
on training students who "know their plants" and become
proficient in nomenclature, taxonomic description and field and
herbarium collections practice, alongside the modern developments
in molecular systematics and biodiversity informatics. The Centre
includes the Reading Herbarium and the Species 2000 Catalogue
of Life programme secretariat, as well as use of the adjacent
Botanic Garden (Harris Garden) and the School of Biological Sciences
glasshouses and experimental grounds.
Training is carried out through i) a successful
and well-established Plant Diversity MSc course with its Taxonomy
Stream, ii) an extensive PhD Programme and iii) a Molecular Systematics
Short Course. At Reading there continues to be a strong taxonomic
and systematics thread within the BSc courses in Botany, Zoology
and Biological Sciences. There is a close institutional link with
RBG Kew and NHM, as well as an informal relationships with the
Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), Carter Ecological Consultancy,
the Eden Project, and Cardiff University (Computer Science). Some
staff from these organisations contribute to the MSc and Short
Courses and to PhD supervision. The RHS and Carter Ecological
provide sponsorship for one bursary and one part-lectureship.
Our alumni make a significant contribution to the workforce now
employed at the national institutions and in UK ecological consultancies
(as well as in recent times training the directors of RBG Kew,
RBG Edinburgh and of Botany at the RHS). Alumni also occupy prominent
positions in herbaria and botanic gardens around the world. Flagship
research programmes have included Flora Europaea (1959—1993),
Flowering Plants of the World (1975—1978, 2005—2007),
the UNEP Global Biodiversity Assessment (1993—1995)
and Species 2000 Catalogue of Life (1997—current).
NHM, RBG Kew, CABI and Cardiff University (Computer Science) are
major partners in the Species 2000 Catalogue of Life programme.
However, over the last 10 years there has been a reduction in
taxonomic scope—we no longer employ a full-time taxonomic
mycologist or bryologist, both areas in which we were highly reputed.
Only a few years ago there would have been nothing
exceptional about the existence and scale of this university centre.
In the current climate, however, we should be clear that this
Reading University Centre is itself highly unusual in the UK and
a rarity to be cherished. However it also appears that if it were
not for the major international success of the Species 2000 Catalogue
of Life programme it could be difficult for it to continue to
flourish and meet its goals. It is fortunate that there has been
research income of several million pounds in biodiversity informatics,
Species 2000 Catalogue of Life and other high-profile areas alongside
taxonomy. It is against this background that the evidence given
below focuses on two issues:
(i)
public interest in a range of biodiversity issues
is such that it now expects and needs quality taxonomic coverage
(albeit at various levels), not only for all known UK biota, but
also for all known global biota. How will this be delivered by
the UK and the international workforce?
(ii)
for such a target to be met, even accepting a two-speed
taxonomy with not all taxa fully described, there is a need to
expand the workforce and to discipline production-scale taxonomic
coverage, with monographic and floristic treatments and the related
enhancement of taxon databases. How can national planning and
resourcing ensure that university centres, such as that at Reading,
both continue and expand so as to be able to train this enlarged
workforce?
Question 14: The Numbers and Ages of Trained
Taxonomists.
The number and ages of taxonomists currently
working at the Reading University Centre is as follows:
| * Taxonomists |
+ Emeritus
Taxonomists | ~Associated
Systematists
| |
| Age class | |
| | Total |
25—35 | 2
| - | 0 | 2 |
| 35—45 | 3 | -
| 4 | 7 |
| 45—55 | 1 | -
| 5 | 6 |
| 55—65 | 2 | -
| 2 | 4 |
| 65 | - | 5
| - | 5 |
| | |
| |
| Total | 8
(5 permanent
posts)
| 5 | 11
(8 permanent posts)
| 24 |
| |
| | |
* Taxonomists: Taxonomists, qualified, employed full time
at the Centre for Plant Diversity & Systematics (CPDS) within
the School of Biological Sciences at University of Reading (includes
Herbarium, and Species 2000 Secretariat).
+ Emeritus Taxonomists: Taxonomists, qualified, presently
active in research and teaching, employed part-time at CPDS Reading.
~ Associated Systematists: qualified, employed full time
in the wider School of Biological Sciences (in germplasm diversity,
phylogenies, plant identification, biodiversity informatics).
* + ~ : these figures exclude all students (MSc & PhD),
technicians, clerical, and other support staff.
COMBINED RESPONSE
TO QUESTIONS
1 AND 2: THE
STATE AND
ROLE OF
SYSTEMATICS AND
TAXONOMY.
Systematics and taxonomic research is certainly alive and
active in the UK—but in the extremely limited sense that
a number of innovative research programmes, largely justified
as novel techniques, are successfully funded, and in many cases
are at the forefront of international research. The BBSRC BiodiversityWorld
e-Science national pilot project, was one of the largest grants
to a university taxonomic/biodiversity informatics group in recent
times. What is not happening is the application of these taxonomic
research techniques on a sufficiently wide scale to achieve the
taxonomic research coverage needed in the modern world.
Appreciation of the direct practical role of taxonomy has
seen a sea-change since the last review. The globalisation of
biodiversity and climate change studies, the clear needs for monitoring,
regulation, and modelling at multiple scales for all biota, and
the practical indexing of biodiversity knowledge of all kinds
on the internet have combined to put core taxonomy—names,
classifications, checklists, monographs, and collections with
the associated informatics products—at centre stage. They
are now seen as the core underpinning scientific infrastructure
on which much of biodiversity science and applied biodiversity
management is based—indeed now ripe for expansion not reduction.
In addition to the evident needs to complete coverage of the UK
biota, a significant number of the major pillars of the world
taxonomic infrastructure are developed or hosted in the UK—the
Species 2000 Catalogue of Life, nearly all the major Nomenclators
(Zoological Record, International Plant Names Index, Index of
Fungi, ZooBank) as well as three of the globally significant collections
and taxonomic production centres, NHM, RBG Kew and RBG Edinburgh.
What is missing is a funded agency responsible for co-ordinating
and funding the UK contribution to taxonomic coverage—research
in the sense of exploring, completing and updating the taxonomic
territory, but separate from research into novel techniques. Because
of the needs for monitoring, regulation and modelling, we do now
need "functionally complete" coverage of the UK biota,
and, in partnership with other top taxonomic countries, we do
need functionally complete coverage of the world biota. The fact
that the UK contributes a major component to the world taxonomic
infrastructure, may once have been thought of merely as a legacy
and responsibility arising from the collections and our colonial
past. But in the modern world it becomes an opportunity for the
UK to develop its place in international biodiversity science,
associated with our UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
responsibilities, and international-scale concern for the environment
and consequences of climate change.
Question 3a: Organisation and Co-ordination
No—systematics research in the UK is neither organised
nor co-ordinated, and as a result the products do not in many
cases meet the needs of the user community. There are large gaps
in taxonomic coverage and occasionally even duplications in the
taxonomic sectors covered. The body set up after the 1991-92 review
was ineffective and has ceased to operate.
For instance the taxon focus of taxonomic PhD's at University
of Reading is largely haphazard in that it follows the individual
interests of the staff members and candidates, albeit after some
consultation about gaps with colleagues at other institutions.
There is no national or international plan or gap analysis into
which such studies could be inserted.
There is of course some informal cooperation that helps achieve
a spread of projects, but this should not be mistaken for effective
co-ordination.
Question 4: The Level of Funding Needed.
Our view is that in addition to current funding through the
research councils (NERC & BBSRC), and core funding to NHM,
RBG Kew and RBG Edinburgh, there should be a new separate stream
for research leading to taxonomic coverage and taxonomic currency—to
provide fresh taxonomic monographs to fill gaps, and to enhance
currency of maintained taxon databases. Planning, co-ordination
and funding should be organised by a new body, such as a National
Taxonomic Board with terms of reference explicitly related to
UK and global taxonomic need, and funded staff assessed on this
basis alone. It is natural for the national institutions to play
a major role, but it is also essential that access to the fund
is open to other key organisations in systematics, such as the
university taxonomic centres, CABI, the Species 2000 Catalogue
of Life organisation etc.
As examples:
(i)
Each of the University centres should have support for one full
time monographer, and the associated collection support. This
is needed so that all student trainees (MSc and PhD) may have
first hand experience of monographic work as well as phylogenetic,
molecular and informatics skills. Such monographers should be
assessed by appropriate criteria that recognise the special nature
of this kind of work and not those of the Research Assessment
Exercise (RAE).
(ii)
Each of the University centres should have baseline support for
its working collections. Survival of these collections is tenuous;
they are essential for taxonomic training and for research, but
their funding is difficult to justify by current student cost/RAE-bound
criteria. The Reading Herbarium is both a teaching collection
and an international research resource for Mediterranean plant
taxonomy, but the EC supported Euro+Med PlantBase, for example,
that used the herbarium extensively, and occasional Darwin grants
make little impact on the true cost of staff and operation. One
curator and collections support should be provided by the National
Fund. Such curators should be assessed by appropriate criteria
and not those of the RAE.
(iii)
After careful evaluation each of the Global Species Databases
based in the UK and contributing to the Species 2000 Catalogue
of Life used by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)
and the Encyclopedia of Life (EoL), should receive small but continuous
support for maintaining and enhancing taxonomic currency. As examples,
the Monocots part of the Kew Global Checklists needs to be properly
maintained at Kew, the Tineidae and other Lepidoptera databases
(and CATE and EDIT) databases at NHM, and the International Legume
Database & Information Service (ILDIS) (Leguminosae) database
maintained at Reading—all need to be continuously enhanced
for the Catalogue of Life to meet the public demands now being
put on it. Staff involved with the databases should be assessed
by appropriate criteria.
(iv)
It is strategically important for the UK role in global biodiversity
actions that the Species 2000 Catalogue of Life receives sufficient
support to develop its full role. Achieving one million species
was celebrated in 2007—but "going the extra mile"
to complete the 1.75—2 million known species by 2012 requires
both direct research and running cost funding, but also adequate
support for the supplier databases mentioned in iii). Staff should
be assessed by appropriate criteria.
Question 6: Impact of New Technologies.
One of the advantages of embedding taxonomic training centres
in the universities, rather than the national taxonomic institutes,
is the breadth of cross-fertilisation possible with a wide array
of related disciplines. So on the issue of DNA and other technologies—yes,
not only does DNA sequencing enable work on phylogenies, gene
pools and barcoding but, at Reading we are using these technologies
to link with a wide array of exciting topics. We work with Mexican
biodiversity and regulation authorities to establish means of
identifying legally and illegally exported populations of rate
cacti. The systematics group work with the crop germplasm projects
of the horticulture group, both to provide molecular and genetic
characteristics of cultures (The Reading International Cocoa Quarantine
Centre, and shortly the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale),
in a major Plant Genetic Resources Forum and Global Environment
Facility initiative in Crop Wild Relatives, and in the first steps
at integrating crop databases into the Catalogue of Life. There
is work with the Council of Europe on invasive species, and work
on utilising online taxonomic catalogues in the modelling of species
distributions (BBSRC BiodiversityWorld Project, projects in the
University of Reading Walker Institute etc), and joint projects
with Systems Engineering and the Informatics Research Centres
within the University.
Question 8: The Role of Regional Collections
The University of Reading Herbarium is an actively expanding
teaching and research herbarium—"regional" only
in the sense that it is not national, and actually widely consulted
internationally for its Mediterranean "regional" coverage.
It supports training in herbarium practice for the MSc and PhD
students, provides a base for the loans from elsewhere by PhD
projects, and provides an active research base for some contributors
to Flora-writing projects—particularly Flora Iberia,
Flora Pratique du Maroc, and others in Italy and Lebanon.
Links with Moroccan and Spanish institutions has been strong,
and supported by Darwin Initiative and EC Regional Projects.
It is curated by a senior curator, and a qualified junior
curator, financed by the School of Biological Sciences as part
of the MSc teaching programme, and as a component of The University
of Reading Collections Network. The curators take an active part
in field expeditions and tutor students in collecting practice.
The two of them are acknowledged as international class plantsmen
who provide the core of the Reading "know your plants"
training. However, accreditation and support by the Museums and
Galleries Commission, so helpful to small zoological museums,
appears not to be available to teaching / research herbaria. Despite
the success and vigour of this programme at Reading, it is nonetheless
vulnerable to the financial targets of a normal university school.
Like many of the small-to-medium sized herbaria, the Reading
Herbarium has some difficulty in maintaining its dissemination
programme that makes information freely available on the internet,
and actively promotes data-sharing, particularly with partner
institutions in Morocco. However the public provision of such
information has now become a national commitment, made both to
the CBD (Decision VIII/11, para 3), but also to GBIF. This service
needs in future to be tied to the support for collections at the
university centres, both to provide a national infrastructure
for this activity, and to enable the appropriate training of students.
Question 10: Quality and Reliability of Web-based Taxonomy
There are three key components to the quality and reliability
of web-based taxonomy. i) All assertions should be backed by a
documented source—a specimen, document or publication. ii)
Peer review is used to maintain quality and to oversee choices.
iii) Exposure to open public usage, commentary and feedback ensures
that there is constant pressure to enhance what is there. At Reading
we see this user pressure assisting the herbarium catalogue, the
ILDIS LegumeWeb database and the Species 2000 Catalogue of Life.
Data from the Reading herbarium is visible on the GBIF public
portal, from ILDIS LegumeWeb is on the Catalogue of Life public
services, and the Species 2000 Catalogue of Life appears as the
principal taxonomic backbone on the GBIF, EoL and many national
and regional biodiversity portals around the world.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Recommendation 1): Establish a UK National Taxonomy Board.
A UK National Taxonomy Board should be a body established
to secure the following tasks:
(a)
to monitor taxonomic coverage of the UK biota, to work with other
nations to monitor the state of taxonomic coverage of the global
biota, and to report to the public what progress has been made
in each five year period.
(b)
to prioritise new monographic, floristic and faunistic research
in the UK, and to administer funds for the support of new treatments
according to the priorities that it has set.
(c)
to prioritise the taxonomic enhancement of taxon databases and
public taxon data systems in the UK, and to administer funds for
the support of these databases and public data systems according
to the priorities that it has set.
(d)
to work with the national taxonomic institutions and the universities
to prioritise and establish a network of recognised UK university
taxonomic centres, and to review the training and progress that
has been made in each five year period.
(e)
to work with the universities and national institutions to prioritise
the needs for monographic research and collections practice at
each of the recognised university taxonomy centres as part of
the training process, and to administer funds for the support
of monographic, floristic and faunistic specialists and research
collections in each of the recognised university centres according
to the priorities that it has set.
It is important that this body should be independent of the
national taxonomic institutions and university centres, but should
work closely and positively with them to stimulate and enlarge
their activity in this area activity.
Recommendation 2): Provide Part Support for the University
Taxonomic Training Centres.
(a)
Fund wholly one monographic research taxonomist within each of
the recognised university taxonomy centres.
(b)
Fund in part one research collections curator within each of the
recognised university taxonomy centres.
(c)
Fund in part the operating costs of a small research collection
sufficient for teaching and research as part of a negotiated agreement
with each university to make long-term infrastructure provision
for the collection to continue.
Recommendation 3): Public Recognition of a small set of
National University Taxonomy Centres.
There is a need to explicitly recognise the national taxonomy
centres at a small set of universities, for two reasons. The first
is to identify them as national training centres to potential
students and sponsors. The second is to assist internally with
negotiating the special provisions needed for such a centre to
be supported within a university. The process of making this assignation
and periodically reviewing performance could be placed in the
hands of a new UK Taxonomy Board, one of the national learned
societies (The Systematics Association or the Linnean Society
of London) or Defra or HEFCE.
NB. The NERC Taxonomy Initiative designated and established
three such centres (at Imperial College, Glasgow and Reading).
However supporting and co-ordinating mechanisms were not developed
at the time, and the funding emphasis on molecular research was
seen by some commentators to detract from the true purpose of
the initiative. That initiative came to an abrupt end, and the
fact that it was not further supported by NERC made it difficult
to encourage continued "matching" support from within
the universities.
Recommendation 4): Establishing a new National Fund.
New funds in the order of £3-6 million p.a. are needed
for UK taxonomists to make real headway with taxonomic provision.
Funds should be made available by HM Government through Defra
or DIUS. A variety of mechanisms could be examined for establishing
the monitoring and prioritisation of taxonomic coverage, for funding
extensive monographic taxonomic work and enhancing relevant databases,
and for providing the necessary support for training in the universities.
Our recommendation 1) above is just one of several ways in which
this could be enacted.
4 February 2008
| 
