Memorandum by the Royal Botanic Garden
Edinburgh
BACKGROUND
As the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh has contributed
to a wider response submitted by The UK Biodiversity Research
Advisory Group and The Global Biodiversity Sub-Committee
of the UK GECC, this submission focuses on the Royal Botanic Garden
Edinburgh and its role.
THE STATE
OF SYSTEMATICS
AND TAXONOMY
RESEARCH
1. What is the state of systematics research
and taxonomy in the UK? What are the current research priorities?
What are the barriers, if any, to delivering these priorities?
1a. It is disappointing to report that the
state of systematics research and taxonomy has changed little
since the review of 2002, with a continued decline in university
sector and with expertise largely held now in the taxonomic institutes,
the Natural History Museum (NHM), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBGK),
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) and CABI, with a few individuals
in other institutes and museums.
1b. With respect to cryptogamic plants (ie
autotrophic organisms that do not produce seeds) and fungi, UK
systematics research and taxonomy are very patchy in coverage,
quality and achievements. Many individuals and small groups are
highly respected, both nationally and internationally. They make
valued contributions to the discovery, description and cataloguing
of cryptogam diversity, they examine the evolution and speciation
of cryptogams, to provide basic understanding of the origins and
maintenance of cryptogam biodiversity, and they provide identification
tools and services for fellow professionals and amateurs. Current
research priorities are more diverse than in flowering plants
and metazoa, partly because of the more primitive state of the
field. Aspects that have approached consensus in many macroscopic
organisms (such as the nature and circumscription of species)
remain controversial in most cryptogam groups and they therefore
remain the focus of research. But it has also been important for
the health of the subject to engage with advances in molecular
technology, for classification and identification. Outside the
principal taxonomic research institutes and in the universities,
taxonomic and systematic research on cryptogams is almost defunct;
the principal exceptions are a few species (eg among phytoplankton)
that have reached `model system' status because of current perceptions
of their ecological or economic importance.
1c. At RBGE staff numbers with expertise
in systematics and taxonomy have been maintained (but not expanded).
Following retirements, there has continued to be healthy recruitment
in the area of flowering plants systematics, but for cryptogamic
plants and fungi, recruitment and succession present a greater
challenge; across the UK there are very few individuals being
trained in these specialisms, and the cohort of expertise at RBGE
is approaching retirement age within the next five years. However,
it has been possible to make significant improvements with relatively
small investments, as demonstrated by the revival of lichenology
in Scotland. In 2002, RBGE employed one lichen taxonomist, and
there was a dearth of taxonomic expertise in Scotland and the
UK to deliver national conservation targets in lichenology. Succession
planning at RBGE through investment in one extra post has capitalised
on the opportunity for collaboration between the lichen taxonomist
and a lichen ecologist, invigorating research in lichen biodiversity,
conservation biology and climate impacts. More recently RBGE's
two lichenologists have won external funding for post doctoral
research and they supervise PhD and MSc studentships, further
extending the UK capacity in the discipline. Scottish Natural
Heritage (SNH) provided funds to the British Lichen Society to
support the training of lichen apprentices, led by the RBGE taxonomist.
The apprentice programme has provided a core of individuals capable
of making conservation assessments and delivering site condition
monitoring for lichens. Similar investment is needed at RBGE so
that a new generation of researchers in other specialisms in cryptogamic
plants and fungi can be trained in post by the current cohort
of experts.
1d. There continues to be no UK-wide strategic
plan for systematics and taxonomic research (but see response
to Question 3). This reflects the fact that the three major taxonomic
institutions (NHM, RBGE, RBGK) are funded through different areas
of government (DCMS, Defra and Scottish Government), and each
has its individual research priorities. The three institutions
have active dialogue, and maintain complementary areas of expertise
with a broad range of taxonomic capacity across the UK.
1e. The research priorities for RBGE as
summarised as
— Conserving biodiversity in the face
of global environmental change and mass extinction,
— Provision of baseline taxonomic/botanical
data as a foundation science,
— Understanding the evolutionary processes
that have given rise to the world's diversity.
A strategic theme in our new Corporate Plan
is to Increase Response to Global Environmental Challenges—to
contribute directly, and in partnership with others, to solutions
to the challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and plant
extinction. We aim to build on our track record in research, conservation,
education and public engagement so that the public are better
informed and become empowered to make changes towards more sustainable
ways of living. RBGE will position itself as a catalyst for change
through its scientific endeavours and education programmes.
2. What is the role of systematics and taxonomy
and, in particular, in what way do they contribute to research
areas such as biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services and
climate change? How important is this contribution and how is
it recognised in the funding process? How is systematics integrated
in other areas of research?
2a. Systematics and taxonomy provide fundamental
knowledge about the nature and origins of life on earth. In doing
so, they provide essential underpinning for almost all other biological
research and for communication about all aspects of biodiversity.
The value of biological data and analyses is fundamentally and
inevitably limited by the quality of the taxonomy that was applied
(implicitly or explicitly) during data acquisition, by how well
it was applied (were identifications correct?), and by how stable
the taxonomy in time and space.
2b. The primary importance of systematics
and taxonomy to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services
and climate change is recognised in the Convention of Biological
Diversity (CBD), with specific reference to the challenge of the
`taxonomic impediment'.
2c. The state of cryptogam taxonomy is highly
variable, but we can generalise that it limits dependent research
more strongly than does the taxonomy of angiosperms, vertebrates
and some invertebrates, especially those species that occur in
the UK. Many cryptogams and fungi perform important ecosystem
services (eg approx. 50 per cent of net global net photosynthesis,
as components of mycorrhiza in terrestrial plant communities),
while lichens and diatom microalgae are especially important as
ecological indicators (eg for pollution and climate change). These
contributions are increasingly well recognised but have not been
translated into support for taxonomy. Basic descriptive taxonomy
is lacking for many microalgae and related protists, and even
in better studied groups (eg diatoms, bryophytes) recent DNA `bar-code'
studies have shown that the basic taxonomy significantly underestimates
ecologically relevant species-level biodiversity. We have no doubt
that the quality and long-term value of research is being compromised
by the state of cryptogam taxonomy. Most of the funding for basic
research in cryptogam systematics and taxonomy in the UK is now
provided through the principal taxonomic research institutes (RBGK,
RBGE, NHM). In addition, some support comes indirectly as part
of ecological or palaeoecological studies (eg during NERC-funded
research on environmental change using diatoms). Such work is
largely unplanned and is done ad hoc, often by taxonomically
untrained researchers, eg to allow rational decisions to be made
about counting units. Very few taxonomy- or systematics-related
projects on cryptogams have been funded directly by the research
councils. Research funding is accessible through the Research
Councils and both NERC and BBSRC have prioritised support for
innovatory tools and subjects for biodiversity. Whilst supporting
outcomes from systematics and taxonomic research, this funding
in itself does not support the fundamental underlying taxonomic
work. Examples include a NERC Fellowship in diatom speciation
and bar-coding, and a BBSRC Bioinformatics project on automated
identification of microalgae. These are welcome, but give only
limited support to taxonomy per se; instead they depend on the
prior existence of taxonomic expertise and resources to support
and define the research programme. The lack of appropriate information
on biodiversity was highlighted in the development of the recent
MONARCH report (Walmsley, C.A. et al. 2007. MONARCH—Modelling
Natural Resource Responses to Climate Change—a synthesis
for biodiversity conservation. UKCIP, Oxford). The project set
out to study the impacts of climate change on 120 BAP (Biodiversity
Action Plan) species, but was able to report only on 32 species.
Consultation with taxonomic experts showed that for the majority
of species critical biological and autecological data had been
missed.
2d. In the review of eligibility to research
council funding in 2006, NHM, RBGK and RBGE became ineligible
for responsive mode funding from BBSRC. This put a halt on proposals
submitted or under development. On appeal, all three institutes
now have access to this funding stream; both NERC and BBSRC have
clarified their commitment to biodiversity research. This is greatly
welcomed.
2e. A challenge for taxonomists has been
to use their expertise to provide support to national and international
conservation strategies; this has been successful through partnerships
in the UK with the conservation agencies, for example, The Plant
Conservation Working Group (http://rbg-web2.rbge.org.uk/pcwg/),
or overseas through Darwin Initiative partnerships (see Wortley
A.H. & Wilkie, P. 2005. Thematic review of Darwin Initiative's
contribution to the Global Taxonomy Initiative, Defra, ECTF).
3. Does the way in which systematics research
is organised and co-ordinated best meet the needs of the user
community? What progress has been made in setting up a body to
lead on this? What contribution do the leading systematics research
institutions make both nationally and internationally?
3a. No body has been set up to lead on this,
but there is coordination, for example, within The Global Biodiversity
Sub-Committee of the UK GECC, where all three major taxonomic
institutions are represented, and several funders of biodiversity
research, including government departments and research councils.
The committee has recently reviewed the capacity in mycology in
the UK. There is also coordination at Director level and within
research groups between NHM, RBGK and RBGE for plants but there
remains a huge challenge for continued work in mycology and cryptogamic
plants. There are at least two issues here: (1) organisation and
co-ordination of systematics research, and (2) interactions between
an organised systematics community and the user community. With
respect to cryptogam systematics, for each major group of organisms—for
example, lichens, bryophytes, algae—valuable interactions
between users and the relevant fragment of the systematics community
are mediated by national societies, viz. British Phycological
Society, British Lichen Society, British Mycological Society,
British Bryological Society, and British Pteridological Society.
The contacts that these societies help to maintain, together with
personal friendships and collaborations, ensure that taxonomists
are usually well aware of the needs and frustrations of many current
and potential users. The challenge for the institutions is to
evaluate and assess the priorities, and provide resources for
the taxonomists to respond to the user-community.
3b. Links between systematics research institutes
and universities could be improved. Our experience is that it
is very easy for the systematics institutes to become isolated
from the university community, especially now that there are so
few systematists active in UK universities. We have found that
valuable links can be developed, but usually only in relation
to topical issues (eg shape and pattern recognition, genome evolution,
climate change) far removed from the basic taxonomy that still
needs to be done in many cryptogam groups.
3c. We have been impressed by the momentum
given to systematics in the USA by the Partnership for Enhancing
Expertise in Taxonomy (PEET) initiative, and by the Canadian Barcode
of Life (CBOL) programme.
3d. Nationally, the leading systematics
institutions play a central role in systematic and taxonomic research.
Internationally, although some individuals remain competitive
in quality, output and innovation, UK institutions' research capacity
and reputation has declined in recent years, relative to some
institutions in the US, Europe and Japan.
4. What level of funding would be needed to
meet the need for taxonomic information now and in the future?
Who should be providing this funding?
4a. There is a clear need for a large one-off
cash injection to deliver digitisation and data-basing (with geo-referencing)
of collections now, and for this to be completed in a short time
period. Otherwise this issue will rumble on for decades and divert
resources from writing taxonomic accounts. This funding can only
be provided through central government. Funding by US Foundations,
like the Mellon Foundation for digitisation of Africa plant type
specimens (www.aluka.org), demonstrates the great value of immediate
world wide web access to this type of information.
4b. Most of the cryptogam work that needs
to be done is fundamental research to underpin national research
and environmental protection. As such, it seems to us that central
government is primarily responsible for funding. Since most of
the research uses existing research tools and (although often
intellectually challenging) rarely introduces or tests novel concepts,
we anticipate that research council funds can play only a minor
role, unless council policies change significantly. Institutional
funding seems the most efficient conduit for funds to cryptogam
taxonomy, but there would need to be mechanisms developed for
coordination between the departments responsible for RBGK, RBGE
and NHM, and the institutes themselves, and with other institutes
with relevant activities, such as the National Museum of Scotland,
Culture Collection of Algae and Protozoa, CABI, Plymouth Marine
Laboratory, etc.
5. How does funding in other countries compare?
Could there be more international collaboration? If so, what form
should this collaboration take and how might it be achieved?
5a. `External' funding is far better in
the USA for systematics, with NSF having a specific systematics
panel, another panel for inventory work, and special programmes
for the Tree of Life and Planetary Biodiversity Inventories (modern
`team' monographs). There is a clear danger that UK and EU systematics
will start to lag even further behind the USA; a clear pattern
is developing of increasing numbers of UK researchers trying to
develop collaborations with US workers to tap into enlightened
programmes there (but the UK does not emerge with the major credit
as we cannot lead these grants). The USA has taken steps via the
PEET initiative to train new taxonomists though it is not yet
clear whether this will have any long-term effect (especially
given the recent upheavals at major institutions, eg at the Smithsonian
or the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia). Recently,
the Canadian government has invested heavily in the Barcode initiative,
which creates major opportunities for spin-off research as well
as temporary employment for molecular systematists. From
examining outputs at conferences and publications, we estimate
that funding is declining in most places, even in countries such
as in the former eastern bloc that were traditionally very strong
in `classical' taxonomy.
5b. Through SYNTHESYS, EDIT, Marie-Curie
etc., EU funding initiatives mainly support better communication
between countries, or support the development and management of
natural history collections, with some short term research access
for taxonomists to collections.
5c. There could undoubtedly be more international
collaboration. For example, the Barcode of Life project is intended
to be multinational. However, international collaborations can
only work if there is a national commitment of funds, either direct
to individual research groups to allow them to perform their part
of an international programme, or indirect, via an international
funding agency. For some cryptogams we have world-leading expertise
on DNA barcoding, but there is no obvious way to fund a continuing
leading role. International collaborations usually develop only
when local funding and resources are secure.
6. What impact have developments in DNA sequencing,
genomics and other new technologies had on systematics research?
In what way has systematics embraced new technologies and how
can these research areas interact successfully and efficiently?
6a. The impact has been huge, on every aspect
of our work. Systematics is excellent at embracing new technology,
but there is a lack of understanding that when a new technology
is taken on, an old one (specifically morphology) cannot be discarded.
So there are always resource implications. DNA sequencing, decreasing
in cost and increasing in speed offers massive promise to accelerate
species delimitation and identification, but this work will need
resourcing. DNA sequencing and genotyping are transforming our
understanding of relationships, evolution and population biology
in cryptogams. IT is transforming our ability to communicate taxonomic
information. The impact of improved knowledge derived from angiosperm
phylogeny has resulted in the re-organisation of the collections
in the herbarium at RBGE (see Haston, E. et al. 2007. "A
linear sequence of Angiosperm Phylogeny Group II families".
Taxon 56 (1): 7-12), and the re-labelling of living plants
throughout RBGE's four gardens.
6b. Overall, we do not think that embracing
new technologies and finding imaginative uses for them is a major
problem; nor is finding partners to investigate novel approaches,
eg in automated identification. However, better links with universities—especially
with non-biological departments—would be advantageous. For
RBGE, the obvious partner is usually the University of Edinburgh.
DATA COLLECTION,
MANAGEMENT, MAINTENANCE
AND DISSEMINATION
7. Does the way in which taxonomic data is
collected, managed and maintained best meet the needs of the user
community? What is the state of local and national recording schemes?
7a. Local and national recording schemes
are maintained largely through NGOs and national societies like
the Botanical Society of the British Isles, British Phycological
Society, British Lichen Society, British Mycological Society,
British Bryological Society, and British Pteridological Society.
Taxonomic specialists in the institutes support this activity
through verifications and enabling access to the herbarium collections;
the conservation agencies (eg SNH) have provided funding to transfer
paper records to electronic format, to make these available through
NBN, the National Biodiversity Network. For lichens, RBGE's taxonomist
provides verifications and maintains the UK checklist and red
data book.
8. What is the role of the major regional
museums and collections? How are taxonomic collections curated
and funded?
8a. Universities have in many cases been
disposing of their collections; for example, all the overseas
accessions of cryptogamic plants and fungi at Glasgow University
were recently transferred to RBGE—the flowering plants had
already been transferred some 20 years previously. The collections
of cryptogams in regional museums are often in a poor state. Cryptogam
literature and resources are widely scattered, curators cannot
keep abreast of taxonomic developments, and have little time to
check identifications; the focus of regional museums is often
on display and education. There is scope for rationalising the
distribution of cryptogam collections among UK institutions. At
present it is not cost-effective to use many collections, which
are therefore effectively redundant.
9. What progress has been made in developing
a web-based taxonomy? How do such initiatives fit in with meeting
demand for systematics and taxonomy information? How do UK-led
initiatives fit in with international initiatives and is there
sufficient collaboration?—GTI, GBIF
9a. Whilst the web is essential and central
to delivering taxonomic information, it is false to believe it
can accelerate the taxonomic enterprise greatly. However, with
the increasing use of databases in floristics and monographic
research, the products of research can more easily be designed
to meet the needs of target audiences, whether to provide access
to data through GBIF or produce on-line identification tools.
10. What needs to be done to ensure that web-based
taxonomy information is of high quality, reliable and user-friendly?
10a. The role of the taxonomist is primarily
to ensure the quality and reliability of the data, but engagement
with the user community is essential to ensure the design of the
output meets their needs.
11. How does the taxonomic community engage
with the non-taxonomic community? What role do field studies play?
11a. The taxonomic community is strongly
engaged with the non-taxonomic community, for example, through
its support for conservation action in partnership with conservation
agencies, NGOs, landowners and the public. There is close collaboration
with the national specialist societies, where field studies are
often an integral part of that collaboration. At RBGE the Gateway
development (due to open in 2009) will provide a new opportunity
for engagement with the public on biodiversity conservation, global
change and sustainability.
SKILLS BASE
12. What are the numbers and ages of trained
taxonomists working in UK universities and other organisations?
12a. No detailed review has taken place
since that by the UK Systematics Forum, The Web of Life: a
Strategy for Systematic Biology in the United Kingdom (http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/uksf/web_of_life/summary/index.htm).
This report provides figures on training and education and the
numbers have declined further since the late 1990s, when this
report was written.
13. What is the state of training and education
in systematics and taxonomy? Are there any gaps in capacity? Is
the number of taxonomists in post, and those that are being trained,
sufficient to meet current and future needs across all taxonomic
subject areas?
13a. With the retreat from systematics in
the Universities, training and education in whole organism biology
and systematics and taxonomy is increasingly falling onto the
taxonomic institutes, thus increasing the work load of the remaining
cohort. Perhaps of even more significance it the lack of training
in whole plant biology throughout the schools and undergraduate
curricula. The recent cut in funding to SAPS—Science and
Plants for Schools, by the Gatsby Foundation is regretted. This
has been a very successful initiative, providing support to teachers
and technicians in the delivery of plant biology from the primary
level, and secondary to undergraduate levels. The Gatsby summer
school for undergraduates will continue, but without further support
and lobbying to get plants integrated into the primary and secondary
curricula, there will be fewer students engaged with plant science
to even consider this as a university subject.
13b. The three UK MSc courses in biosystematics
and taxonomy all involve partnership between research institutes
and universities. The University of Edinburgh/RBGE MSc in Plant
(and fungal) biodiversity and taxonomy is supported through
six NERC studentships and regularly has c.16 participants from
the UK and overseas, and we supervise > 20 PhD students each
year. Across the UK too few are being trained in cryptogamic plants
and fungi, with the consequence that when employment opportunities
do arrive it is more likely that these will be taken up by people
trained overseas. This can have severe consequences for long term
stability in both collections management and research, as seen
in the case of lichenology at the NHM, where there have been three
lichen curators since 2000, all from overseas, and who have each
returned home after 2-3 years in post. Succession planning in
these disciplines is difficult, and there need to be sufficient
resources for a continuation of the approach described in lichenology
at RBGE (see Question 1). In the end training will be successful
only if there are jobs to apply for.
4 February 2008
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