Memorandum by the Royal Botanic Gardens,
Kew (RBGK)
SUMMARY:
Taxonomy on a scale commensurate with today's
needs should be a "megascience", but taxonomy and systematics
have continued to be funded as if they are a marginal activity,
instead of being viewed as central to meeting the crises of climate
change and past ecosystem abuse. The general situation in the
UK is one in which the rate of change (and there has been some)
is too slow relative to the scale of problems faced. Support for
technological advances (laboratory techniques/electronic resources)
in areas allied to taxonomy is improving, but there has been no
improvement in the numbers of taxonomists being trained. Some
critically important areas are still experiencing declines in
numbers of practicing taxonomists. In the case of mycology, the
situation is so grave as to be generally recognised as a crisis
(see separate submission on which RBGK had input: Response from
mycology sub-committee of UK-BRAG). Support for collections and
core taxonomic activity generally has not improved, and for RBG
Kew, grant-in-aid has decreased in real terms.
Demand for easily accessible, user-friendly
and tailored taxonomic information is greater than ever. There
are also growing expectations of the major taxonomic institutions
to respond to the challenges of global environmental change and
the commitments of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
UK taxonomists have risen to the new challenges
in many instances and can demonstrate significant success in securing
resources and responding to new opportunities and user needs.
However, the gap between expectations and available resources
continues to widen. Unless additional government support is forthcoming,
the UK risks losing an opportunity to capitalise on its world
class collections and expertise to make a significant science-based
contribution to addressing the global environmental crisis.
1.1. What is the state of systematics research
and taxonomy in the UK?
1.1.1. Some significant positive changes
have occurred in the period following the last review in 2001-02.
Grant-in-aid funding to major institutions was increased; funding
for the Darwin Initiative was increased to £7 million per
annum enabling support of many more projects in developing countries;
BBSRC agreed to recognise RBG Kew and RBGE as eligible for responsive
mode funding; significant steps have been taken towards piloting
a web-based taxonomy for the future, with support from the EU
and NERC among others; and digitisation of key research materials
for taxonomy has advanced rapidly with support from GBIF and private
US foundations.
1.1.2. However, many of these developments
have been short-term in effect, rather than medium-to long-term,
which is essential to put taxonomy and systematics on a more sustainable
footing. For example, the £3 million increase in grant-in-aid
to RBG Kew in 2003 brought us back to 1996 levels of funding in
real terms, but has since been eroded by inflation during successive
years of flat or declining grant-in-aid; EU support for web-taxonomy
through EDIT is primarily for networking and enhancing integration
rather than for actual web-based research; GBIF has picked off
the "low-hanging fruit" of biodiversity information
and now faces the challenge of scaling up to capture the great
bulk of data not yet converted to digital form; US funding has
enabled digitisation of type material of plants in UK collections
at a hitherto unprecedented scale, but current rates of funding
are unlikely to extend to digitisation of the non-type material
that forms the majority of our world-class collections.
1.2. What are the current research priorities?
1.2.1. In general, research priorities for
the field have not changed a great deal in the past five years;
they are still focused on describing the diversity of life on
Earth, how this diversity came to be and its current status, along
with addressing more applied aspects such as how the known organismal
diversity can be used more sustainably and conserved for future
generations. Most recently, major institutions (including RBGK)
have been re-focusing efforts on documenting the effects of climate
change on the distribution of biodiversity and predicting the
effect of future change. Restoration ecology is also being viewed
as an essential component of efforts to conserve plant diversity
through seed-banking and other activities.
1.3. What are the current barriers, if any,
to delivering these priorities?
1.3.1. Current barriers include poor perceptions
of taxonomy as a science, especially within the university sector,
a lack of trained practitioners in certain key groups and a severe
shortage of funding both for maintenance of collections upon which
the science depends and expanding of research based on them. These
factors are, of course, strongly inter-related, but will be treated
separately in the paragraphs that follow.
1.3.2. Names of organisms are hypotheses
that are subject to revision as new information is uncovered—taxonomy
is scientific. However in terms of the way research output is
measured within the UK university sector, taxonomy is simply not
viewed as real science because the journals in which taxonomic
treatments are published have no or low citation ratings. The
RAE criteria provide a strong disincentive for universities to
support taxonomic research and training. This in turn has an impact
on museums and herbaria that cannot produce new taxonomists/systematists
without the support of the universities, not least because most
museums and herbaria cannot award degrees. In addition, if we
wish to promote "e-taxonomy" (see 9 below), then publication
on-line must be considered significant output, which is not presently
the case.
1.3.3. Current levels of funding to the
major institutions are far below the levels required to meet their
statutory obligations in a comprehensive fashion, let alone address
new challenges posed by global environmental change, to which
these institutions have an important contribution to make. Although
substantial progress has been made in diversifying funding sources,
experience has shown that these additional sources complement
rather than replace the core-funding that government provides
through grant-in-aid.
1.3.4. For example, the £10 million
raised by the Kew Foundation in 2006/07 from individuals, companies
and charitable trusts and foundations was primarily for specific
time-bound projects, both operating and capital, that enhanced
Kew's ability to deliver its mission. Given the nature and interests
of the sources, securing such third party funding for ongoing
operating costs, such as collections maintenance, is simply not
possible at the scale that would be required to compensate for
the declining value of the grant-in-aid. Defra's grant-in-aid
to Kew now contributes about half of Kew's expenditure.
1.3.5. Furthermore, although there has been
significant success in securing new funding streams to help address
new challenges, the medium-to long-term outcome of these successes
often involves additional operating costs that cannot always be
recovered from the project funder. For example, Kew's major drive
towards collections digitisation has been largely funded from
charitable sources, but the growing digital collections represent
a further asset that Kew has a responsibility to maintain without
a guaranteed income stream to support this new activity.
1.3.6. In certain taxonomic fields, decline
of taxonomy as a whole is now being reflected in a lack of availability
of trained practitioners capable of delivering programmes addressing
current research priorities. For example, in recent years Kew
has advertised but failed to fill senior position in grass systematics
and mycology, because of a lack of suitably qualified and experienced
candidates.
1.3.7. Legislation restricting access to
biodiversity resources in general and genetic resources in particular,
presents a significant barrier to the transfer and exchange of
the scientific study materials on which taxonomic research is
based. Measures designed to prevent biopiracy have frequently
resulted in perverse outcomes, at worst deterring scientists from
engaging in research topics of great potential, and at best involving
significant additional overheads and time constraints to fieldwork
and material exchange.
2.1. 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.
2.1.1. Taxonomy and systematics contributes
fundamental, baseline information to other fields such as conservation,
ecosystem services and climate change; as a minimum, which species
were present and where.
2.1.2. The task of halting biodiversity
loss by 2010, as agreed by the EU, is impossible if we cannot
establish baseline data, and we may fail to achieve this target
simply because so few resources are available to support collection
of these data. Vascular plants and vertebrates fare relatively
well, but most other groups of organisms are poorly documented.
In fact, current knowledge is so poor that, even for the relatively
well known groups such as vascular plants, we will not be able
to say whether or not we have met the less ambitious target adopted
by the CBD, of reducing the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010.
Effective conservation analysis and action at a variety of scales
depends directly on the biodiversity information provided by taxonomists.
For example, the success of Kew's Millennium Seed Bank Project
in ex situ conservation of seeds of endangered, endemic
and economically important plant species depends on a major data
gathering and analysis operation in the Kew Herbarium, based on
collections data from sub-Saharan Africa.
2.1.3. An understanding of mycological diversity
and their fundamental role in ecosystem stability and productivity
is essential to development of any meaningful evaluation of ecosystem
servicing of human needs.
2.1.4. Taxonomic collections, publications
and databases contain a wealth of information relevant to enhanced
understanding of climate change. The next generation of climate
change models are anticipated to include a much more sophisticated
approach to vegetation, underpinned by data collected, organised
and maintained by taxonomists. Furthermore detailed analysis of
extant genetic variation incorporated into models of climate change,
is expected to increase our ability to model and predict the likely
impacts of future climate change.
2.2. How important is this contribution and
how is it recognised?
Names are tools to access and integrate the
wealth of biodiversity information that already exists, but without
national and international lists of accepted names and their synonyms,
we cannot make real progress in addressing all the other areas
that depend on baseline data. Baseline data are essential, and,
judged by the levels of funding available in the UK/EU, the importance
of the contribution by those collecting and synthesising such
fundamental data is not being recognised.
2.3. How is systematics integrated into other
areas of research?
We are encouraged that there seems to be an
increasing articulation of the need for baseline data, so that
they can be better integrated in other types of research, but
funding opportunities to support and develop it are still woefully
few. Increasingly we also envisage a need for multidisciplinary
practitioners, with a grounding in taxonomy, sufficient to ensure
that the strengths and limitations of the taxonomic data made
available and used within other areas of research are fully understood,
and that the data are interpreted and used appropriately.
3.3. What contribution do the leading systematics
research institutions make nationally and internationally to meet
the needs of the user community?
Demand for baseline data vastly outstrips supply,
and delivery is constrained by funding that is not rising at a
rate sufficient to meet demand. RBGK works in the UK and internationally,
to meet the needs of the vast user community by providing electronic
resources and physical access to collections, as resources permit.
Users are diverse in their focus, need and geographical location,
e. g. UK and EU customs officers implementing CITES, staff of
conservation NGOs in Africa developing management plans for actual
or potential protected areas, forest managers in SE Asia seeking
to apply best practice in accordance with Forest Stewardship principles,
and conservation officers in UK Overseas Territories tackling
invasive aliens. Skills and data are relied on by forensics officers
requiring identifications of fragmentary or degraded plant material
to solve crimes, and importers of herbal remedies employ authentication
protocols developed by RBGK to help protect the UK public from
the potentially fatal consequences of substituted plant material.
User needs could be met at a faster pace if more resources were
available, but increasingly they have to locate these from non-governmental
sources, a time-consuming activity in itself.
4.1. What level of funding would be needed
to meet the need for taxonomic information now and in the future?
Who should be providing this?
We estimate that to meet the need for baseline
information on vascular plants for biodiversity conservation,
ecosystem services and climate change RBGK would need an order
of magnitude increase in funding We believe that government should
provide a large portion of this, but we also intend to greatly
expand our efforts to raise these funds from non-governmental
organisations/general public.
5.1. How does funding in other countries compare?
5.1.1. For capital projects, there appears
little difference between many European nations and the UK in
the amount of funding targeted at building new facilities. However,
in the UK a significant proportion of this funding has been raised
from sources outside government, eg recent science buildings at
RBGK have relied on support from the Wolfson Trust and the Weston
Foundation as well as from Defra. Operational funding has been
significantly improved in France. A recent informal survey of
young European taxonomists, conducted within the framework of
an EDIT symposium, painted a bleak picture of taxonomy in Europe
with notable exceptions in Finland and Sweden where recent experiences
have led to a more positive view of prospects (http://www.e-taxonomy.eu/files/FUTURE%20TRENDS%20OF%20TAXONOMY.pdf).
5.1.2. In the US, the NSF has launched a
series of innovative schemes to address current issues in taxonomic
capacity. PEET (Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy)
supports competitively reviewed research projects that target
groups of poorly known organisms. The focus is on encouraging
the training of new generations of taxonomists, and translating
current expertise into electronic databases and other formats
with broad accessibility to the scientific community. Planetary
Biodiversity Inventories (PBI) awards fund teams of investigators
to conduct a worldwide, species-level systematic inventory of
a major group of organisms. RevSys seeks to revitalise revisionary
systematics, by supporting smaller projects aimed at synthesising
available and new species-level taxonomic information, in the
context of providing revisionary treatments and predictive classifications
for particular groups of organisms.
5.1.3. In Canada, the recent focus on DNA
barcoding has attracted significant government investment (ca.
Canadian $20,000,000), not only for building and populating new
databases but also to support collections and curation that enable
these new data to be generated rapidly and be properly documented.
5.1.4. Significant investment in taxonomic
infrastructure and capacity has occurred in China as evidenced
by the major investments at several botanic gardens, under the
auspices of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the rapid growth
of the Chinese Virtual Herbarium.
5.2. Could there be more international collaboration?
If so, what form this should take and how might it be achieved?
5.2.1. There is significant European collaboration
that has been enabled by Framework Programme 6; these projects
focus on improving collections management (curation) and facilitating
access to collections (SYNTHESYS), pooling resources of systematic
biologists (EDIT) and networking between seed-collecting facilities
(ENSCONET). Assessments of collection management for major museum
and herbarium collections have been made for 20 of the largest
collections in European nations (including the Natural History
Museum London [NHM] and RBGK). Initial results show that there
is a lack of resources for collections management and that training
is needed in several key areas for staff who manage collections.
In the UK, the large institutions (RBGK, NHM, National Museum
of Wales, RBG Edinburgh) continue to play a significant role in
aspects of British and overseas biodiversity, climate change and
sustainable use of resources.
5.2.2. Greater international collaboration
is always desirable to reduce duplication of effort, enhance synergies
and achieve critical mass with thinly spread resources. However,
most funding for such collaboration, at least at European level,
is focused on networking rather than research. Given the severe
constraints on funding from other sources, a level of frustration
is expressed by scientists who find funds for talking and
generating ideas relatively easy to access, whereas
funds for implementing and delivering projects are increasingly
problematic to secure.
6.1. What impacts 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?
6.1.1. New technological developments have
opened doors to many new and exciting areas that have both scientific
and societal importance, and systematists have generally embraced
these to the extent to which funding makes this possible (eg Kew
established its molecular phylogenetics unit in 1992, and is currently
playing a lead role in research aiming to develop DNA barcoding
of plants). We can see many applications of new technologies to
provide increased insights into processes that have produced the
biodiversity we observe today, but this enhanced understanding
of process makes it even more important to document what is present
before it disappears.
6.1.2. It must be recognised that such technological
advancements increase demand for corresponding baseline data,
generally without providing funding of the latter (but see under
5.1.3 for a notable exception to this generalisation). The systematics
community has demonstrated a willingness to embrace these new
technologies and has been reasonably successful in finding ways
to collaborate with university researchers and bioinformaticians.
These linkages should also be enhanced by CoSyst, a new "system
priming" programme developed by BBSRC, the Systematics Association
and the Linnean Society, with the goal of supporting preliminary
research that will be the foundation of responsive mode proposals
to BBSRC or NERC. The first set of CoSyst awards was made in February
2007 when total of £84,993 was allocated.
6.1.3. One of the major areas for which
funding has been sought from the UK research councils is DNA barcoding,
but they have thus far declined to see this as an important piece
of science infrastructure and have asked that it be cast in terms
of "blue-skies research". Although for some organisms
this is possible, for most it is not. The result of this position
is that other countries, such as Canada and China, fund barcoding
extensively while the UK falls behind, even with respect to use
of this technique on our own biodiversity.
7.1. Does the way in which taxonomic data
are collected, managed and maintained best meet the needs of the
user community?
7.1.1. The UK taxonomic needs assessment
(www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/biodiversity-museum/global"taxonomic-initiative/uk-taxonomic-needs-assessment/index.html)
identifies the following as important user needs; information
on the conservation status of species; habitat requirements of
animals/plants and lists of protected animals/plants; information
on local species distributions, field guides, lists of scientific
names of animals/plants, and distribution maps. This survey, which
focused on UK-based users of taxonomic information relating to
UK species, is broadly supported by other user needs assessments
in biodiversity-rich developing countries that have also identified
alien species and common names as important information. The taxonomic
data collected and managed through taxonomic projects can meet
these needs. However, more investment is needed to increase the
global impact of these data by making them more widely available
online.
7.1.2. For example, RBGK's collaborative
baseline inventory work with the National Herbarium in Cameroon,
has identified a major area of conservation importance and led
to the creation by the Government of a new National Park; Kupe-Muanenguba.
Botanical inventory work has led to the documentation of over
2,500 species, all assessed for their IUCN Red List status. This
area is now the most documented centre of plant diversity in tropical
Africa, all the more remarkable because it had never been suggested
as being of continental importance before this research. This
example demonstrates that taxonomic information held in UK institutes
is a globally important resource. Our current capacity to disseminate
and utilise this information to inform decisions on biodiversity
issues could be greatly increased by additional investment in
digitisation, web taxonomy and underlying taxonomic skills.
7.1.3. The UK is a world leader in the development
and maintenance of authoritative lists of scientific names for
living organisms. These resources are in great demand from variety
of endeavours in science, education, conservation and sustainable
use. For example, the International Plant Names Index (www.ipni.org),
in which RBGK is a partner, receives over 27,000 hits per day.
Building on IPNI, significant progress coordinated by RBGK has
been made on the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families
(www.kew.org/wcsp/), which links accepted plant names and
their associated synonyms with geographical information, allowing
searches for all the scientific names of a particular plant or
the areas of the world in which it grows. This represents a key
contribution towards delivery of Target 1 of the Global Strategy
for Plant Conservation, but a further investment of c. £3.3
million is required to ensure completion by 2010. Ultimately such
checklists will form a key part of the web-taxonomy (see under
9 below) and will be maintained and developed within that broader
infrastructure.
7.1.4. University of Reading, RBGK and NHM
are working together on the highly successful Species 2000
Catalogue of Life international project, and now are seeking
substantial resources from BBSRC to propel this project forward.
7.1.5. The UK holds a significant proportion
of the world's biological specimens (in excess of 100 million).
Each specimen provides evidence that a particular species existed
at a particular place and time. Collectively these resources provide
a unique record of changes in the distribution of organisms through
space and time. Digitisation of label data from these collections
enables powerful analyses that can offer insights into current
issues, e. g. rates of biodiversity loss and potential impacts
of climate change. However, less than 1 per cent of the UK's international
natural history specimen records are widely available in digital
form.
7.1.6. If resources allowed, more efficient
use of technology could better support field collections, integration
of taxonomic resources, preparation of identification tools, interfacing
with complementary non-taxonomic data and use of data in analysing
the effects of climate change on biodiversity, thereby greatly
increasing the use and impact of taxonomic data.
9.1. What progress has been made in developing
a web-based taxonomy?
9.1.1. Much attention has been devoted over
the past five years to web-based taxonomy, whereby the taxonomic
process in its entirety would be conducted within a web environment.
The move to a web-based taxonomy will require digitisation of
specimens and literature (addressed elsewhere in this submission)
but also significant investment in the development of software,
infrastructures and working practices.
9.1.2. Initiatives such as the EU-funded
EDIT (www.e-taxonomy.eu) and NERC-funded CATE projects
(www.cate-project.org/) are two linked projects that are exploring
mechanisms for building taxonomic communities via the web. They
are also devising IT platforms within which web taxonomy can be
conducted efficiently and delivered to the widest user community.
Both these initiatives are influential because they involve numerous
partner institutes that are working towards common requirements.
Demonstration portals have been mounted on to the web while the
long-term IT infrastructure is developed (e. g. www.palmweb.org/;
www.cate"araceae.org/). It is anticipated that the larger
taxonomic institutes will be expected to take responsibility for
many of the IT demands of web taxonomy. This expectation is appropriate
because the larger institutes are able to offer a degree of stability
for important datasets that universities generally are unable
to manage. Nevertheless, this represents a major additional commitment
that institutes will not be able to meet effectively without additional
resources.
9.1.3. Current web-taxonomy projects are
largely experimental and supported by short-term funding. If they
are to be used as the source of taxonomic data necessary to inform
decisions on major environmental concerns, then systems need to
be developed to a much larger scale. This will require greatly
increased IT resources within taxonomic institutes and taxonomic
input to identify, gather, verify and disseminate content. Web
taxonomy is dependent on both taxonomic expertise and collections
and will place further pressure on already limited resources.
9.1.4 There has also been a large increase
in the digitisation of taxonomic data, for example, the African
Plants Initiative, the Latin American Plants Initiative (www.aluka.org/page/content/plants.jsp)
and the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families. Nevertheless,
as indicated above, only a fraction of the vast specimen data
held in the UK has so far been digitised. Digitisation efforts
in UK institutes are falling behind those of other major institutes
in developed countries such as in the US, Australia and other
parts of Europe. Megadiverse countries have also appreciated the
value of digitising specimen data. For example, the Chinese
Virtual Herbarium contains digitised information from two
million specimens (www.cvh.org.cn/), and the Australian Virtual
Herbarium has digitised nearly six million (www.anbg.gov.au/avh/).
9.2. How do such initiatives fit in with meeting
demand for systematics and taxonomy information?
9.2.1. Experimental web taxonomy systems
currently being developed, focus on establishing collaborative
networks as a first step to maximising amount and quality of taxonomic
data available online. Much digitisation of taxonomic information
(which will eventually populate the web-taxonomy systems) is being
driven by funding from large overseas funding bodies interested
in mobilising scholarly resources (e. g. the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation, who funds the African Plants Initiative and
the Latin American Plants Initiative) or disseminating
data on particular plant groups (eg USA National Science Foundation
Solanaceae Source: www.nhm.ac.uk/solanaceaesource).
9.2.2. In addition to these important activities,
funding is needed to direct digitisation and taxonomic problem-solving
towards addressing particular environmental issues (e. g. IUCN
Sampled Red List Index (www.birdlife.org/action/science/indicators/pdfs/iucn_red_list.pdf).
This project, currently unfunded, could provide a method for monitoring
the rate of biodiversity loss (thus addressing the problem outlined
under 2.1.2 above, but for plants it requires data capture from
collections of a representative sample of that diversity). This
project would assist the UK in meeting commitments to the Global
Strategy for Plant Conservation and to indicators monitoring
the rate of loss of biodiversity, but it does not fit neatly into
current funding opportunities.
9.3. How do UK-led initiatives fit in with
international initiatives and is there sufficient collaboration?
9.3.1. UK-led collaborative projects such
as the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP)
and CATE work with international initiatives and individuals.
There is strong adherence to international protocols and standards
with several UK institutes supporting the Biodiversity Information
Standards (www.tdwg.org). There is good evidence of collaboration;
for example, the WCSP has involved collaboration of over
120 individuals from 20 countries. CATE liaises with the
EU funded EDIT project co-ordinated from Paris, in which
UK institutes lead work packages.
9.3.2. Several global aggregating projects
such as Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)
and Encyclopaedia of Life (EOL) rely on UK institutes for
taxonomic content. The UK is second only to the US in the volume
of digital records relating to biodiversity that is disseminated
through GBIF. RBGK and NMH are contributing to the Encyclopaedia
of Life through their participation in the Biodiversity Heritage
Library, and are also anticipated to be major contributors of
species pages. However, these aggregators provide minimal funding
for provision and maintenance of data. For example, GBIF seed
money grants will only cover 20 per cent of total project costs
and are limited to around US$50,000.
10.1. What needs to be done to ensure that
web-based taxonomy information is of high quality, reliable and
user-friendly?
10.1.1. The shift to web taxonomy and necessary
maintenance and enhancement of content and systems are not simply
about keeping machines running, but about massive changes requiring
significant investment and provision of entirely new services.
These will involve effective engagement of the widest possible
global taxonomic community in building and maintaining these resources;
wide engagement with non-professional taxonomists provides valuable
additional information and effective quality control of website
content.
10.1.2. To make all this happen, we need
to build effective and long-term systems supported by the major
taxonomic institutes. This demands a move from short-term and
limited funding to a new model of significant and ongoing investment
in this infrastructure. There will be a need to provide university
and other taxonomists with incentives and career development that
supports provision of web taxonomic services as opposed to publication-based
outputs in journals with high citation indices. To maximise benefits
of web taxonomy there is a need to; increase digitisation of specimen
and literature records; increase integration of the web taxonomic
products with complementary information and services; provide
modern interfaces to allow exploitation of the web taxonomy products
by those who could make use of them; and engage user communities
in participating and feeding back on web taxonomy. The taxonomic
community is willing to rise to these challenges, and web taxonomy
will provide huge benefits to society. However, it should be emphasised
that this new approach will require significant additional investment.
10.1.3. Digitisation and web taxonomy are
just two of a number of major new areas of activity that UK institutes
have undertaken over the past two decades, in response to government
initiatives and commitments but without any corresponding increase
in grant-in-aid in real terms. Others include access and benefit-sharing
negotiations and greatly increased international capacity-building
programmes. Both of these areas of activity are driven by considerations
of CBD compliance. RBGK is committed to honour both the letter
and the spirit of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and
provides significant support to Defra's International Biodiversity
staff on these issues. However, as with collections maintenance,
opportunities to support these activities from sources other than
government funding are strictly limited and near-negligible in
comparison to the demand in these areas.
13.1. What is the state of training and education
in systematics and taxonomy?
13.1.1. It was noted in the previous House
of Lords report on this issue that "most UK higher institutes
do not teach systematics and taxonomy". From RBGK's perspective
this situation has not changed, and the numbers of biology undergraduates
who receive anything beyond a basic grounding in taxonomy continues
to be worryingly low.
13.1.2. Taxonomic training at postgraduate
level is also limited to a few universities in the UK, including
Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Imperial College, Oxford, Reading and St
Andrews. Edinburgh, Imperial and Reading continue to offer MSc
courses in taxonomy, all of them run in conjunction with the major
taxonomic institutes; for example, the Reading course is partly
taught by RBGK and NHM staff. These courses are usually fully
subscribed, although there is concern that, in the longer term,
the lack of taxonomic teaching at undergraduate level may discourage
students from pursuing the discipline further. RBGK continues
to rely on these universities as sources of personnel; for example,
over 50 per cent of the taxonomists currently employed in the
Herbarium of RBGK have been educated to MSc or Ph.D. level at
Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Oxford, Reading and St Andrews. We increasingly
find recruitment difficult (job searches in grass taxonomy and
mycology have not been successful), and we hire more and more
frequently from overseas.
13.1.3. As well as their role in supporting
MSc courses, major taxonomic institutes are increasingly being
relied upon to play a more general role in training and educating
taxonomists. RBGK has responded with its own increased training
provision, ranging from short courses (eg International Diploma
in Herbarium Techniques) to Ph.D. co-supervision both in the UK
and internationally. Recently RBGK has prioritised its "learning
agenda" with the development of core strategies for education
at all levels and the appointment of a Director of Content and
Learning. Given the necessary resources, RBGK and other taxonomic
institutes could (and indeed may have to) take a leading role
in future taxonomic training.
13.2. Are there any gaps in capacity?
13.2.1. Education and training in "classical"
taxonomy continues to be given low priority by educational and
funding institutes. With a continuing and urgent need for baseline
plant diversity studies in regions of the world where the threats
to biodiversity are greatest, it is essential that capacity to
undertake such research does not diminish. There is a core requirement
for "classical" taxonomists who have the skills to undertake
general identification and floristic work for particular regions
and/or families, as well as for those who specialise in particular
families and can undertake detailed monographic/floristic work
to species level. RBGK has taken steps to develop the former,
"generalist" skills in-house as staff with the required
expertise cannot easily be recruited. There is also a need for
multidisciplinary scientists with a strong grounding in taxonomy
who can make best use of the increasing availability of large
datasets in digital form and facilitate their use elsewhere in
the scientific community.
13.2.2. There is concern that taxonomic
expertise in some groups is generally diminishing. At RBGK the
last taxonomist to work on gymnosperms retired in 2006, and our
last fern specialist retired in December 2007. Gaps in expertise
thus open up that reduce our capacity to effectively respond to
taxonomic needs, especially for conservation-focused inventory.
In some cases this loss is mitigated by the availability of expertise
in sister institutions e. g. ferns at NHM, gymnosperms at RBGE.
13.2.3. In the case of mycology, the loss
of posts and expertise has been so persistent and widespread throughout
the UK that the discipline is now generally judged to be in crisis.
RBGK has recently renewed its commitment to maintain taxonomic
capacity in mycology by accepting a large collection (400,000
specimens) and several mycologists from CABI. This level of additional
commitment cannot easily be absorbed given the declining value
of grant-in-aid in real terms. However, the alternative, of allowing
mycology in the UK to enter terminal decline, was deemed short-sighted
and scientifically indefensible. A special request has been made
to Defra and other government agencies to support this merger.
13.3. 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?
13.3.1. Institutes such as RBGK do not have
sufficient numbers of taxonomists to cover all areas for which
expertise is being requested. Funding limitations mean that taxonomic
research foci have to be prioritised; e. g. the RBGK specialises
in certain plant families (eg palms, orchids, labiates) or floras
of particular regions of the world (eg Brazil, West Africa or
Southeast Asia). When a taxonomist leaves post or retires, the
capacity for working in a particular group or region is reduced
unless s/he is replaced, preferably a few years before retirement
to ensure transfer of expertise. Whether or not a replacement
taxonomist is appointed depends on whether the institute sees
a continuing need for that area of expertise and on funding.
13.3.2. Many institutes, including RBGK,
rely on honorary researchers to help maintain their taxonomic
output. These are often retired members of staff, retirees from
other institutes and well-qualified amateurs. Although these researchers
can play a vital role, there is no absolute guarantee of taxomomic
output from them over a given period of time.
13.3.3. Taxonomy is a discipline in which
expertise develops over the career-lifetime of a taxonomist. For
it to be undertaken successfully, it is best to have a stable
long-term career structure. Funding priorities increasingly mean
that taxonomists have to be employed on short duration fixed-term
appointments that do not allow expertise to develop fully. Thus
long-term career structures need to be implemented if we are to
gain and retain expertise.
13.3.4. The numbers of taxonomists currently
being trained in the UK is about adequate for the number of positions
currently available, at least in plant taxonomy. However, due
to funding constraints demands for taxonomic information at present
exceeds the numbers of practising taxonomists available to provide
this information. These demands are likely to increase with the
need for more baseline plant diversity studies, together with
the development of web taxonomy highlighted in Questions 9-10.
If future funding is able to match these increasing demands and
a larger number of positions become available, a shortage of trained
taxonomists will occur unless training capacity is also increased.
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