Selling names; biodiversity; systematics; etc.

[Don McAllister]

"B. J. Tindall" wrote:
The point about "selling names" made by Laurie Consaul (Research
Division,Canadian Museum of Nature) and at BIOPAT seems to centre on getting
public interest in the problem of biodiversity. I think we would all agree that
it is not that easy to get financial support for work in areas of
taxonomy/systematics. Within my own area in microbiology there is an
interesting trend to see groups (e.g. TIGR) getting involved in whole genome
analysis and then talking about "structure and function" .... Perhaps the
problem is not so much whether we should be "selling names", but how to get
proper recognition of the work we are doing?

The new periodical, Biodiversity, Journal of Life on Earth, has one of its foci
to try and draw more attention to the societal and environmental value of
biosystematics, natural history collections and museums.

If any TAXACOM readers feel strongly about the issues they may wish to send a
note or a manuscript to me as the editor (mcall at superaje.com), or to Cathy
Ripley (ripleyi at istar.ca) for consideration.

For more about the journal, see the web page:

http://www.synapse.net/~tropical/biojournal.htm

don
Don McAllister