ATBIs

[Bill Shear]

I agree with just about everything Christian Thompson had to say
about supposed ATBIs--especially the part about the "peons" or alpha
taxonomists.  I'd also add that the effort is too little, too late:
in that for many groups the expertise to do determinations, let alone
detect and describe new species, no longer exists.  The "ATBI" effort
is grandiose and somewhat misguided.  Far better would be intensive
work on particular taxa either worldwide or from a major
biogeographic region.  The taxa needing work could be identified and
prioritized, expertise (if it still exists) marshalled, and students
and parataxonomists trained.  Such work is far more likely to produce
useful results than, as Christian says, a regional ATBI effort that
gets scaled back to birds, mammals and butterflies.

We know of 99.9% of the species of birds that exist, and volumes
about their distribution, behavior and ecology.  Does anyone have any
idea how many species of, say, Pauropoda or Symphyla there are, and
what percentage we know of?  Probably not.  But the money goes to
birds (not picking on birds in particular--some of my best friends
are ornithologists) and the other glamour groups over and over.  We
get to verify for the nth time what we already know, and discovery
and new knowledge take a back pew.

The PEET model works, the ATBI model doesn't (except for the managers
who run it).
--

Bill Shear
Department of Biology
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney VA 23943
(804)223-6172
FAX (804)223-6374
email<wshear at email.hsc.edu>
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"My Aunt Maria asked me to read the life of Dr. Chalmers, which,
however, I did not promise to do.  Yesterday, Sunday, she was heard
through the partition shouting to my Aunt Jane, who is deaf,'Think of
it!  He stood half an hour today to hear the frogs croak, and he
wouldn't read the life of Chalmers.'"

--Henry David Thoreau, Journals, March 28, 1853