[Taxacom] systematics eggs in one basket

[John Grehan]

I was both amazed and invigorated to read Lammers' 1999 Plant
Systematics commentary (a copy that he kindly sent me). I found I could
sympathize and agree on pretty much everything he said. Lammers
contrasted the diversity of thought in the 1982 American Society of
Plant Taxonomists to that of 1997. He noted that in the 1997 meeting
many papers only gave a perfunctory nod to morphology and completely
ignored the wealth of other pertinent information other than that of
DNA. He noted that questions on other types of data were often
unanswered or badly fumbled, and that the systematics community appeared
to have elected to utilize nothing but molecular data in seeking to
answer its questions. He noted that those who do not focus on molecular
methods fear that they will experience insurmountable difficulties in
securing an academic position or obtaining extramural funding. Workers
have felt compelled to lay aside their traditional areas of expertise
and take up molecular phylogenetics in order to survive professionally,
that there seems to no longer be room at the trough for the monographers
and their revisions etc. 

 

He pointedly asks whether there is a systematics position at a major
university in the US that has not been filled by a molecular systematist
in the last five years (and I would explicitly say a morphologist who
does not include molecular studies). Has there been even one
departmental search committee that has said "By God, what we need around
here is a good monographer". Is their even one graduate student out
there who was not told "You'd better go molecular or you'll never get a
job". Lammers points to the irony in the lack of up-to-date monographs
for many groups or major identification works even though these are
supposed to be the essential tools in facing the future of biodiversity
(Systematics Agenda 2000).

 

Now that another 10 years have passed it does seem that not much has
changed. It looks as though some NSF studies include morphology, but
independent morphologically based systematics is generally still given
short shrift - at least in terms of major funding. Is my perception
wrong? Any comment?

 

John Grehan

 

 

 

Dr. John R. Grehan

Director of Science and Collections

Buffalo Museum of Science1020 Humboldt Parkway

Buffalo, NY 14211-1193

email: jgrehan at sciencebuff.org

Phone: (716) 896-5200 ext 372

 

Panbiogeography

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