[Taxacom] How many 'cybertaxonomists' will there be?

[Bob Mesibov]

Hi, Steve.

Many thanks for your off-list reply. I agree with you 100% that a
seriously well-funded discovery project would entice at least some of
those hired into taxonomy.

This raises an issue about how taxonomic work is structured. A
taxonomist today is a jack of all biological trades. A single specialist
might be:

- an expert collector
- am expert on general biology and ecology of the special group
- an expert on conservation of the special group
- a morphologist
- a biochemical geneticist
- a phylogeneticist
- a biogeographer
- an information manager or database specialist
- a collection curator
- a graphic artist or skilled photographer

I can't think of another branch of biological science that requires so
many skills of its practitioners. But is that necessary?

An alternative to training up multi-skilled professional taxonomists is
to train up non-career taxonomists (NCTs) as part of taxonomy teams.
Think of science graduates who've never used their science training in
their working lives. Think of retired folks with an interest in natural
history, long-serving prisoners, people with disabilities keen to do
something suited to their abilities, crazily enthusiastic teenagers. As
part of teams managed through taxonomy-friendly institutions, NCTs can
take up portions of taxonomic work and move the whole effort more
quickly to a satisfactory end-point.

Furthermore, thanks to the Net, projects can be distributed. Your
collaborators might be a grandmother in Nice, a schoolkid in Namibia and
an accountant in Taiwan. Your institution might not have the $90 000
currently needed to buy one of the first-generation table-top SEMs, but
as their price drops, you might well find a lawyer or doctor willing to
buy a unit for his kids, one of whom is mad keen on spiders, or mosses.
It's the brass microscope of the 19th-century parson-naturalist brought
up to date.

NCTs have been around for a long time as keen amateurs and as volunteers
in museums. There is still a great deal of interest and enthusiasm in
the world for discovering and documenting new forms of life. If we had
structures for recruiting NCTS and enabling them to contribute to
taxonomic efforts, the work to be done could be made far more efficient,
and this socially based efficiency would complement the 'cybertaxonomy'
that started this thread.

You proposed a team to comb a particular area for an inventory. How
about a team to 'do' a taxon instead?
-- 
Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery
and School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
Contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
(03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195
http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/mesibov.html
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