[Taxacom] [TAXACOM] Systematists as holists

[Gordon Ramel]

What Bob has suggested below is sort of what I have been doing in Greece, albeit in an unfunded and poorly equiped way.  I live in a nature Reserve here, I have been running malaise traps, pitfalls and going yellow panning and then sorting the material to a certain level and passing it on.  It works well, a lot of experts are seeing a lot of material they would not otherwise have seen and the fauna is getting better known.  Of the 700 diptera names so far returned 264 are new records for Greece, 2 new for Europe and 20 (not yet actually named) new to Science.  For a single National Park in Europe this is not a bad result, and a lot of material is not yet back, and some, hasn't gone out to anybody (Ceratopogonidae, Phoridae, Ichnuemonidae etc.).  See www.lake-kerkini.earthlife.net/project.html  However it would never have worked if you had asked, or looked for a Greek person to do it for you, there just isn't anybody here qualified or whom you could trust to be accurate in
 the collection procedure.  In other countries perhaps it would work, some third world countries have better atitudes to ecology and general responsibility than Greece.
   
  But, and this is why I am writing, due to the lack of funding thing (I am currently borrowing money to continue this work here) I will be finishing up in September/October, barring a miracle, and I wish to move somewhere tropical.  If any institute, or group of reseraches wanted to hire me to collect somewhere for a year or two, and actually pay me enough to live on, I would be happy to work with them.
   
   
  Start your thinking with something easily divorced from taxonomy sensu
strictu: collection. The grant-funded, once-off field trip you and a
colleague manage to organise after much effort leads to a monograph on
the Thingidae of Somewhere Province two years on. That is *not* an
cost-efficient or effort-efficient way to tackle the global
sampling/documentation crisis. There are people living in Somewhere
Province. Get them to collect for you as part of the Thingidae Network,
a global effort to collect, sort, curate and taxonomise this taxon, in
collaboration with the X, Y and Z Networks doing the same jobs with
other taxa.
   
                           Yours in enjoyment of the discussion group,
   
                                        Gordon Ramel B.Sc M.Phil



       
---------------------------------
You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost.