[Taxacom] New species of the future

[Lyubomir Penev]

"Chalara fraxinea or Agrilus planipennis were probably not very interesting
when first described. You cannot determine a priori the value of a species,
and often it requires decades to build a basic picture of the biology and
ecology of each one. So how exactly is this model going to accelerate the
output?"

Jason, how one could know "a priori the value of a species description" for
this centipede species?

It won't take decades, it will take few more years to see the true value of
this kind of pilots. Just a few years ago, it was impossible even to dream
for a full transcriptome sequencing and micro CT simply did not exist (at
least for the purposes of taxonomic research). Now a transcriptomic
profile, although still not trivial as barcoding is, is definitely
affordable. Even a full genome sequencing is now affordable for a
middle-size institution.

Is, for example,  producing phylogenies that may change with adding a
single new taxon, of more value or more cost-efficient than a fundamental
description of species, even of "unknown value" at the point of
description?

Taxonomy is not a low cost science at all, at least until we think that
publishing of a name and diagnosis, or sharing a PDF description with 5-6
fellow taxonomists, is all what the "people" want.

Cheers,
Lyubomir





On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 5:06 PM, JF Mate <aphodiinaemate at gmail.com> wrote:

> To Dave Kirk and Lyubomir:
>
> We are discussing two separate things here. On the one hand we have the
> rise of digital, media-rich publications. To me multiple sources of
> information added to a description or any other paper for that matter is a
> plus. As an exercise or proof of concept I see the angle of the paper. But
> deep down it is a PR exercise, which no doubt is necessary in these days of
> shrinking budgets. But if this is the case, expensive descriptions are not
> going to enhance biodiversity inventorying.
>
> My argument is that a big portion of the cost is down to the cybertype
> and the transcriptome. I can see the applications of the CT scans, though I
> would argue that a cyber-type can also take other forms. The transcriptome
> though is superfluous. I understand that BGI wants to do its 1000
> transcriptome project but really, not useful in this specific case. Its use
> is more like a placeholder for a genome or as another bit of data added for
> sales purposes. Nothing wrong, simply rather pointless. Maybe if the paper
> had included several stages and both genders or done a comparison across
> several close species, then I could understand its inclusion.
>
> This brings me to the issue of expectations by "people" (not sure who you
> are referring to). People have multiple expectations but surely a common
> one should be the ability to successfully discriminate species X from all
> other previously described species. At its most basic, people just want a
> name. After that come the questions: what does it do; is it dangerous;
> rare, etc. But the first step is establishing that this group of organisms
> is different from the other groups we have previously defined, and it is
> identified for human purposes with this label.
>
> In this respect taxonomy is very economical, probably  the most economical
> aspect of biology, yet the argument here is that before spending a small
> amount of resources describing organisms we should spend a bunch to
> determine if they are worthy of description in the first place. Ignoring
> the problems with this economic model, who determines what is worthy?
> Chalara fraxinea or Agrilus planipennis were probably not very interesting
> when first described. You cannot determine a priori the value of a species,
> and often it requires decades to build a basic picture of the biology and
> ecology of each one. So how exactly is this model going to accelerate the
> output?
>
> When it comes to cost "(5) The effort was huge, the costs are there, but
> the project is not that
> expensive as one might think. It is surely cheaper if compared to the
> costs of
> an expedition to a tropical country to collect new species that will
> (probably)
> be never described." Yes, an expedition to the tropics to collect material
> is costly, probably more than a single description, but that is comparing
> apples and oranges. I am sure that spelunking for critters is costly as
> well, more so if we work out the cost per new species uncovered, but what
> we are discussing here is taxonomy. How Laputan taxonomy would improve
> access to funds is an open question, unless things have changed a lot
> lately and resources are infinite.
>
> So to me point 3 in Lyubomir´s list is the paper the aim of the paper, and
> there is nothing wrong with it, but the rest, including taxonomy, is at
> best incidental.
>
> Best
>
> Jason
>
> P.S. "tight adherence to the Old Ways is not going to ensure the survival
> of taxonomy" not the best sales pitch
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