AUSTRALIA’S TAXONOMIC IMPEDIMENT global solutions and cybertaxonomy

1. AUSTRALIA’S TAXONOMIC IMPEDIMENT global solutions and cybertaxonomy GERRY CASSISSchool of biological, earth and Environmental sciencesUniversity of new south wales

2. State of Australian Taxonomy • Australia’s taxonomic capacity is decreasing • Australia’s biota is poorly known

3. Taxonomic Impediment Taylor 1976, 1983

4. Canopy FoggingErwin 1982

5. Global Species Estimates

6. Tree of Life Cassis et al. 2007

7. Big 5 Orders >100,000 species

8. Top 20 Families of InsectsCassis et al. 2007Hyperdiverse families ~10,000 species________________________________________ Coleoptera Diptera Curculiionidae 50000 Tipulidae 10203 Staphylinidae 47000 Tachinidae 9451 Cerambycidae 35000 Chironomidae 7739 Chrysomelidae 35000 Carabidae 30000 Hymenoptera Scarabaeidae 25000 Ichneumonidae 15000 Tenebrionidae 18000 Braconidae 15000 Buprestidae 15000 Formicidae 11839 Lepidoptera Hemiptera Noctuidae 25000 Cicadellidae 20000 Geometridae 21000 Miridae 10200 Crambidae 11630 Arctiidae 11000

9. US National Science FoundationPlanetary Biodiversity Inventory – PBI • Complete a global inventory of all the species of any major group • Establish multi-investigator, multi-institutional, multi-national teams • Integrate the best of the IT revolution into the taxonomic process to expedite the documentation process (cybertaxonomy) • Train the next generation of professional taxonomists

10. Funded PBI Projects Funding: US National Science Foundation, 2003 Criteria: Worldwide and monophyletic taxa Duration: 5 years Projects:Eumycetozoa (slime molds): 1000 species Solanum (Solanaceae): 1500 species Siluriformes (cat fishes): 2500 speciess Miridae subfamilies Orthotylinae and Phylinae (plant bugs): 5500 species

11. Suprageneric Classification of OrthotylinaeAlternate Arrangements________________________________________

12. Species Description Accumulation CurveCassis et al. 2007Orthotylinae and Phylinae 4000 1000

13. Systematic surveyCassis, Schuh and others (1995-2001) – Collection sites ~1,000 new species

14. Plant Bug PBI Goals • Describe ~ 1,500 new species • Improved supraspecific classification • Fieldwork program to collect for gaps • ~ 500,000 specimens databased • ~4000 vouchered host plants • ~ 20,000 habitus, morphology, host, and habitat images • DNA sequencing

15. Business As Usual? International, team-based approach, post-graduate and postdoctoral training Information Technology – Develop web-based tools for data entry and management, as well as distributing the data

16. UNSW

18. GBIF Bioinformatics Architecture

21. What we have learnt? Strengths • Cultural change in way we do business • Less territorality • New ideas, big ideas • Increase in multi-author publication of taxonomic papers • Data entry, management and access efficiency • IT creates time gains • Real-time access to high volume of data • Very fast publication preparation • Framework for future research • Globally-scoped supraspecific classification • Species description is expanding rapidly • Development of a systematic field program • Need presence/absence data • Informed survey design to account for sampling gaps and biases

22. What we have learnt? Weaknesses • Difficulty in attracting students • Australian pool of students interested in taxonomy is small and diminishing • Unrealistic goals • Target setting is elusive • IT maintenance after the grant period?

23. Documenting Australia’s biota • document hyperdiverse taxa • team-approach, national to international • flagship projects, attract corporate dollars, Maslin and Van Leeuwin’s project on mulgas • globally-scoped supraspecific classifications • Northern Hemisphere genera and family-groups applied to Southern Hemisphere taxa • erection of ‘unnecessary’ monotypic taxa • high rates of species-level synonymies • new phase of systematic surveys • integrate separate biodiversity surveys by taxon

24. >Taxonomic Capacity • Enhance stakeholder understanding of taxonomy/systematics • Service role vs research role • Hypothesis-driven science • Parataxonomy fiasco • Taxonomic research outputs are fundamental to environmental • decision-making? • Inflating our capacity to contribute to issues of the day? • Inflating value of historical collections?

25. >Taxonomic Capacity • Need a critical mass of within-country taxonomic expertise • Taxonomist/systematist impediment in universities needs addressing • recruit systematists in universities • undergraduate training in theory and practice of systematics • postgraduate scholarships and postdoctoral fellowships • Museums and herbaria are under strain to maintain taxonomic staff • Institutional partnerships need further exploration, e.g. U of Adelaide & SAMA • Development of taxon-based research clusters • centres of excellence, value-adding attached • leverage off the ‘silverback’ systematists • promote early career ‘stars’ • Funding enhancement • Order of magnitude increase in funding • National funding program • ABRS, leadership, clearing house, funding • ARC – funding support for phylogenetics, biogeography, etc

26. State of Taxonomy in Australia

27. Acknowledgments • Sheridan Hewson-Smith • Lorenzo Prendini • Michael Schwartz • Steve Thurston • Michael Wall • Christiane Weirauch • Denise Wyniger • Anouk Mututantri • Celia Symonds • Nik Tatarnic • Hannah Finlay • National Science Foundation • ABRS • American Museum of Natural History • Australian Museum • University of NSW http://research.amnh.org/pbi

28. State of Australian Taxonomy • Australia’s biota is poorly known • Australia’s taxonomic capacity is decreasing

29. Unique Specimen Identification - USI • Facilitate specimen tracking • Machine readability • - Matrix codes • Human readability

30. Digital Library:~ 27,000 pages

31. Areas of High Endemism and Species Richness Orthotylinae and/or Phylinae

32. Systematic Catalog:On-line Relational Database

34. Digital Imaging of Specimens

35. Georeferencing Collections without Lat/Longs GEOLCATE