Taxonomists and Users Discussion

I do not share all the writer's views because they are often concerned with questions, my text is not really dealing with. Since I want to keep my text short, statement-like, and deliberately unbalanced for the sake of brevity, I felt that there is no need to include and discuss these questions.

However, all of the raised questions are indeed valid and so I agree with Richard Smith (BioNET-INTERNATIONAL) to have these emails alongside the main text to expand its scope and possibly stir more interest.

All author's are responsible for their own emails only and have agreed to have them published on this page. I took the liberty of deleting the many 'best' & 'yours' and some other private notes. However, the text itself is unchanged.

12. April 2004

based on discussions and experiences I could make on COP8 I wrote down some thoughts about:

Taxonomists and Users: two species that rarely meet

I always was surprised to see that both users and taxonomists constantly and almost obstinately fail to communicate. This text should shed some light on this situation. I dont think it is a 'final' text, so new ideas and hints are always welcomed. Please feel free to send the link to others, and sorry for double posting!

12. April 2004

Gute Gedanken. Der interessante Aspekt dabei ist das Verhältnis Anbieter/Nutzer. Denn das ist die Schnittstelle Wissenschaft/Wirtschaft. Angebot und Nachfrage muss nicht immer zwangläufig aus der Richtung Nachfrage kommen, sondern sie kann auch aus der Richtung Angebot kommen, also eigentlich anders herum! Damit hatte mein Laden zu tun, als er 1999 an den Start ging. Es gab keine Nachfrage. Dadurch, dass aber ein Angebot platziert wurde, zog dies eine Nachfrage nach sich. Auch wenn dies erst langsam begann.

Brechen wir das rüber auf die Taxonomen. Der Kunde draußen, weiß nur von wenigen Organismen. Ein Großteil ist ihm verschlossen, da der Taxonom seine Gruppe nicht nach außen hin vertreten kann oder will. Folglich gibt es keine Nachfrage, da es kein Angebot gibt.

Hier ein kleiner Einschub: Wenn Du ein Produkt am Markt platzieren willst, hast Du die besten Chancen Erfolg zu haben, wenn Du Dein Produkt zur Lösung eines bestehenden Problems machst. Erst dann greifen die Leute zu. Beispiel: Die Leute haben früher bei schlechten Straßenverhältnissen den Dreck an den Schuhen mit ins Haus genommen. Irgendwann hat jemand an Schuhbürsten gedacht, um die Schuhe vor dem Eintritt ins Haus, zu säubern. Dadurch gab es weniger Dreck im Haus, den die Kinder im Krabbelalter aufnehmen konnten. Damit gingen die Krankheiten bei Kleinkindern zurück.

So, versuchen wir das Problem wieder auf die Taxonomie zu übertragen, stellt sich uns folgende Aufgabe:

A) Der Taxonom muss, evtl. durch seine Ausbildung bedingt (wäre Neu), in der Lage sein seine Gruppe, und wenn es nicht kohlenstoffbasierende Mikroorganismen aus dem Planetensystem Vega sind, diese nach außen hin zu präsentieren.

B) Der User muss von den Organismen erfahren, u.z. nicht nur aus den Fachorganen.

C) Mittelfristig muss der Taxonom, oder eine stellvertretende Gesellschaft/Agentur in der Lage sein, das bestehende Wissen zu vermarkten. Dadurch könnte der Taxonom sich auf seine Arbeit konzentrieren, der User hätte aber Zugang zur Organsimengruppe und könnte diese gegen Cash nutzen. Die Agentur wäre quasi ein Spielermanager, wie es im Sport oder in der Musik üblich ist.

D) Die Agentur würde systematisch nach Problemen suchen, die durch das bestehende Wissen behoben werden könnten.

Kohle würde demnach vom User über die Agentur minus einer Provision zum Taxonom fließen.

Fazit: Zwischen User und Taxonom benötigen wir einen Dolmetscher, da beide Gruppen vollständig unterschiedliche Sprachen sprechen!

David Patterson

25. April 2006

I think you have assessed the situation very well, but I would like to suggest some additional dimensions.

We at the uBio project are trying to intercede between the taxonomic community and the user community. We believe that there are an array of generic skills that we tend to overlook - skills and traits that all taxonomists share. If we separate these elements from taxon-specific skills, we can exploit them in software that will help manage information about organisms. We refer to the incorporation of taxonomic skills as 'taxonomic intelligence' - a term used initially by LITCHI, associated with Speices2000.

If we add web services, we can provide an infrastructure to allow taxonomists to assemble their knowledge communally. Further services can apply the generic skills and the taxon specific knowledge to management of biological data - as is evident from say our uBio RSS feeder reader, or the Portal, or the micro*scope web site (http://www.ubio.org; http://microscope.mbl.edu). Together, these developments extend the 'reach' of individual taxonomists. In other words, we can use technology to help overcome a number of the problems that you identify.

Probably the biggest impediment that I see is that taxonomists do not see that they have two roles, the first is the discovery of our biodiversity. The second, and I believe more important, is to act as informed custodians of knowledge about biodiversity.

Rod Tulloss

25. April 2006

Overlapping with my time as a taxonomist and taxonomic user, I worked in industrial research in electronic engineering. My group built software that was used to improve both design and manufacturing processes and improve the communication of data between the two groups. We found that the simpler data processing systems were tolerated no matter what annoying errors were in them. People created "work arounds." We delivered 24 HOUR TURNAROUND on fixing bugs, and STILL we were not advised of improvements that could have been made easily. It was very frustrating to us. With highly complex systems, bugs are more insidious, and users called quickly when a problem occurred. I think that the user-taxonomist interface reveals a characteristic of human nature...desire for simple solutions whether or not they are fully understood and whether or not they are (in an abstract sense, if there is one) correct.

Consider the manner in which people flock to our still rather primitive molecular methods without fully understanding the fundamental methods and algorithms that effect the accuracy and utility of their results. Since I was a software builder in my first career, I know that 85% accuracy is very hard to get with heuristic algorithms. I could walk into a factory that was "automatically" diagnosing circuit failures and say, "I have written on a piece of paper your highest accuracy level. Now you tell me what your experience is, and let us see if I made a good guess." They would say "85%." And I would show them the paper on which I had written "85%."

So, I guess, people have limits to curiosity and extra effort; and heuristic software has limits to its success rate.

Timothy M Jones

25. April 2006

I would like to use some of your data from your most recent post in a proposal. What is the data origin concerning 'taxonomists numbers' ? A publication?

Thanks again for the post, my introduction will change drastically due to your posting. It is on Interactive keys and their ability to speed up the 'slow development process' associated with large, problematic genera. Curious if you have ever seen this quote by someone. Hopefully, I am not paraphrasing, "Keys are compiled by those who do not need them, for those that cannot use them." It truly says it all, unfortunately.

25. April 2006

> and almost obstinately fail to communicate. This text should shed some

> light on this situation. I dont think it is a 'final' text, so new ideas

> and hints are always welcomed.

There is one major portion of the "impediment" you omit in yourdiscussion that is, in a way, a circular problem. Namely, many museumcurators are either taxonomic specialists, or not taxonomists at all.They are, in fact, "users" themselves, and cannot keep track of*every* taxon in their collection. In the absence of a single, updated list of all known species AND synonyms, therefore, there arevirtually no two museums in existence that have all the shared taxawithin them placed under the same taxon names. This makes theretrieval of information *from* museum collections extremelyinefficient; if a request for data on taxon X is sent out, theresponses will include some false positives and many false negatives- curators who believe they possess taxon X when they actually donot, and others who don't think they have it when they actually do.Since collections are a major source of data for taxonomists, theproblem is circular; until and unless all museum curators haveinstant access to all extant taxonomic information (and unless thisinformation is trustworthy), the data coming *out* of museums aregoing to be filled with errors, thus rendering the extant taxonomicinformation Untrustworthy.

This aspect of the impediment emphasizes the need for makingauthoritative checklists and keys available online, as well as thepitfall of making museum specimen data available without eitherauthoritative identifications or at *least* a standard classification.

26. April 2006

Dear Doug,

I was not dealing with this impediment reason because I was mostly interested in the failing communication between the two, user and taxonomist.

However it might be a good point to add that users simply want to have a list of names which they can work with and retrieve information and find specimens, and dont care about synonyms etc, and taxonomists would like to do research which includes changing names. And of course, taxonomists are themself users to some extent, but again, I was thinking of users from 'outside' and not so much on the specific taxonomic needs.

26. April 2006

> a list of names which they can work with and retrieve information and find

> specimens, and dont care about synonyms etc,

You can't retrieve information and find specimens if the names ON the specimens don't match up across the board. I know of several butterfly and beetle species that appear in various collections under 5 or more different generic names; it's not easy to retrieve information in such cases, so users SHOULD care about synonyms. After all, if you don't know the synonyms, you won't find all the specimens or data (e.g., if I tell you to locate info about the giant Fijian longhorn beetle, Xixuthrus terribilis, you probably won't find a single specimen or citation under that scientific name - because it's been known for the last 60 years under a name which is a junior synonym, X. heyrovskyi).

Basically, I was just trying to make two points - first, that museums are users, too, and second, they are users whose relationship to taxonomists is strongly reciprocal; there *are* users who communicate rather extensively and intimately with taxonomists, so the "rarely meet" claim isn't entirely fair.

26 April 2006

A couple of issues I don't think you have fully covered include:

1. The increasing "desire/requirement" for funding bodies (users) to get some return for their money. "Why should I continue funding taxonomy/data capture if I cannot easily use the results?" This results in shifting of priorities and a "need" for taxonomists to become more productive and efficient, and more focussed on priority groups.

2. 250 years of traditional taxonomic research has resulted in a very small percentage of the earth's biota being described and the present rate of loss is approaching the rate of description and circumscription. Do we want to (can we afford to) wait another 250 years to get to around 25% of the earth's biota described? I see this as presure from "the environment" to become more efficient. That can mean more taxonomists as well as improved productivity with the taxonomists we now have (see below).

3. Based on much of the above - Governments cannot wait 5, 10 years for new endangered species to be described before protecting them, and thus the need for "naming" as opposed to "descripion" of new taxa for incorporation into legislation. Hence in some countries (e.g. Australia) the development of a formula name that can later be synonymised (e.g. "Acacia sp. Dandaragan (S.van Leeuwen 269)" - a species listed under the countries EPBC Act 1999).

4. We need taxonomists to become more efficient at their work. A large percentage of a taxonomists time (and financial resources) is now spent

• a) looking for copies of the protologues - the original description;
• b) looking for subsequest descriptions in floras/faunas;
• c) looking for the type specimens;
• d) borrowing specimens;
• e) databasing label information;
• f) rehashing/rewriting information for National Floras and Faunas, Global Floras etc.

The solutions I see to these are:

• a) Setting up a process to image and database protologues and link these to the names lists such as GBIF's ECat, Species 2000, IPNI, etc.
• b) databasing key biological texts (this process seems to have begun)
• c) supporting the databasing and imaging of type specimens
• d) supporting the imaging of specimens, and/or establishing on-line video links in key institutions so that a taxonomist in a remote locality can quickly look at specimens and select out a small number for borrowing. This has been tested with a number of instituitions and I understand successfully
• e) using data entry operators to database label information, thus freeing up the taxonomist to do taxonomy and not do routine work better done by others.
• f) begin using "flora writers", etc. to work with the taxonomists to rewrite the data into the new formats and allow the taxonomist to continue with core taxonomic work.

Alternatively begin using character databases and software for documenting data in a form that automated key and related software can be used to produce draft output in a range of formats.

5. You mention 'flagship' taxa, but the list of 'flagship' taxa is not as small as I believe you are suggesting. Increasingly large groups are being given priority (nematodes and soil microorganisms; insects important as pests, pollinators, biological control agents, disease vectors, etc.; invasive species - weeds and other pests; crop wild relatives and relatives of species with bioactive compounds; species that may become bioterrorism agents, etc., etc.). There are many taxa that may have uses, but until there is usable information available to users, they will go elsewhere for the information (including using Google, Wikepedia etc.) and not rely on taxonomists.

6. As shown in other areas of endeavour (chemistry etc.) the more relavent and useable the information produced, the more demand for the information and hence the increase in support for the science and jobs. I don't believe that taxonomy is any less relevant in this area. By making our information more useable, the greater the likelihood that new funding sources will become available and thus not only make new positions available for applied taxonomists (i.e. those working on data of immediate use to users), but also to taxonomists wanting to work on taxa of less immediate demand by users.

thank you very much for the comments. They are good and helpful and you are right:

I did not fully cover them, mainly because I was not really concerned about the reasons for the taxonomic impediment, but more on the difficult communication between taxonomists and users.

Anyway, I will probable include your observation 1) and also 6) into my text. 6) because I do certainly agree and it gives a good perspective what could be reached; it gives a good goal to work on.

On point 5), I was mainly thinking of publicity (TV and glossy magazins) and nature conservation where all fury and feathery species a excellent to use. I talked to Piotr Naskrecki, and he is now trying to teach Conservation International that also crickets are important. All this is not really a contradiction to what you are saying under 5), so I might expand or modify my statement on flagship species.

28. April 2006

that is interesting. I attach a paper in press which is a gap analysis ofmarine species taxonomy in Europe. I have another paper in press reviewingOcean Biodiversity Informatics if anybody wants a copy.

European marine biodiversity inventory and taxonomic resources: state of the art and gaps in knowledge by Mark J. Costello, Philippe Bouchet, Chris S. Emblow, Anastasios Legakis