There are about 2 mio. organisms described. However, how many describer, i.e. taxonomists are there? Reasonably exact figures exist only for single regions and taxa, apart from that some estimates are avavilable, but no gloabal survey exists.

One of the issues is: What is a Taxonomist? There are many specialists and experts who have an excellent knowledge about this or that group of organism, but who are never paid for their taxonomic expertise. Consequently they cannot invest their whole energy to this hobby.

Amongst them are the colleagues at universities and museums employed not for their taxonomic expertise but something completely different (this applies to this author). This is also apply for the classical amateurs persuing non-academic carriers.

Then there are the learned societies for systematic biology or a group of organism, such as the Royal Entomological Society or the Systematic Association. However, not all of their members are experts for some organism, some of them are interested in supporting systematics, others are members of several societies.

For this webpage, I take a broad view and consider a taxonomist to be someone who has comprehensive knowledge of a taxon and a can identify the species of this taxon. If you have further definitions, I would be happy to include them!

Possible definitions for a Taxonomist

Someone, who	.	.
	1) describes species	but birds and mammals are almost all described
	2) revises taxa	but taxa with well established taxonomy are rarely revised
	3) works Code compliant	but it is difficult to establish if a work is Code compliant
	4) has an academic education in taxonomy	but amateurs, but lack of university courses
	5) has comprehensive knowledge of a taxon	but ecologists, ethologists and physiologists have comprehensive knowledge and will not consider themselves as taxonomist
	6) can identify a group of organisms	but has no formal education and little knowledge of the Code
	7) is paid for taxonomic work	but amateurs and university scientists, who are employed for teaching and non-taxonomic skills
	8) is member of a systematic society	but supporters join these societies without having extensive knowledge and not all taxonomists join
	9) is listed in a directory	but not all like to be registered
is a taxonomist.	.	.

The ETI in the Netherlands maintains the World Taxonomist Database with currently 4,100 entries. However, the entry is voluntarily and not all taxonomists have entered their name. This is the major reason for the discrepancies in the figures for the African taxonomists (see tables below).

Consequently, the single numbers are certainly (at least probably) correct, but do not give the complete picture of how many taxonomists there really are. It is evident, however, that texonomic experts form a small and highly specialised professional group.

What we also see from the figures below is that the number of available taxonomists in a country does not match the biodiversity present in that country: there are too many or too few taxonomists. This imbalance is addressed by some training programmes.

The data also show that it is not wrong to call taxonomists a species at the brink of extinction. 6,000 specimen for one species of verterbrate is not so much and often reason for concern.

The current numbers.

World

Another source, the Expert Centre for Taxonomic Identification ETI estimated the no. of experienced taxonomists to be around 5,000. Its database, the 'World Taxonomist Database', currently (July 2005) has, in any case, 4,144 persons registered, and can be search for single countries (211 in DE). The entry via the internet is done by the researcher himself and so the database is certainly not complete. However, as there are many entries, the relations between the countries should be realistic. The data in the tables below are from this source.

According to data from GTI-DIVERSITAS (Implementing the GTI (2000) (SBSTTA-4-Inf-06)) the global number of taxonomists is about 18,000 professionals.

The Tree of Life grows by contributions of 422 scientists. The Coleopterists Society has 710 members worldwide (11 in DE). The records of the Dipterists' Directories has 3,187 (231 in DE) entries for persons, also worldwide. The botanical source, Index Herbariorum has 9,775 records for personel/staff listed in the herbaria of the world (241 in DE).

OceanExpert contains 10,418 records (183 in DE).

Edward O. Wilson mentions the number of 6,000 professional taxonomists (Trends in Ecology and Evolution: 18(2), 77-80).

All-Species-Org assumes a number of 10,000 taxonomists globally.

ALL CATFISH SPECIES INVENTORY: no. of taxonomist and students participating (200 participants from 31 countries; 7 in DE).

Asia

The Japanese GTI-Focal Point conducted a survey in Asia and found 1,011 scientist working taxonomically (replies came from institutions in Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Indonesien, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philppines, Singapur, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam).

The 'Database of Indian Taxonomists (DIT)' lists 156 taxonomists for India (according to the ETI, it is 131). However, according to TaiBIF there are 41 scientists reagarding themselfs as with taxonomic experts (according to the ETI, it is 109).

Australia

The Biodiversity Theme Report of Australian Government compares numbers of species and of taxonomists and lists 65 persons in Australia for Fungi and Plants, and 115 persons for the fauna (according to the ETI, it is 191). see also here ...

Europe

The 'Directory of German speaking Taxonomists and Systematists' lists (in July 2005), 559 persons, mainly form DE, CH, AT and NL, which consider themself as such persons. However, their professional status is not clear. The GfBS has 550 members.

The so-called 'Geisthard list' (Directory of Entomologists and Arachnologists) holds about 1,500 entries from the German speaking region. The DGaaE (German Entomological Society) has about 810 members, mainly from the German speaking region.

The Fauna Europaea had about 410 participating people (55 from DE).

The Swiss "Centre Suisse de Cartographie de la Faune" has knowledge of 696 taxonomists (understood in a broader sense).

The UK Systematics Forum lists 788 taxonomists.

In Peru there are 75 botanists, 17 zoologists and 10 people for Arthropods and other invertebrates. (See BioNET-ANDINONET page under "REPORTE NACIONAL"). (According to the ETI, it is 12).

In Venezuela there are 77 botanists, 24 zoologists and 37 people for Arthropods and other invertebrates. (See BioNET-ANDINONET page under "REPORTE NACIONAL"). (According to the ETI, it is 32).

In Bolivia there are 44 botanists, 16 zoologists and 21 people for Entomology. (See BioNET-ANDINONET page under "REPORTE NACIONAL"). (According to the ETI, it is 6).

Press Articles

The Species Race: The world is losing plants faster than scientists can find them. The Virginia Stuart, refers to a publication by James Blackburn in Science, suggesting that there are 7,000 active taxonomists.

Taxonomists: The Unsung Heroes of Our Quest to Save Biodiversity

---

The tables and comparison of data.

Taxonomists in Germany or German speaking countries according to different sources.

Source	Geisthardt list	Verzeichnis deutschsprachiger Taxonomen und Systematiker	GfBS	DGaaE	Fauna Europaea
No.	1500	559	550	810	55
Expertise	Entomologist	Taxonomists	Taxonomists	Entomologist	All animals
Source	ETI/WTD	Coleopterists Society	Dipterists' Directories	Index Herbariorum	OceanExpert
No.	211	11	231	241	183
Expertise	All organisms	Beetles	Flies	All plants	All marine organisms

The numbers are cleary contradictory and inconcruent.

---

Countries with strong taxonomic tradition, but low biodiversity (data from the ETI database).	Mega-diverse countries (data from the ETI database).
Country No. other source, follow link Belgium 86 Denmark 28 France 134 Germany 211 but see here Italy 98 Netherlands 116 Austria 46 Poland 33 Russia 84 Sweden 60 Switzerland 48 696 Spain 139 UK 197 788 Sum 1,280 others Australia 190 180 and 64 Canada 131 420 USA 914	Country No. BioNET Argentinia 74 no data Bolivia 6 81 Brazil 171 n.d. Colombia 31 49 Costa Rica 18 n.d. Cuba 15 n.d. Ecuador 8 n.d. Guatemala 8 n.d. Jamaica 2 n.d. Mexico 125 n.d. Nicaragua 1 n.d. Panama 4 n.d. Peru 12 102 Venezuela 32 138 Sum 495
Taxonomists in Africa from Strelitzia 12 (2001): The Global Taxonomy Initiative: documenting the biodiversity of Africa, and the ETI database.	Numbers from the Report to the SBSTTA collected by the first Asian-Pacific regional GTI - Workshop
Country No. ETI-nos Algeria 45-70 3 Angola 18 1 Benin 3 2 Botswana 3 ? no data Burkina Faso < 5 n.d. Cameroon 29 1 Canary Islands 55 n.d. Cape Verde 0 n.d. Chad 3 n.d. Comoros 0 n.d. Ivory Coast 9 n.d. Demokratic Republic Congo 16 ? n.d. Egypten 190 11 Eritrea 25 n.d. Ethiopien 6 n.d. Equatorial Guinea 7 n.d. Gabun 2 1 Kenya 48-63 7 Malawi 6 n.d. Mauritius 11 n.d. Morocco 14 ? 2 Namibia 12 2 Niger 0 n.d. Nigeria 25 5 Rwanda 4 n.d. Senegal 85 n.d. Seychelles 5 n.d. South Africa 143 75 Swaziland 15 n.d. Togo 7 n.d. Tanzania 22 n.d. Zambia 8 n.d. Sum (max.) 861 110	Taxon Number of specialists in region Invertebrates 255 Vertebrates 148 Vascular Plants 154 Non-vascular Plants 102 Fungi/yeasts 78 Protozoa 5 Microalgae 34 Bacteria/Archaea 55 Sum 831 No data for single countries available yet. Database of Indian Ocean Taxonomists (DIOT) Country Number of specialists in region Australia 5 France 1 India 2 Iran 1 Kenya 2 Mozambique 1 Tanzania 1 Sum 13

The Zoological Record provided following numbers, with an important restriction:

"Note that where a paper is authored by 4 people, this will score a count of 4 in the author counts. Where the same 4 people author 2 separate articles, this will score 8."

Furthermore, non-taxonomists will be authors on papers indexed by ZooRec, and not all indexed contributions are strictly taxonomical.

Assuming a taxonmists publishes once a year, then the number of people should be around 8,000-9,000.

Publication year	Author Count	Articles	Authors/Article
1978	11076	8010	1,38
1979	12001	8567	1,40
1980	12702	8955	1,42
1981	12924	9153	1,41
1982	12486	8766	1,42
1983	12455	8493	1,47
1984	13759	9484	1,45
1985	13600	9195	1,48
1986	14609	9853	1,48
1987	14397	9507	1,51
1988	14502	9506	1,53
1989	14384	9379	1,53
1990	14675	9454	1,55
1991	14271	8961	1,59
1992	15057	9336	1,61
1993	15476	9517	1,63
1994	14788	8943	1,65
1995	15438	9143	1,69
1996	15886	9248	1,72
1997	16182	9192	1,76
1998	17218	9556	1,80
1999	16737	9187	1,82
2000	19300	9947	1,94
2001	21090	10496	2,01
2002	21071	10198	2,07
2003	19439	8857	2,19
TOTAL	395523	240903	.
in average: TOTAL/YEARS	15821	.	.

Top of Page