Frank Howarth Future Directions for Taxonomy in Australia

1. Frank Howarth Future Directions for Taxonomy in Australia

2. “Classical” or morphology-based taxonomy in Australia now • Ageing cohort of practising taxonomists • Declining numbers of practising taxonomists • Focussed mainly on groups or families of organisms • Significantly reduced university training available • Declining numbers of jobs • Largely people dependent, requiring substantial human judgement • Larger more charismatic organisms (plants and animals) much better known at species level

3. “Classical” or morphology-based taxonomy in Australia now cont’d • Significant skill shortage problems in handling large ‘inventory’ style projects (eg Census of Marine Life) • Work and funding priorities historically focussed on ‘completeness’ or ‘filling gaps’ (eg in floras) and driven largely by the areas of interest of taxonomists • Significant misalignment between taxonomic knowledge ‘strengths’ and emerging ‘problems’ • Widely held perception outside of the immediate taxonomy field that taxonomic ‘problems’ have largely been ‘fixed’ ie enough is known

4. Typical “problems” which require species level knowledge to solve • Managing some crop pests (eg aphids) • Detecting and managing invasive marine organisms • Detection of potential invasives (eg on islands in Torres Strait) • Conservation reserve location (marine and terrestrial) • Location of corridors linking conservation reserves and other wildlife rich areas

5. Typical “problems” which require species level knowledge to solve cont’d • Measuring effectiveness of catchment management strategies • Rehabilitating degraded lands • Impacts of climate change on species distribution • Understanding evolutionary processes

6. The current paradigm

7. The current paradigm

8. The current paradigm

9. A paradigm shift

10. A paradigm shift

11. A paradigm shift

12. Recommendations • Develop and populate specimen databases (access to existing knowledge) • Accelerate production of master names indices • Strengthen national (eg ALA) and international (eg GBIF) methods of accessing databases • Do prioritised inventories of the key parts of the biosphere • Develop lab and field usable technology to access morphological and ‘barcode’ based taxonomic information (keys, terminals, pads, comms)

13. Recommendations 2 • Develop multifaceted graduate and post graduate programs that use elements of morphological taxonomy, DNA/genetic/barcodes, bioinformatics, ecology and modelling • Develop career paths by creating jobs in relevant agencies based around these skills, and by using strategies such as targeted fellowships and post-doctoral appointments to develop skills

14. Recommendations 3 • Prioritise taxonomy funding, job creation and research effort by problem, not by group (unless a particular group is a key to a problem) or solely for ‘completeness’ sake • Conduct constructive PR about the fact that many significant problems will require applied taxonomic knowledge to solve. • Treat our existing taxonomists as living treasures and do as much as we can to utilise their skills for training and problem-solving

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