Biodiversity and a taxonomy of Chilean taxonomists - Springer Link

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Keywords: biodiversity; taxonomy; Chile. Introduction. About 1.7 million species have been named since Linnaeus. This figure is a recognized underestimation ...
Biodiversity and Conservation 6, 633±637 (1997)

Biodiversity and a taxonomy of Chilean taxonomists JAVIER A. SIMONETTI Departamento de Ciencias EcoloÂgicas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Chile, Casilla 653, Santiago, Chile

Received 3 June 1996; revised and accepted 21 July 1996 The Chilean taxonomic community is reduced, with the largest fraction of taxonomists devoted to well known groups, such as vertebrates. Some invertebrates and plant taxa have no Chilean taxonomist working on them, all factors that hamper the inventory of the Chilean biota. Keywords: biodiversity; taxonomy; Chile.

Introduction About 1.7 million species have been named since Linnaeus. This ®gure is a recognized underestimation of the actual number of living species. The description of a new animal phylum (Loricifera) as recent as the 1980s, the possibility that tropical arthropods alone could number over 10 million species, and the fact that over 12 000 new animal species are described yearly exemplify how little is known regarding the magnitude of the global species richness, particularly invertebrates (World Conservation Monitoring Centre, 1992, for an overview). E€orts to estimate biodiversity are, in part, hampered by the reduced taxonomic workforce available to survey, describe and monograph both the already-described and the hitherto unknown species. Despite being considered as the `Biological Diversity Crisis II', there are few analyses of the taxonomic community around the world (Bloom, 1991; Gaston and May, 1992; Parnell, 1993; Cotterill, 1995). Chile has a long-standing tradition in natural history studies that go back to the pioneering e€orts of J.I. Molina in 1782 followed by a plethora of Chilean and foreign scientists (Marticorena, 1995; Simonetti et al., 1995). A recent review of Chilean biodiversity, including assessments of the taxonomic workforce in di€erent taxa (Simonetti et al., 1995), sheds light on the size and structure of the Chilean taxonomic community. Here, I analyse the distribution of taxonomists among taxa, and brie¯y compare such a distribution with taxonomic communities in developed countries (i.e. USA and England; Gaston and May, 1992) and to the expected work they will face to unravel the undescribed diversity of the Chilean biota. Chilean taxonomic force About 30 000 species have been described in Chile, excluding protozoa and bacteria (Table 1). The most speciose groups are insects (10 100 species; 34% of the biota) and higher plants (4600 species, 17%), accounting for over half the known species (Simonetti et al., 1995). This biota is studied by, at least, 156 scientists totally or partially devoted to taxomonic and systematic studies of the Chilean biota. Very rarely, Chilean taxonomists 0960-3115 Ó1997 Chapman & Hall

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Table 1. Biodiversity of Chile. Figures give the number of currently recognized species for di€erent groups of organisms. The number of taxonomists is not additive as some scientists devote time to more than one group. See Simonetti et al. (1995, p. 362) for the original sources of species richness and number of taxonomists Taxonomic group Protoctists Plants Liverworts Mosses Ferns Seed plants Fungi Animals Invertebrates Molluscs Arachnids Crustaceans Insects Others Vertebrates Fishes Amphibians Reptiles Birds Mammals

Described species

Number of taxonomists (%)

Described spp per taxonomist

1937a

19 (12)

102

350 875 190b 4629 3300

0 1 3 11 5

(> 1) (2) (7) (3)

± 875 63 421 600

(14 897) 1187 617 606 10 133 2354c (1767) 1027 43 94 456 147

69 10 1 8 32 28 49 18 14 12 3 9

(44) (6) (> 1) (5) (21) (18) (31) (12) (9) (8) (2) (6)

217 119 617 76 317 84 36 57 3 8 152 25

a

Includes algae, lichen-forming algae and diatoms. Includes subspecies. c Includes sponges, cnidarians, helminths, sipunculans, echiurans, priapulans, polychaete annelids, phoronids, braquiopods, bryozoans, chaetognaths, hemichordata, collembolans and proturans. b

deal with biota occurring in neighbouring countries (Simonetti et al., 1995, and references therein). Roughly 24% (38) of Chilean taxonomists are botanists sensu lato (including algae to true vascular plants), while the remaining 76% are zoologists. This distribution already pinpoints a skewed allocation of human e€ort, as plants (sensu lato) comprise over 40% of Chilean species. Within plant taxonomists, 29% (11 out of 38) are devoted to angiosperms, a group that comprises about 4600 species (Marticorena et al., 1995; Matthei, 1995; Table 1). Just ®ve scientists are devoted to the 3300 nominal fungal species, which may represent only 25% of its true richness (Lazo, 1995). In groups such as diatoms, there is just one active taxonomist for the 563 described species (Rivera, 1995), while for Hepaticae and Gymnosperms, no single Chilean taxonomist is working exclusively on them (Barrera, 1995; Benoit and Smith-RamõÂrez, 1995). Another index of the scarcity of taxonomists is expressed by the fact that only 16% of taxonomists (8 out of 49) working in the Nueva Flora de Chile project are Chileans (Marticorena et al., 1995). Within animal taxonomists (Table 1), there is also a signi®cant mismatching between biological diversity and the number of taxonomists per group. Vertebrates (1700 species),

Chilean taxonomists

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that account for only 11% of the fauna, are studied by 42% of the animal taxonomists (that is, 39% of all Chilean taxonomists; Table 1) compared to the remaining 58% of the animal taxonomists dedicated to 89% of the fauna. In contrast, insects (about 12 000 species), comprising 61% of animal species, receive attention by just 27% of Chilean animal taxonomists, or 21% of total Chilean taxonomists (Table 1). Dipterans, which account for 18% of the fauna are studied by 4% of zoologists. The scarcity of invertebrate taxonomists is pinpointed by the fact that less than 50% of the known families of Lepidoptera are being studied, and that only 13% (2 out of 15) of lepidopterologists dealing with this fauna are Chileans (Parra, 1995). Similarly, only 14% (5 out of 37) of dipterologists, 28% (5 out of 18) of hymenopterologists and 31% (15 out of 48) of coleopterologists are Chileans (Elgueta, 1995; GonzaÂlez, 1995; Rojas and Elgueta, 1995). Furthermore, no less than 5% of the known animal species, all invertebrate taxa and including the Phoronida and Thysanura, have no Chilean taxonomist currently working on them (Camousseight, 1995; Moyano, 1995). The opposite trend is depicted by vertebrates. Amphibians for instance, with 43 species, comprise 0.3% of the Chilean fauna, but attract the attention of 8% of Chilean taxonomists (that is, 11% of animal taxonomists, Table 1), while mammals with 0.9% (147 species) of the fauna are studied by 7% of animal taxonomists (Table 1). This bias in e€ort has been a characteristic feature of Chilean zoology in the last few decades (Veloso, 1981). The skewed distribution of taxonomists seems a general phenemenon. Broadly, the taxonomy of Chilean taxonomists parallels that of taxonomists in the USA and Australia, where 43% and 38% of the animal taxonomists are devoted to tetrapods and ®shes, respectively (Richardson, 1984; Gaston and May, 1992). On a ®ner scale, discrepancies do appear. Among insect taxonomists, there are more dipterologists in the USA, but more coleopterologists in Chile, while British taxonomists are more evenly distributed among insect taxa (Gaston and May, 1992). Another problem facing the taxonomic community is age. A signi®cant fraction (82%; 18 out 22 cases) of taxonomists are close to, or older than, 50 years of age, as assessed by taxonomists working on dipterans and monocots (GonzaÂlez, 1995; Matthei, 1995). As they retire in the near future, a severe decline of an already reduced number of taxonomists is likely to occur in Chilean universities and museums. The ageing of the taxonomic workforce is widespread, occurring as well in European universities, due to the scarce recruitment of young scientists into taxonomy and systematics (Parnell, 1993; Cotterill, 1995). The asymmetric distribution between the number of taxonomists and the size of the animal group they study implies that invertebrates, insects particularly, receive far less attention. When expressed as number of described species per taxonomist, the assymetry is more evident. Well-known taxa such as vertebrates, with comparatively fewer species, receive more attention than invertebrates: on average, a vertebrate taxonomist has 36 described species to study, while an invertebrate taxonomist has 217 species. If taxonomists working only with tetrapods are considered, they have, on average, 25 described species to deal with, while a coleopterologist has 250, a dipterologist has 600 and a lepidopterologist has 660 described species to study. Interestingly, taxa receiving less attention are precisely those that are poorly known, and the estimated number of unrecorded species is higher, such as insects (World Conservation Monitoring Centre, 1992). For instance, on a world-wide basis, the working ®gure of the estimated number of arachnid and insect species is 8±10 times the number of described species, while such a

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®gure for vertebrates is only 1.1 times the known number of species (World Conservation Monitoring Centre, 1992). In Chile, insects currently number 12 000 species, a ®gure estimated to represent, at best, 50% its true diversity (Solervicens, 1995). That is, the few taxonomists currently dealing with the taxomony and systematics of large, speciose groups also face the potentially largest undescribed number of species. This distribution of expertise between animal taxa is opposite to that of the present needs. Collaboration with foreign experts has enriched the knowledge of the Chilean biota, but there is growing concern that both monographs and voucher specimens are not always published nor deposited in journals and institutions easily accessible to Chilean scientists (e.g. Rojas and Elgueta, 1995). Several times, type specimens have been deposited in foreign institutions, violating Chilean laws, and such foreign museums do not facilitate the availability of other collections of Chilean specimens (e.g. Elgueta, 1995). The task of inventorying the Chilean biota is far from complete (Simonetti et al., 1995). However, the capacity to determine the nature and magnitude of Chilean biodiversity is severly hampered by the small size of the taxonomic community, its skewed distribution of taxonomic expertise between groups, and ageing. International cooperation is needed and welcomed for studying the biodiversity of Chile, such as in the Nueva Flora de Chile project (Stuessy, 1991), as it could provide the expertise for taxa where there is no Chilean taxonomist. However, as the taxonomic community is also reduced and shrinking in countries that could provide such an expertise (e.g. Parnell, 1993), this is a short-term solution. Thus, if inventorying is a necessary ®rst step for an adequate management of the biota, there is a clear urgency for training new taxonomists in Chile. Acknowledgements This manuscript is partially based on a conference held at the XVII Chilean Congress of Entomology (November, 1995). I thank its organizing committee for their invitation, and M. Mendez and A. Grez for comments on this article. References Barrera, E. (1995) HepaÂticas. In Diversidad bioloÂgica de Chile (J.A. Simonetti, M.T.K. Arroyo, A.E. Spotorno and E. Lozada, eds) pp. 48±52. Santiago: ComisioÂn Nacional de InvestigacioÂn Cientõ®ca y TecnoloÂgica. Benoit, I. and Smith-RamõÂrez, C. (1995) Gimnospermas. In Diversidad bioloÂgica de Chile (J.A. Simonetti, M.T.K. Arroyo, A.E. Spotorno and E. Lozada, eds) pp. 66±9. Santiago: ComisioÂn Nacional de InvestigacioÂn Cientõ®ca y TecnoloÂgica. Bloom, B. (1991) Biological diversity crisis II. Assoc. Syst. Coll. News 19, 63±4. Camousseight, A. (1995) Thysanura. In Diversidad bioloÂgica de Chile (J.A. Simonetti, M.T.K. Arroyo, A.E. Spotorno and E. Lozada, eds) pp. 216±7. Santiago: ComisioÂn Nacional de InvestigacioÂn Cientõ®ca y TecnoloÂgica. Cotterill, F.P.D. (1995) Systematics, biological knowledge and environmental conservation. Biodiv. Conserv. 4, 183±205. Elgueta, M. (1995) Coleoptera. In Diversidad bioloÂgica de Chile (J.A. Simonetti, M.T.K. Arroyo, A.E. Spotorno and E. Lozada, eds) pp. 246±52. Santiago: ComisioÂn Nacional de InvestigacioÂn Cientõ®ca y TecnoloÂgica. Gaston, K.J. and May, R.M. (1992) Taxonomy of taxonomists. Nature 356, 281±2.

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