Commentary What has Happened to Descriptive ...

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Systematic Botany (2001), 26(2): pp. 438–442 q Copyright 2001 by the American Society of Plant Taxonomists

Commentary What has Happened to Descriptive Systematics? What Would Make it Thrive? LESLIE R. LANDRUM Department of Plant Biology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287-1601 Communicating Editor: Richard Jensen ‘‘Phylogenetic reconstruction, currently the dominating focus of systematics, obviously is worth doing, but more scientifically important and far more urgent for human welfare is the description and mapping of the world biota.’’ (E. O. Wilson, 2000). I agree wholeheartedly with Wilson’s statement. The fascinating field of phylogenetic reconstruction has become the principal topic of discussion in our journals, meetings, and often in classes. But as we reconstruct phylogenies, the very tips of the phylogenetic branches are disappearing. The quality of our lives and certainly that of our descendants depends on ameliorating the destructive forces of population growth and the ‘‘advance of civilization.’’ The present ‘‘mass extinction,’’ caused by human activities, is not so dramatic as that at the end of the Cretaceous, and we should be aiming to make it less severe as well. As systematists it is our job to describe and map the world’s living creatures, activities that are the cornerstones of conservation. Floras, faunas, and monographs, what I call descriptive systematics, accomplish this. So why is the important work of classifying the world’s organisms and making that information available progressing so slowly? In recent years there has been a general narrowing of the types of systematic research (Lammers 1999) and a neglect of traditional systematics (Kruckeberg 1997). In this paper I attempt to explain why this is happening and propose possible solutions. I believe there are five contributing factors. First, descriptive systematics is time-consuming work. Writing monographs and floras is a slow process. One first must become familiar with the group being studied (just as one needs to learn the basics of a language before saying anything coherent in it), and if it is a large group that takes a long time. The largest groups are avoided, and only become larger and more complex as some systematist (preferably a well-informed one) increases their size by describing more taxa. Because productivity of descriptive systematists largely depends on experi-

ence, it is no surprise that they are often most productive in the later years of their lives. But are our recently lost monographers and compilers of floras (e.g., Arthur Cronquist, Al Gentry, Reed Rollins, Lyman Smith, John Wurdack, Rupert Barneby, Duane Isely) being replaced by younger workers? I think not. And in these days, society needs to do more than replace them. This kind of scientist is more necessary than ever before and their numbers ideally would be increasing. There will never be a time better than the present to conduct an inventory of the world biota. Second, the current measures of value do not favor descriptive plant systematists. Scientists, and the administrators (e.g., university deans and presidents) who judge them, tend to view scientists much like many animals view each other when choosing a mate. We tend to focus on particular qualities rather than on the whole scientist. In animals, what is truly important is how many reproducing descendants each has. With scientists, it should be the contribution in knowledge and ideas one makes to new generations of scientists and the world at large. But with some animals it becomes the size of horns or the gaudiness of plumage that counts; by analogy, with scientists it becomes the number of publications and the amount of money raised to do one’s science. Many valuable taxonomic papers are long, often several hundred pages long, and take years to produce. Furthermore, aside from salary, they can be done relatively inexpensively. The current popular measures of professional value (numbers of publications, money raised) do not favor descriptive systematists. I can imagine measures of value that would favor descriptive systematists. One might be the longev-

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ity of the usefulness of their publications, but unfortunately it only helps in retrospect. Arizona Flora by T. H. Kearney and R. H. Peebles, and collaborators was last updated with a supplement in 1960, but came out in its first version 1942. Kearney and Peebles died in 1956, but their work is still used daily by numerous students of Arizona plants. Third, systematic knowledge is assumed to be free. How valuable is it to be able to identify a plant with some certainty? I would say it is so valuable, so vital to our survival, that we expect it to be free. Descriptive plant systematics, like motherly love, or the air we breathe, is expected to come without cost. How many of the contributors to the Jepson Manual or the Flora of North America project were paid for their work? Beyond a small editorial staff, I fear that few were. Such work is supposed to be complimentary, pro bono. It always has been. Fourth is what I call the zealous convert or band wagon effect. If one does what is popular and is successful at it, then one becomes a stock-holder in the status quo. As Wilson (2000) points out, the current interest is in phylogenetic reconstruction. If you have been trained to believe that this is the most important activity for systematists, and if you have been successful at raising money to do this kind of work, then you will encourage others to do the same by training more students and praising grant proposals for this kind of systematics. Zealous converts measure their confidence in what they are doing by how many others are doing the same thing and especially by how many more can be converted to that way of thinking. Diversity in research topics and methods is desirable if science is to creatively open new horizons. But diversity ultimately depends upon the availability of funding or, at the least, jobs for different kinds of systematists. Monographers are often phylogeneticists themselves, but consider their phylogenetic hypotheses, made after the monograph is complete, to be the ‘‘icing on the cake’’ rather than the cake itself. Last is the perception we have of ourselves and that others have of us. If we consider descriptive systematics to be ‘‘old fashioned’’ and of little significance, there is not much hope that others will support it. But as Wilson (2000) has suggested, if it is ‘‘more scientifically important and far more urgent for human welfare’’ than phylogenetic systematics and in fact, nearly all other kinds of science, then we should not apologize for continuing to accumulate the basic information upon which all other branches of science depend. What are the consequences of neglecting descrip-

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tive systematics? We now have an incomplete inventory of the world biota when it is most needed. According to one calculation, approximately one fourth of the neotropical angiosperms are still undescribed (Thomas 1999) and at the present rate it will take hundreds of years to complete the inventory of the Neotropics (Mori 1992). Young plant systematists spend their formative years learning about laboratory and computer techniques rather than plants. Many ecological studies depend upon parataxonomists. (I suppose if there were a shortage of statisticians they would depend on parastatisticians.) Popular plant identification books (often admirably well done) are being written by non-professionals, because professionals do not have the time or because they think that such work would be considered of little value by their peers. Graduate students must pursue the current popular research topics or risk being left without a job or funding, which has the unhealthy effect of narrowing research in systematics. Another undesirable result is that fewer monographs are being written by graduate students. Charles Darwin’s good friend and scientific confidant, botanist J. D. Hooker, suggested that if one were going to write a book about species origins that he would do well to study some group of species. Darwin took this advice seriously and put off working on the Origin to occupy eight years of his life monographing Cirripedia (barnacles). In his autobiography he says: ‘‘The Cirripedes form a highly varying and difficult group of species to class; and my work was of considerable use to me, when I had to discuss in the Origin of Species the principles of natural classification. Nevertheless, I doubt whether the work was worth the consumption of so much time’’ (F. Darwin 1958, p.41). His last statement is not surprising. Most monographers think they have taken too much time to finish their work. Hooker later wrote to Darwin’s son Francis, ‘‘Your father recognized three stages in his career as a biologist: the mere collector at Cambridge; the collector and observer in the Beagle, and for some years afterwards; and the trained naturalist after, and only after the Cirripede work.’’ And T. H. Huxley wrote, ‘‘In my opinion your sagacious father never did a wiser thing than when he devoted himself to the years of patient toil which the Cirripede-book cost him,’’ (F. Darwin 1958, 166). Evidently Darwin saw the need for basic taxonomic information because in his later life he provided the funds for the compilation of Index Kewensis. It seems to me Hooker’s counsel to Charles Dar-

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win is still sound advice in the 21st century. If one is going to be a student of evolution (and we all should be), one will acquire irreplaceable training by getting to know some group intimately by writing a monograph. The World would be a better place if more people were working on the inventory of its biota. How could they be encouraged to do so? First, systematists as a community should support colleagues that choose to invest their time to doing the inventory. Inventory, obviously not the ‘‘cutting edge’’ technologically, is vital nonetheless, and is the ‘‘cutting edge’’ in that it explores the unknown. We all use what is known about the systematics of plants as a basis for work in ecology, ethnobiology, biochemistry, agronomy, conservation, paleontology, or phylogenetic studies; even though we may not want to spend our own time on inventory, we should support others who do. Second, when given the opportunity, systematists should enlighten administrators and other scientists about the importance of inventorying the world biota and let them know just how far away we are from that goal.—‘‘Are there 100 million species in the world or merely 2 million? Sorry, no one knows.’’—Best estimates put the number near 10 million but only 1.4 million have been described (World Resources Institute, 1992). Nor do we have a consensus on the number of species of angiosperms, the most well-known plants: Cronquist (1988, p. 261) suggests that there are 215,000 and Mabberley (1997, p. 39) says that there are 249,500. Prance et al. (2000) believe that there may be as many as 320,000! We are in the dark about how many species are found in many large genera. For instances, Airy Shaw (1973) suggested that there are 700 species of Miconia Ruiz & Pavo´n, but more recent estimates exceed 1000 (F. Almeda, pers. comm.). I recently finished a treatment of Berberis L. in southern South America (Landrum 1999) in which I recognize 20 species. Ahrendt (1961) accepted about 60 species for the same area. Campomanesia Ruiz & Pavo´n (Landrum 1986) was thought to have 25 species in 1986, but since then five more have come to light, a 20% increase. Administrators must be made to understand that just because the work of a descriptive systematist does not consume vast sums of money, does not mean that it is not valuable. The nature of the work is that it is time-consuming rather than dollar-consuming. Some may think I am naive to believe administrators are open-minded on this subject. Perhaps my dean is an exception. A few years ago we

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showed him our flora project in progress, the Vascular Plants of Arizona; contributions had been published in three issues of the Journal of the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science. We asked only that he help with future publication costs. He agreed and offered to support with a graduate student research assistantship as well, and has done so for four years now. Third, a new kind of funding should be considered for descriptive systematics. There are two reasons for funding: one is to pay for usually modest expenses, such as travel and perhaps some additional equipment that the scientist needs; the second is to inform the systematist’s home institution that this work is important and appreciated. Descriptive systematics is a critically important field for the welfare of humanity and deserves to be supported separately from other fields. I hope that some agency, government or non-government, will see the wisdom of doing this. It might be called something like the Biodiversity Description and Inventory Fund. It need not be a particularly large fund, but if it were managed in such a way as to maximize the productivity of the descriptive systematics community, its influence would be far reaching. A complicating factor in providing grants for descriptive systematics is that the time required to do good work can be calculated accurately only when it is nearly done. I would favor paying scientists, after they have completed and published a portion of their work, based principally on a peer review of what they have finished. These grants would be used for future work in the way that grants are now with the PI accountable for expenses. With such a system, the most efficient, productive systematists would receive the most grant money. Anyone who does good work, even if it takes a long time, could receive money for future work. In our present system, in which the more money one spends the more highly one is evaluated, efficient use of funds is not encouraged. Getting the most mileage out of a particular problem is probably the best academic survival strategy, and thus encourages inefficiency. The proposed emphasis on funding based primarily on past productivity, getting the most out the funds available, would be an attempt to correct this flaw. I think grants should be of modest size and distributed to several workers who are productive. Instead of granting $100,000 or $200,000 to one worker, it would be better to give $10,000 to $20,000 to ten. Stimulating ten scientists into action is much

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better than sending nine back to the drawing board, hoping that next time they will win the lottery. For instance, if all contributors to the Flora of North America Project received, based on the work they had completed, a small grant to be used for future treatments, the project would proceed more quickly. One million dollars could be stretched to support 100 descriptive systematists. The National Science Foundation PEET grants were first awarded in 1995 (Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy; http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/ 2000/nsf00140/nsf00140.htm). These have as their major goals: monography, training of new taxonomists, and use of computer infrastructure in data storage, analysis, and dissemination of results. So far 40 five-year grants have been made that are usually in the $550,000 to $750,000 range (nhm.ukans.edu/peet), and are made preferentially to scientists studying ‘‘understudied’’ groups such as marine invertebrates, fungi, and bryophytes. This seems to be an excellent program, but I think the wealth would be better spent if it were spread more widely. NSF has guided the course of research in the United States by making some kinds of research lucrative, and seems to be attempting to do this with the PEET program, but with large grants such as these only a relative few can be supported. An inventory of the world biota requires more than 40 labs. NSF might have a positive influence by making the small grants I suggest, and accompanying them with six months of salary. That would put them in the range of $30,000 to $60,000, about one fifteenth of the average PEET grant. The dilemma of young systematists at major universities is first to find research problems with sufficient grant potential to get hired and then to secure enough grant money to obtain tenure. Descriptive systematics does not have much grant potential unless it is combined with something else, which only takes money and man-hours away from the work that needs to be done. I see no good solution for young descriptive systematists at major universities unless they are lucky enough to have an enlightened administrator. Research as a fund raising mechanism and grant money as a status symbol are the root causes of descriptive systematics’ problems. On the other hand, many systematists are working in principally teaching jobs or in other countries. The small grants I propose would be welcome indeed to many of them. Many believe that molecular phylogenetic studies should be a part of all monographic studies, but it is not an efficient use of resources for each insti-

tution to have its own molecular lab. So finally, I propose that there be a few excellent molecular labs, manned by trained specialists, that support several monographers, perhaps in a ratio of one lab to ten monographers. In that way the inventory could proceed more rapidly and still benefit from the latest innovations. Beyond making an inventory of the world biota, descriptive systematics discovers the pattern in nature. Trying to explain that pattern is what leads to hypotheses of, for instance, homology and phytogeography. The more clearly the pattern of nature as it now exists is known, the more useful and interesting will be the hypotheses generated, in particular, those about now extinct branching events. Thus descriptive systematics and phylogenetic systematics are complementary. As Donoghue and Alverson (2000, p. 116) have recently stated, ‘‘Biodiversity is not just about species, at the tips of the tree, but about the whole tree of life. . . . Phylogenetic research should therefore be viewed as a welcome addition to, rather than a competitor with, the study of species diversity.’’ Yes, I welcome phylogenetic research. It makes systematics more interesting. I ask those that practice it as a principal research interest to not forget that without the massive amount of information available to them from descriptive systematics they would have made little progress. Furthermore, saving the tips of the tree, not the extinct interior, is what conservation is about. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. I thank Frank Almeda, Ted Barkley, Nancy Hensold, Nancy Morin, Don Pinkava, Wayt Thomas, and the systematics graduate students at Arizona State University for their ideas and suggestions. I especially thank Gretchen Walters for bringing Wilson’s paper to my attention. Richard Jensen and two anonymous reviewers helped to improve this paper. Probably none of these colleagues would agree with everything I have said. I take full responsibility for the opinions and proposals in this paper.

LITERATURE CITED AIRY SHAW, H. K. 1973. A dictionary of the flowering plants and ferns. Eighth ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. AHRENDT, L. 1961. Berberis and Mahonia, a taxonomic revision. Journal of the Linnean Society, Botany 57: 1– 410. CRONQUIST, A. 1988. The evolution and classification of flowering plants. Second ed. Bronx, New York: New York Botanical Garden. DARWIN, F., editor. 1958. The autobiography of Charles

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Darwin and selected letters. Reprint of 1892 edition. New York: Dover Publications. DONOGHUE, M. J. and W. S. ALVERSON. 2000. A new age of discovery. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 87: 110–126. KEARNEY, T. H., R. H. PEEBLES, and collaborators. 1960. Arizona flora. Second ed. with supplement by J. T. Howell, Elizabeth McClintock and collaborators. Berkeley: University of California Press. KRUCKEBERG, A. R. 1997. Essay: whither plant taxonomy in the 21st century? Systematic Botany 22(1): 181–182. LAMMERS, T. G. 1999. Plant systematics today: all our eggs in one basket? Systematic Botany 24: 494–496. LANDRUM, L. R. 1986. Campomanesia, Pimenta, Blepharocalyx, Legrandia, Acca, Myrrhinium, and Luma (Myrtaceae). Flora Neotropica monograph 45: 1–178.

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———. 1999. Revision of Berberis (Berberidaceae) in Chile and adjacent southern Argentina. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 86: 793–834. MABBERLEY, D. J. 1997. The plant-book. Second ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MORI, S. 1992. Neotropical floristics: who will do the work? Brittonia 44: 372–375. PRANCE, G. T., H. BEENTJE, J. DRANSFIELD, and R. JOHNS. 2000. The tropical flora remains undercollected. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 87: 67–71. THOMAS, W. W. 1999. Conservation and monographic research on the flora of Tropical America. Biodiversity and Conservation 8: 1007–1915. WILSON, E. O. 2000. On the future of conservation biology. Conservation Biology 14(1): 1–3. 2000. World Resources Institute 1992. How many species are there? www.igc.org/wri/biodiv/b02-gbs.html.