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QUESTIONNAIRE
U.S.- German Network and Programme
“Acceleration of Biodiversity Assessment“
(Result of a conference held by NSF and DFG in Washington, Nov. 6-8 2005).
Speakers of the transatlantic network “Acceleration of Biodiversity Assessment“ are:
Lynn Bohs, Dept. of Biology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0840, USA, phone 801585-0380, fax 801-581-4668, [email protected]
Wolfgang Waegele, Zoological Research-Museum Bonn, Adenauerallee 160, 53113 Bonn,
Germany.
The speakers of this network ask you to consider if you want to participate in the research
programme described below. We intend to develop this programme, to intensify our
transatlantic cooperation and to present funding agencies a concept that has the potential
to increase available expertise, to improve and disseminate technologies and knowledge.
The programme will help to protect biodiversity and to advance taxonomic and ecological
research.
For this purpose we are compiling ideas and the names of interested scientists. If you would
like to participate, please help us and send us more information about your field of research
and your potential contributions. You can distribute this information to other American or
German scientists that may be interested.
If you have additional ideas or recommendations, please tell us!
The motivation
While natural habitats are disappearing at a breathtaking pace and probably hundreds of
species are exterminated every year, the number of taxonomists that are able to inventory
biodiversity and to monitor changes has been decreasing substantially in the past decades.
There are many reasons why in this situation an acceleration of biodiversity inventorying and
species description must have a high priority in research planning:
a) Conservation of biodiversity for future generations
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Arguments supporting the conservation of natural habitats usually require evidence
for the presence of species.
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Monitoring of changes in the biosphere must be based on taxonomic inventories at
species level. Identification of invasive species requires taxonomic expertise.
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The quality of environmental surveys depends on the precision and coverage of
species identifications
b) Advancement of science
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Ecological projects very often do not contain inventories of relevant organisms
present in habitats, simply because funding was insufficient to pay for the required
number of taxonomists. Since this will probably not change in future, new
technologies must be developed that allow any biologist after some training to
identify species in an efficient and reliable way. Most schemes of biomass and energy
flow and models of the function of complex ecosystems are not based on knowledge
about the interactions between species that compose the systems, because the
species could not be identified and their biology is unknown.
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Biogeographic analyses require species identification from a large number of
samples. This is time consuming and is therefore usually done for only a few selected
species.
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Acceleration of identification methods would free taxonomists from tedious work that
occupies time better spent on cutting-edge research
c) Capacity building
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Universities in Europe and America have lost expertise in biological systematics and
taxonomy. Most specialists survive in museums of natural history, however, it is often
not guaranteed that their knowledge will be passed to the next generation.
d) Public awareness
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Successful research projects, especially if receiving substantial funding, attract the
attention of other scientists and of public media. This will increase the valuation of
both, taxonomy and biodiversity and will help to stop the loss of expertise in
universities.
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It is therefore desirable to include outreach activities.
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Acceleration of species identification and description would also prevent the
frequently heard accusation that “taxonomists are too slow”.
e) Jobs
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Standardized and automated methods could be the basis for the start of new
enterprises that offer rapid, reliable and cheap species identifications. These are
required wherever laws demand surveys of biodiversity or where the success of
environmental management plans has to be verified.
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There is hope that demand for taxonomic expertise (which includes knowledge about
species distribution, autecology, life cycles) will increase when it becomes easier to
detect the presence of species, and that the valuation of experts will improve.
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A higher profile and more funding for taxonomic projects will create more positions for
taxonomists
Goals for research projects
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Acceleration of sorting of samples
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Acceleration of inventorying the unknown biodiversity, including undescribed species
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Acceleration of re-identification of already described species
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To render possible the re-identification of undescribed species or populations (e.g. via
barcoding)
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Enhancement of the reliability of species identification
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Acceleration of species descriptions
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Application of new technologies for monitoring of biodiversity observatories and for
biodiversity research in selected habitats of special scientific or public interest
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The ultimate goal is to inventory all species of the globe. This will not be possible within
the next 10 years, however, we want to improve and develop the technology and
information networks required to reach this goal.
It is clear that several aspects of our goals are related to service functions. Taxonomists may
hesitate to offer their expertise for this purpose. These persons should consider that “business
as usual”, especially a narrow-minded pursuit of private research interests and absence of
public outreach activities, has led in the past to a loss of valuation of taxonomic research and
also a loss of university positions. One should also keep in mind that the results of our research
programme will help to free the taxonomist from laborious routine work (e.g. determination of
species for ecologists), and that this creates new opportunities for projects that are more
interesting than the mere compilation of species lists.
Development or improvement of technologies
Acceleration requires the development or improvement, test and application of technologies
that are currently not available or not being used by most taxonomists. Any technique that
helps is welcome. Examples:
a) Relevant data that should be made available in the world-wide web and must be
digitalized and included in already existing data bases. Cross-linking of existing data
allows correlation with climate change, land use, predictions of species distributions
and of expected biodiversity changes. Placing information in the internet will speedup taxonomic work. Relevant data are:
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Distribution data
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Pictures of species, like photographs of type material or drawings
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Information on type material
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Taxonomic publications, including existing keys for identification
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Classification lists
b) Identification tools, such as
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Interactive illustrated keys (if possible not dichotomic keys!), digital field guides
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Bioacoustic tools (identification of sounds of birds, bats, grasshoppers)
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Digital image analyses
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Use of molecular markers (DNA-taxonomy and barcoding)
c) Species description tools
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The preparation of drawings is time consuming. However, often drawings can not
be replaced by simple photographs because these may not contain enough
information. We need fast alternative methods to visualize morphological
characters. Possible solutions are three-dimensional images obtained by laserscaning or x-ray microtomography and the automatized creation of graphs.
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Classification lists, descriptions, distribution maps must be made available via the
internet.
d) Sorting tools
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Development of technologies that combine image recognition and mechanical
sorting.
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Use of environmental DNA samples that do not require the separation of single
organisms.
It might be necessary to improve the IT – infrastructure to enhance global cooperation.
Funding
At this stage of our planning the priority is to define an outstanding, innovative and
convincing research programme. We want to present this programme especially to NSF and
DFG, who will decide if and how the funding agencies will support us. Those who can not be
financed directly, e.g. because they belong to federal institutes, should search for partners. It
is essential that projects have a transatlantic component to justify the NSF-DFG cooperation.
Naturally, other sources for funding are not excluded.
It will be necessary to stress the unique contributions of this network.
What can not be funded?
There are a few differences between NSF and DFG. However, in general it is not very
probable that funding agencies will support e.g.
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routine work that belongs to an institute’s normal tasks,
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long-term projects (like monitoring for the next 20 years),
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employment of personnel for more than a few years,
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projects that do not fit to the aims of the network.
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It is not always required that proposals are based on a hypothesis-driven research
program. However, it should be shown that a project delivers more than a collection
of data (e.g. more than mere barcodes). A proposal for the development of some
interesting tool that has no relevant application or that duplicates existing tools has
probably no chance.
QUESTIONS
1) For which taxonomic group are you specialized?
2) What could you contribute to the programme “acceleration of biodiversity
inventorying”? Please
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describe on max. one page a potential research project,
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name partners, if already possible.
3) Can you recommend a biodiversity observatory that should be studied by teams of
our network? What is your preferred workable geographic area that has a high priority
for biodiversity inventorying?
4) What is from your point of view the advantage of this programme? Are there unique
contributions that otherwise would not be possible? Do you expect some innovations?
5) Do you recommend additional focal points? Are there other methods / techniques
not listed above?
Please return your answers before January 30 2006 via email to
[email protected]
Merry Christmas and all the best for 2006!
Lynn Bohs and Wolfgang Waegele