Authors
Scott A Thomson, Richard L Pyle, Shane T Ahyong, Miguel Alonso-Zarazaga, Joe Ammirati, Juan Francisco Araya, John S Ascher, Tracy Lynn Audisio, Valter M Azevedo-Santos, Nicolas Bailly, William J Baker, Michael Balke, Maxwell VL Barclay, Russell L Barrett, Ricardo C Benine, James RM Bickerstaff, Patrice Bouchard, Roger Bour, Thierry Bourgoin, Christopher B Boyko, Abraham SH Breure, Denis J Brothers, James W Byng, David Campbell, Luis MP Ceríaco, István Cernák, Pierfilippo Cerretti, Chih-Han Chang, Soowon Cho, Joshua M Copus, Mark J Costello, Andras Cseh, Csaba Csuzdi, Alastair Culham, Guillermo D’elía, Cédric d’Udekem d’Acoz, Mikhail E Daneliya, René Dekker, Edward C Dickinson, Timothy A Dickinson, Peter Paul van Dijk, Klaas-Douwe B Dijkstra, Bálint Dima, Dmitry A Dmitriev, Leni Duistermaat, John P Dumbacher, Wolf L Eiserhardt, Torbjørn Ekrem, Neal L Evenhuis, Arnaud Faille, José L Fernández-Triana, Emile Fiesler, Mark Fishbein, Barry G Fordham, André VL Freitas, Natália R Friol, Uwe Fritz, Tobias Frøslev, Vicki A Funk, Stephen D Gaimari, Guilherme ST Garbino, André RS Garraffoni, József Geml, Anthony C Gill, Alan Gray, Felipe G Grazziotin, Penelope Greenslade, Eliécer E Gutiérrez, Mark S Harvey, Cornelis J Hazevoet, Kai He, Xiaolan He, Stephan Helfer, Kristofer M Helgen, Anneke H van Heteren, Francisco Hita Garcia, Norbert Holstein, Margit K Horváth, Peter H Hovenkamp, Wei Song Hwang, Jaakko Hyvönen, Melissa B Islam, John B Iverson, Michael A Ivie, Zeehan Jaafar, Morgan D Jackson, J Pablo Jayat, Norman F Johnson, Hinrich Kaiser, Bente B Klitgård, Dániel G Knapp, Jun-ichi Kojima, Urmas Kõljalg, Jenő Kontschán, Frank-Thorsten Krell, Irmgard Krisai-Greilhuber, Sven Kullander, Leonardo Latella, John E Lattke, Valeria Lencioni, Gwilym P Lewis, Marcos G Lhano, Nathan K Lujan, Jolanda A Luksenburg, Jean Mariaux, Jader Marinho-Filho, Christopher J Marshall, Jason F Mate, Molly M McDonough, Ellinor Michel, Vitor FO Miranda, Mircea-Dan Mitroiu, Jesús Molinari, Scott Monks, Abigail J Moore, Ricardo Moratelli, Dávid Murányi, Takafumi Nakano, Svetlana Nikolaeva, John Noyes, Michael Ohl, Nora H Oleas, Thomas Orrell, Barna Páll-Gergely, Thomas Pape, Viktor Papp, Lynne R Parenti, David Patterson, Igor Ya Pavlinov, Ronald H Pine, Péter Poczai, Jefferson Prado, Divakaran Prathapan, Richard K Rabeler, John E Randall, Frank E Rheindt, Anders GJ Rhodin, Sara M Rodríguez, D Christopher Rogers, Fabio de O Roque, Kevin C Rowe, Luis A Ruedas, Jorge Salazar-Bravo, Rodrigo B Salvador, George Sangster, Carlos E Sarmiento, Dmitry S Schigel, Stefan Schmidt, Frederick W Schueler, Hendrik Segers
Publication date
2018/3/14
Journal
PLoS biology
Volume
16
Issue
3
Pages
e2005075
Publisher
Public Library of Science
Description
Taxonomy is a scientific discipline that has provided the universal naming and classification system of biodiversity for centuries and continues effectively to accommodate new knowledge. A recent publication by Garnett and Christidis [1] expressed concerns regarding the difficulty that taxonomic changes represent for conservation efforts and proposed the establishment of a system to govern taxonomic changes. Their proposal to “restrict the freedom of taxonomic action” through governing subcommittees that would “review taxonomic papers for compliance” and their assertion that “the scientific community’s failure to govern taxonomy threatens the effectiveness of global efforts to halt biodiversity loss, damages the credibility of science, and is expensive to society” are flawed in many respects. They also assert that the lack of governance of taxonomy damages conservation efforts, harms the credibility of science, and is costly to society. Despite its fairly recent release, Garnett and Christidis’ proposition has already been rejected by a number of colleagues [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. Herein, we contribute to the conversation between taxonomists and conservation biologists aiming to clarify some misunderstandings and issues in the proposition by Garnett and Christidis. Placing governance over the science of taxonomy blurs the distinction between taxonomy and nomenclature. Garnett and Christidis’s proposal is far-reaching but represents a narrow perspective of taxonomy, as utilized by conservation, and reflects an increasingly broad misunderstanding throughout biology of the scientific basis of taxonomy, formalized nomenclature, and the relationship …
Scholar articles
SA Thomson, RL Pyle, ST Ahyong, M Alonso-Zarazaga… - PLoS biology, 2018