CONTENT - International Society of Zoological Sciences

S3 ICZ2008 - Abstracts
S4 - SYSTEMA NATURAE 250 - The Linnean Ark-250 years of animal names
Daniel Rolander’s Diarium Surinamicum and its Insects
James Dobreff
Lund University, Research Fellow Manager, Daniel Rolander Project,
Götgatan 81, 5tr, SE- 116 62 Stockholm, Sweden
This talk will explain why Linnaeus apostle Daniel Rolander’s
Diarium Surinamicum has remained, until very recently, unknown to
nearly all of the scientific community and why he has suffered a
horrendous reputation in his Swedish homeland. Finally, Rolander’s
treatment of insects will be presented along with several key
passages from the historical critical edition of the Latin text which the
speaker is currently editing.
Rolander (c.1723-1793) had been one of Linnaeus’s most promising
students. He resided with Linnaeus for four years, while tutoring Carl
Jr. In 1754 he was selected to document the Dutch colony of
Suriname according to Linnaean methods. After seven months in
Suriname and arduous journeys to and from Suriname, he returned
to Sweden in 1756. His health had suffered from two serious fevers.
He refused to show his specimens or journal notes to Linnaeus,
which eventually caused their complete estrangement. He completed
the last draft of the Diarium in Denmark in 1765. Besides a few short
passages, it was never published.
The speaker is currently preparing a critical edition of the Latin text
and was the coordinating translator of the forthcoming English
translation of the Diarium.
Linnaeus - A passion for order
David Quammen
Bozeman, Montana, USA
Carl Linnaeus stated in his Philosophia Botanica (1751) “If you do
not know the names of things, the knowledge of them is lost too".
Seven years later he extended to animals the Latin binomial system
already established by him for plants. Although Linnaeus built on the
earlier work of Aristotle, Fuchs, Ray and Pitton de Tournefort, he is
justifiably regarded as the "father of taxonomy". Despite his
classifying Homo sapiens with monkeys and apes, he was no
evolutionist but a committed creationist. However, his religious
beliefs did not prevent him from striving to embrace the entire
diversity of nature for its own sake as well as for its practical uses.
Linnaeus's colossal achievements constitute an act of human
heroism, and a 250-year long legacy that we have a moral duty both
to preserve and to build upon.
- 18 -
The naming of threatened animal and plant species – a matter of
life and death
Gordon McGregor Reid
North of England Zoological Society, Zoological Gardens Chester,
Cheshire, UK
Following the Systema Naturae of Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) the
naming of species and other taxa remains the fundamental activity of
taxonomists. There are now >1.8 million scientifically named, living
organisms: 13 new
amphibian species were recognized each month. Counteracting
such trends is an increased number added to the IUCN Red List of
species threatened with extinction, including 43% of freshwater
fishes, 32% of amphibians, 23% of mammals and 12% of birds in
2007. Costs to implement the IUCN Amphibian Conservation Action
Plan are estimated at >€257 million. The price of saving individual
species can be high, up to €32 million for Californian condor; and an
individual elephant in a zoo breeding programme may cost >€45,
000 per annum to maintain. Conservation strategies organized in
situ or ex situ often depend on the biological validity and
nomenclatural stability of taxonomic names and the scientific cum
philosophical integrity of species concepts; and are subject to costly
legal challenges by land developers. The contemporary recognition
(or de-recognition) of new species or subspecies among longestablished
animal groups such as Amazon parrots, elephants,
jaguars and orang-utans has substantial wildlife management
implications. Today, justification and conservation prioritisation of
names can be a matter of life or death in terms of species survival.
Fossils and Linnaean classification
Hans-Dieter Sues
National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, USA
As the remains of long extinct organisms, fossils are inherently
incomplete. Even the most exquisitely preserved specimens contain
but a fraction of the total original biological information about the
organisms documented by them. Consequently, classifying fossils
has proven to be challenging ever since the introduction of the
Linnean system of classification. Fossils represent critical evidence
for understanding of the evolution and diversity of Life, and thus must
be included into classifications based on extant organisms. This was
already recognized by paleontologists working in a pre-Darwinian
framework. Over the years researchers have proposed various
paleontological species concepts (e.g., chronospecies), but none of
these has proven useful and been widely adopted. Species of extinct
organisms can be based on the presence of unique morphological
character-states or unique combinations of features, as is commonly
done for extant species. However, it is important to keep the nature
of such extinct taxa in mind when using them to address biological
questions such as detailed changes in biodiversity over geological
time.