Comparative Parasitology 67(1) 2000 - Peru State College

Comp. Parasitol.
67(1). 2000 pp. 1-25
Triage for the Biosphere: The Need and Rationale for Taxoiiomic
Inventories and Phylogeiietic Studies of Parasites
DANIEL R. BROOKS' AND ERIC P. HoBERG2 ^
1 Department of Zoology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G5, Canada
(e-mail: dbrooks@zoo.utoronto.ca) and
2 Biosystematics and National Parasite Collection Unit, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research
Service, BARC East No. 1 180, 10300 Baltimore Avenue, Beltsville, Maryland 20715, U.S.A.
(e-mail: ehoberg@lpsi.barc.usda.gov).
ABSTRACT: A parasitological perspective in biodiversity survey and inventory provides powerful insights into
the history, structure, and maintenance of the biosphere. Parasitology contributes a powerful conceptual paradigm
or landscape that links ecology, systematics, evolution, biogeography, behavior, and an array of biological
phenomena from the molecular to the organismal level across the continuum of microparasites to macroparasites
and their vertebrate and invertebrate hosts. Effective survey and inventory can be strategically focused or can
take a synoptic approach, such as that represented by the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory. We argue that
parasitology should be an integral component of any programs for biodiversity assessment on local, regional, or
global scales. Taxonomists, who constitute the global taxasphere, hold the key to the development of effective
surveys and inventories and eventual linkage to significant environmental and socioeconomic issues. The taxasphere
is like a triage team. The "battlefield" is the biosphere, and the "war" is human activities that degrade
the biosphere. Sadly, at the point in time that we reali/,e we have documented only a tiny portion of the world's
diversity, and want to document more, we find that one of the most rare and declining groups of biologists is
the taxasphere. This taxonomic impediment, or critical lack of global taxonomic expertise recognized by Systematics
Agenda 2000 and DIVERSITAS, prevents initiation and completion of biodiversity research programs
at a critical juncture, where substantial components of global diversity are threatened. The Convention for
Biological Diversity mandates that we document the biosphere more fully, and as a consequence, it is necessary
to revitalize the taxasphere. One foundation for development of laxonomic expertise and knowledge is the Global
Taxonomy Initiative and its 3 structural components: (1) systematic inventory, (2) predictive classifications, and
(3) systematic knowledge bases. We argue that inclusion of parasites is critical to the success of the Global
Taxonomy Initiative. Predictive databases that integrate ecological and phylogenetic knowledge from the study
of parasites are synergistic, adding substantially greater ecological, historical, and biogeographic context for the
study of the biosphere than that derived from data on free-living organisms alone.
KEY WORDS: biodiversity, biosphere. Global Taxonomy Initiative, inventory, parasites, phylogeny, survey,
taxonomy.
A Biodiversity Perspective knowledge. They can (1) focus on local, region-
Biodiversity represents a continuum across a al> or §lobal scales^ (2> emphasize a specific taxvariety
of scales, encompassing numerical, eco- on (e-g- host or parasite) or ecosystem; (3) be
logical, and phylogenetic components within a oriented in strategic or problem-based perspectemporal-spatial
framework or fabric (Ricklefs, tives; or (4) be broadly synoptic, such as the
1987; Barrowclough, 1992; Eldredge, 1992; approaches linked to the concept of the All Taxa
Hoberg, 1997a). Any definition of biodiversity, Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI) (Janzen, 1993).
then, must parallel this continuum across scales Further continua are circumscribed within the
driven by habitats, ecosystems, and communi- sphere of strictly curiosity-based acquisition of
ties, genetic diversity in populations and species, knowledge, with eventual affiliation to economic
genealogy and taxonomy, and history and ge- and societal concerns. The scope of the problem
ography. Different definitions are associated may help determine the appropriate approach,
with an array of research programs for survey but there is little question that the state of the
and inventory that seek different kinds of biosphere should be a profound concern for science
and society (Ehrlich and Wilson, 1991;
1 Corresponding author. Senior authorship designat- Wilson, 1992; Smith et al., 1993; Savage, 1995).
ed arbitrarily. We explore this intricate web to examine the
Copyright © 2011, The Helminthological Society of Washington