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S OME SPECIES OF LEECHES CONTAIN THE CHEMICAL HIRUDIN AND THE ENZYME HYALURONIDASE, BOTH OF WHICH ARE USED IN MEDICINE. B i o l o g i c a l 4 D i v e r s i t y
Some groups of organisms, such as fungi and mites (small spider-like organisms that abound in the leaf litter and soil) are so poorly studied that it is possible to find new species within a few miles of almost any locality in the United States, including the most densely populated urban areas. In the Chocó region of Colombia, as many as half the plant species, including trees and shrubs, still lack a scientific name. Even new species of mammals still turn up occasionally. In the past several years, a new deer, a kind of muntjac, was found in western China, and a new monkey, the sun-tailed guenon, was discovered in Gabon. We know less about life on earth than we know about the surface of the moon and Mars—in part because far less money has been spent studying it. Taxonomy, the study of classification and hence of biological diversity, has been allowed to dwindle, while other important fields such as space exploration and biomedical studies have flourished. Like glass-blowing and harpsichord manufacture, taxonomy of many kinds of organisms has been left in the hands of a small number of unappreciated specialists who have had few opportunities to train their successors. To take one of hundreds of examples, two of the four most abundant groups of small animals of the soil are springtails and oribatid mites. Marvelously varied, having complex life cycles, and teeming by the millions in every acre of land, these tiny animals play vital ecological roles by consuming dead vegetable matter. Thus they help to drive the energy and materials cycles on which all of life depends. Yet there are only four specialists in the United States who can identify springtails—one is retired—and only one is an expert on oribatid mites. The reason that so little is heard about these important organisms in the scientific literature and popular press is that there are so few people who know enough to write about them at any level. The general neglect of expertise in the face of overwhelming need and opportunity rebounds to the weakness of many other enterprises in science and education. Museums are understaffed, with too few biologists to develop research collections and prepare exhibitions. Systematics, the branch of biology that employs taxonomy and the study of similarities among species to work out the evolution of groups of organisms, is able to address only a minute fraction of life. Biogeography, the analysis of the distribution of organisms, is similarly hobbled. So is ecology, the extremely important discipline that explores the relationships of organisms B i o l o g i c a l 5 D i v e r s i t y
Page 1: Biological Diversity: T H E O L D E
Page 4 and 5: THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW
Page 6 and 7: Copyright © 1999 by The New York S
Page 9 and 10: Preface This book is based on a man
Page 11 and 12: Additional information on the activ
Page 13 and 14: Biological Diversity: T H E O L D E
Page 15: some degree of potency. A much high
Page 19 and 20: to their environment and to one ano
Page 21 and 22: N EW YORK’S BIODIVERSITY IS THREA
Page 23 and 24: 12 10 Number of Butterflies Observe
Page 25 and 26: It is possible that the next hundre
Page 27 and 28: environment. For almost 3 billion y
Page 29 and 30: W ITH ITS WISPINESS AND LIGHT-AND-D
Page 31 and 32: sophisticated microscopic and bioch
Page 33 and 34: The tropical zones generally have a
Page 35 and 36: average as well as greater ecologic
Page 37 and 38: early extinction within the next 30
Page 39 and 40: perished. As the paleontologist Dav
Page 41 and 42: collected in the stream in 1936 and
Page 43 and 44: Systematics, or taxonomy, is at the
Page 45 and 46: Community ecology addresses the man
Page 47 and 48: Biological field stations from four
Page 49 and 50: Biogeography 1 The scientific study
Page 51 and 52: Dispersal In biology, the way a spe
Page 53 and 54: Global warming An increase in the c
Page 55 and 56: Ozone A form of oxygen (O 3 ) that
Page 57 and 58: Termites A group of insects that is
Page 59 and 60: Grifo, Francesca, and J. Rosenthal
Page 61 and 62: diverse and why the threat to that
Page 63 and 64: Mitchell, Richard S., L. Danaher, a
Page 65 and 66: 9. Is an ecologist the same as a ta
Page 67 and 68:
31. Do you know of a biological res
Page 69 and 70:
B i o l o g i c a l 57 D i v e r s
Page 72:
THE NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM IS A PROG
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