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Systematics, or taxonomy, is at the base of biodiversity studies for the simple
reason that if species cannot be identified they cannot be studied or marked for
preservation. Systematics creates two key products, monographs and inventories.
Monographs are complete classifications of particular groups of organisms for some
larger part of the world, such as the ferns of tropical America or the Danaid butterflies
of the world. The ideal monograph describes the species in the group, presents
the available information on their distribution and natural history and interprets
their evolutionary history. When appropriate monographs are available, inventories
can be conducted of particular sites, including the hot spots of greatest interest
in conservation. Typical inventories might include lists of the ferns, butterflies, or
ideally all the species found in a rainforest on Cape York or the Chocó region of
Colombia. The urgency in the need for systematics research comes from the fact
that few appropriate monographs actually exist, forestalling inventories of any but
a small number of relatively well-known groups such as flowering plants and birds
and other vertebrates. As I noted earlier, the vast majority of species of invertebrates,
fungi and microorganisms have not even been discovered, let alone described.
There is a great need to promote monographic work on selected groups that are so
different from flowering plants and vertebrates in their biology as to occupy unique
places in the ecosystem and require special techniques in conservation. For adventurous
scientists, these other groups await exploration in the field in the same way
that elephants, gorillas and rhododendrons awaited exploration in the last century.
Organismic biology moves us one level of organization down from systematics,
rather than up. It comprises the physiology, genetics and life cycle studies of
individual organisms. Once species have been distinguished taxonomically, those
of most importance can be determined on the basis of whether they are keystone
species, or close to extinction, or of potential economic importance, or offer extraordinary
new biological phenomena for scrutiny. Detailed analysis can assess their
status and role in the ecosystem.
The next logical link in the chain is population biology, moving us back to
the level of the species. Here we study the traits of whole populations, species by
species, including the detailed distribution of each (selected) population, its fluctuation
in size through time and hence its susceptibility to local extinction, and its
internal genetic diversity—also important as a factor in potential extinction.
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