前天刚开过Zoological Systematics（原动物分类学报）的编委会。会上，作为新编委成员，我建议开辟专栏，邀请专家围绕动物系统学的概念、理论、方法等方面的进展和对其它学科的贡献等进行述评。学术期刊是分享科学发现、研究成果的地方，更应该是学术观点纷呈的园地。

恰好最近英国皇家学会会刊发表了一篇传粉者多样性的论文。该论文弱化了最关键的物种鉴定部分，把作出重要贡献的分类学工作者放到了致谢中，忽略了他们在整个项目中的作用和投入的时间。这在蜜蜂分类学者圈中引起了较为热烈的讨论。我把问题也转到昆虫分类鉴定群、ResearchGate、LinkedIn等，期待同行的关注和思考。

实际上，这样的问题不仅仅出现在蜜蜂的研究工作中。以传粉者为例，膜翅目、鞘翅目、双翅目、鳞翅目等四大目物种数量仍然占多数。每个类群的分类、鉴定都是建立在长期的积累基础之上。而到了物种水平，分类学者的结果是慎之又慎。英国拥有英国自然历史博物馆这样超级分类学机构，拥有丰富的模式标本和一流的分类学家。但是，即便是在那里，也有许多类群无法得到轻易的鉴定。以蜜蜂总科为例，Hylaeus，Lasioglossum、Nomada、Sphecodes等种类仍然有大量的种类有待研究并定名。

• 如何优化分类学者和其他学科队伍的科学合理的互动？

• 其他学科工作者对分类学有什么样的需求？

• 分类学者本身有哪些环节有待改进？

• 分类学者和爱好者之间可以如何进行互动？

  
  

  
  

关于最后一点，引用Science上最近一篇综述的部分内容：

虽然GBIF是存放其它生物多样性来源数据的数据库，但是这些来源有待更多的注释。有些比如Tropicos很专业，拥有420万号标本。物种分布知识中增长最快的资料库来源于大量的爱好者提供数据。观鸟者是数量最多的，eBird成为了一个国际储蓄库。在2010年已经有超过10万观鸟者和超过1亿的观测记录。这就允许做精密的动物分布图和以月份为单位的动物分布的动态变化。如此丰富的数据扭曲了更加全面的生物多样性的统计和评估，但也推动着其它非明星类群的研究。

要想做到有效，观测需要鉴定，而鉴定需要训练和技能的掌握。最近在图片共享技术和社交网络提供新的机遇和进展。就拿iNaturelist来说，应用程序让业余的观测者和专业工作者之间进行分工。前者通过智能手机熟练地分辨并上传图片，后者鉴定并编目，形成观测结果。在业余观察者和专家的合作中，现在在不同的分类单元中有了高质量的产物。iNaturalist已经记录了超过了50万条记录，而且也成为了较受欢迎的应用程序。

自：Science 30 May 2014: Vol. 344 no. 6187

     DOI: 10.1126/science.1246752

我在ResearchGate、LinkedIn上发起讨论：

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chao-Dong_Zhu/questions

Being a taxonomist, how and what do you contribute to teams or projects in other fields?

I'm conceiving a few paragraphs to discuss on contributions from taxonomists, demands from other topics and gaps between taxonomists and other researchers. Here, taxonomists are not limited to alpha level who focus mainly on species identification and classification.

Certainly, taxonomists have been spending much valuable time and rich expertise to contribute a lot to some important projects, especially those on biodiversity, ecology, evolutionary biology, invasion biology, plant protection, conservation biology, and emerging genome biology. Also, governments demands more for quarantine of pests. However, there is a trend that more and more teams appreciate taxonomists' contributions only in the acknowledgement part of papers.

Why?

How to fill in the gaps?

How to optimise the interactions between taxonomists and other researchers?

Your answers/comments are mostly welcome. If you are willing to act as the coauthor(s) of this potential manuscript to Zoological Systematics, please kindly email me at sea@ioz.ac.cn.

转自John Ascher博士在论坛的内容

Where is the UK's pollinator biodiversity? The importance of urban areas for flower-visiting insects

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1803/20142849

Insect pollinators provide a crucial ecosystem service, butare under threat. Urban areas could be important for pollinators, though theirvalue relative to other habitats is poorly known. We compared pollinatorcommunities using quantified flower-visitation networks in 36 sites (each 1 km2)in three landscapes: urban, farmland and nature reserves. Overall,flower-visitor abundance and species richness did not differ significantlybetween the three landscape types. Bee abundance did not differ betweenlandscapes, but bee species richness was higher in urban areas than farmland.Hoverfly abundance was higher in farmland and nature reserves than urban sites,but species richness did not differ significantly. While urban pollinatorassemblages were more homogeneous across space than those in farmland or naturereserves, there was no significant difference in the numbers of rarer speciesbetween the three landscapes. Network-level specialization was higher infarmland than urban sites. Relative to other habitats, urban visitors foragedfrom a greater number of plant species (higher generality) but also visited alower proportion of available plant species (higher specialization), bothpossibly driven by higher urban plant richness. Urban areas are growing, andimproving their value for pollinators should be part of any national strategyto conserve and restore pollinators.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Mark Pavett, John Deeming, Brian Levey, Mike Wilson, Ray Barnett, Roger Ball and Stuart Morris for taxonomic expertise, along with land owners and managers for access to sites. We thank Daniel Montoya, Ian Cleasby and Beth Atkinson for statistical advice and the following field assistants: Sally Donaldson, Peter Harris, Joe Hicks, Jasmine King, Olivia Norfolk, Mark Otieno, Despoina Roumpeka and Juan Carlos Ruiz-Guajardo. This work is based on data provided through the NERC (Centre for Ecology and Hydrology), Ordnance Survey, Office for National Statistics, UK Data Service (EDINA UKBORDERS, and Casweb MIMAS), Natural England, Countryside Council for Wales and Scottish Natural Heritage, and uses boundary material which is copyright of the Crown. 

rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org

John Ascher：

These folks categorize bees as: bees, bumblebees, honeybees,and solitary bees. That more than one-quarter of bee species in the UK are obligate parasites does not seem to be of interest to them. I see that theyhave no known (to me) taxonomists as authors and those that were involved can,I suppose, count themselves fortunate to have their name cited in theacknowledgments. I suppose that's the formula for publishing bee ecology in a"good" journal

Claus Rasmussen：

The issue is probably deeper than this and relates toacademic appointment and funding for taxonomists in Europe. Some of the bestbee-workers in Europe are not to be found at Universities...

John Ascher：

I would say most of the best at the very least, and not inthe national collections either

 John Ascher：

Interesting that the most important workers publishing inthe best journals are happy to rely on amateur researchers provided they don'thave to pay them or include such troublesome people as authors

John Ascher：

It certainly is important to know about parasites!

Gidi Pisanty：

Two questions:

1. Most ecological bee research involves IDing bees byseveral different experts, to cover all taxonomic groups. There are not manyexperts like John that can cover so many different taxa altogether, most limittheir expertise to anywhere from family to a single genus. Here in Israel weusually send our bees to around 10 different experts each year. Should allthese appear on our papers? Or just the ones of the common groups? Where do youdraw the line? And how many people, to start with, should appear on such apaper?

2. I thought the important work of taxonomists was to dospecies revisions and similar stuff, not to ID specimens. This is why L Packerand others promote bee barcoding, and this is why Brazilian experts train otherpeople to do their IDing work (so I heard?). So you disagree with theseinitiatives?

John Ascher：

1. At least one person who has at least minimal competenceregarding bee diversity and life history should be respected. Maybe you can'tenlist Paul Westrich or Max Schwarz but at least you can get someone who has abasic understanding of these matters. Furthermore, the paper in question has 12non-taxonomist authors, which I find absurd, yet your comment implies that itwould be problematic to add a mere ten taxonomic experts.

Gidi Pisanty：

I don't imply anything, I wanted to understand yourposition. Waiting for No. 2...

John Ascher：

2. The important work of taxonomists is to do speciesrevisions but this work is "low impact" so we can't do this if wewant to have viable careers. Statistical meta-analyses and the like are what ispermissible in "good" journals. Not having Stockholm Syndrome myselfI have little interest in supporting such efforts if senior taxonomists are notrespected. I am extremely disappointed by your comment as it implies that theability of those who can actually identify bees and know where they live tocontribute to an "important" paper is limited to trivial ID ofspecimens. On that subject, you can imagine the quality of the IDing done byparataxonomists. That's a failed model as shown by implosion of INBIO. Idisagree strenuously with any and all exploitative or ill-conceivedinitiatives!

John Ascher：

To be fair to Gidi his views are generally held by thecommunity so he is not personally to blame

John Ascher：

Regarding barcoding, that's another effort that, likeparataxonomy, has failed to reach its stated goals due to its fundamentaldisrespect of collections-based taxonomy and its practitioners

Gidi Pisanty：

As I said, I don't really have a strong view on the subject.This is what I used to think and I fully understand your points and open tochange my view.

John Ascher：

I suggest reviewing the science in good journals andprestigious status assessments asking yourself if it is correct and useful tous, policy makers, the public, and other stakeholders. If so, no worries. Ifnot, I suggest that we need to make a change starting now.

James C. Trager：

Not just a problem for bees. I see this for ants, plants,grasshoppers, etc. where great ecological conclusion are proclaimed while theauthors have an appalling lack of taxonomic and natural history knowledge

John Ascher：

I would ask for support from my peers in academia but few ofthese exist as they can't find jobs...

John Ascher：

Wouldn't mind if scientists in general were struggling butit seems they are doing fine as long as they say as far away as possible fromanything that might be construed as taxonomy

John Ascher@James C.Trager：

ants and grasshoppers are already too specific for animportant study. Don't get down in the weeds like that. Better to call them"terrestrial arthropods"

Gidi Pisanty：

I still find it a bit odd, that even for the fauna of theUK, which is not very diverse and is so well studied and characterised inpublications including detailed keys (correct me if I'm wrong) - even thisfauna, in your opinion, necessitates IDing by the professional taxonomiststhemselves and no-one else? (I acknowledge your point about the parasitesthough)

Liz Day：

IDing specimens never seemed trivial to me.

John Ascher@Liz：

the PIs of important studies surely agree that specimenidentification (etc.) is really important when it's becomes a bottleneck fortheir work, and then suddenly become quite friendly, but somehow are not sowelcoming when allocating funding, leadership of important projects, andauthorship or, if you do make the cut, when sorting out the more contentiousscientific issues (what does a mere "content provider" have to offer,having discredited themselves by generating actual data?)

John Ascher：

Point taken, Gidi, but the UK has an exceptionally small andexhaustively surveyed fauna and even there very few can hope to identify themore difficult Lasioglossum, Andrena, Nomada and Sphecodes etc.Also, we're still waiting for the definitive work on the British fauna aren'twe? Has Else published his masterwork? I thought the best European keys wereby, e.g., Scheuchl and Amiet et al., and the best photo documentation for CzechRepublic (i.e. non-British). Finally, did you miss my point that those who canidentify bees might perhaps also know enough about their behavior to preventthe 25% of parasites in the fauna being lumped in an amorphous "bee"or "solitary bee" category. The idea that professional taxonomistshave only their ID skills to offer diversity studies is ludicrous. You shouldknow better! Among other things, it is the taxonomists who bother to track downthe old literature. A lot to learn from that if you are a scholar, even if itwon't help you publish in good journals

John Ascher：

Also, did you miss my comment where I said you don't needthe best or all taxonomic experts involved, but consulting (and crediting!) atleast one of the better ones wouldn't hurt. Otherwise the work suffers (see anynumber of recent projects and publications)

Stuart Roberts：

As far as I am aware, every specimen collected in the UrbanBees project was identified to species by a properly paid bee specialist at theCardiff Museum. Their funding was an integral part of the bid process

John Ascher：

Too bad none the species-level or even thesubfamily-level information seems to have made it into the paper.Evidently in Britain you have advanced to the point where you can outsourcethis sort of "tedious" work to a contract bidder, as opposed toenlisting at least one academic peer, but at a cost to the final product,wouldn't you say? How come you never see the stats outsourced to non-authors?

Gidi Pisanty：

I agree that ecological community research can easilyneglect and exploit the field and experts of taxonomy which it so much reliesupon. When you send material to taxonomists, they can be reimbursed in severalways:

1) They get to keep duplicates from your material

2) They sometimes discover new species which they thenpublish

3) They benefit from the distributional data of yourspecimens

4) Some of them get paid directly for their work

5) Sometimes you add them as coauthor

Our lab depends heavily on taxonomists for its work, and wemake an effort to keep up good relations with them. Some of them get paid, themajority don't. I admit that adding them as coauthors is usually not consideredan option. We could, theoretically, add one or two experts to each paper -probably those that received the majority of specimens. But since most of ourstudies are concerned with the community and not specific taxa, it then becomesa bit awkward why one is coauthor and not the other.

No doubt, taxonomists are also a valuable and rare source oflife history information, which I personally acquired from them for my recentpublished paper. Specifically, the example of neglect of parasitic bees is nota sound one - this is neglect at the level of the ecologist, not thetaxonomist! Any serious bee ecologist should know and notice that, consideringthe parasitism usually characterizes whole genera or subgenera, and not onlyisolated species.

John Ascher：

Gidi, there may be misunderstanding in that my concern isnot about professional taxonomists per se (hardly any of those in Europe anywayto worry about) but rather that at least one of the authors understands beediversity and life history and ensures this is not neglected. Doesn't matter ifthat person is primarily a taxonomist or an ecologist or something else. Inmuch of the world it is the collections-based taxonomists doing extensivefieldwork and possessing "taxonomic" libraries of old "lowimpact" publications who have an adequate understanding of bee diversity,not ecologists, but that may not be the case in Europe or in Israel. Also,Gidi, please consider that most "taxonomists" who want any sort of aviable career cannot follow the model you give above, although that may workfor retirees and amateurs or those very few who have secured a strictlytaxonomic position. Many colleagues who could be considered the besttraditional taxonomists are also deeply involved with bee ecology,conservation, molecular systematics, and other relevant fields. This is bynecessity, as even with broadly relevant skills it is really difficult toadvance in a world where "sometimes you add them" is a fifth optionto be employed by "hypothesis-based" scientists in a far superiorposition if they are so inclined.

John Ascher：

The example is a very sound one Gidi, as in my experience itis always those who understand "specific taxa" (whatever you may wishto call such people and however they are or are not paid or employable) who cancorrectly characterize the community, networks, conservation status, etc. Ifthere is a case where someone contemptuous of "specific taxa" andthose who know them made a correct insight into bee community ecology pleasesend me the reprint and I'll stand corrected.

John Ascher：

Gidi, when I think of ecologists I tend to think of the statisticalor theoretical ecologists who are running the show rather than "seriousbee ecologists" who concern themselves with trivial empirical matters likewhat tiny insects do in nature. Of course the latter would know aboutcleptoparasitic bees, but would likely be in the same leaky boat as thetaxonomists professionally (and would likely be a taxonomist at some level),i.e. hoping to be at best tacked on belatedly as option #5 for funding orauthorship by a benevolent statistician.

John Ascher：Here is what an urban ecologystudy can include when led by ataxonomist: http://eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2115/27559/1/19%281%29_P190-250.pdf Also instructive to compare the quality of ecological work on bees led by E. G. Linsleywith modern efforts.