The New Systematics, the New Taxonomy, and the Future of Biodiversity Studies
The New Systematics, the New Taxonomy, and the Future of Biodiversity Studies
The New Systematics, the New Taxonomy, and the Future of Biodiversity Studies This chapter places the future practice of taxonomy in its historical and conceptual context, asking what kinds of technological investments make sense given taxonomy’s theoretical structure and the need for accelerating taxonomic studies. We defend the view that the theoretical and epistemological foundations of taxonomy point toward, rather than away from, the continued development of a new cyberinfrastructure that importantly includes morphology, even as molecular techniques become more common and more sophisticated. While we are excited and enthusiastic about developments in molecular systematics, we think comparative morphology should retain a central place in our collective attempt to understand life more fully. This is not just because of the pride of place morphology has in the history of natural history but because of what we understand the foundational ideas of contemporary taxonomy to require.
Keywords: cybertaxonomy, systematics, comparative morphology, phylogenetic systematics, molecular genetics
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