Newsletter of the Biological Survey of Canada (Terrestrial Arthropods)

Quips and Quotes

News and Notes

“This analysis thus indicates that the “crisis” in taxonomy — the basic
scientific underpinning of all the efforts of those interested in biodiversity and
its preservation — is not a figment of the imaginations of taxonomists but can
be objectively documented in the published literature.”
[Excerpt from J.E. Winston and K.L. Metzger. 1998. Trends in taxonomy
revealed by the published literature. BioScience 48(2): 125-128.]

“While we are speeding ahead with new data manifestations, abstractions to be
sure, there better be specimens or other types of credible vouchers to back
them up. And that means someone better make sure there are taxonomists and
funded museums, otherwise the information is so much electronic confetti.”
[Brian J. Armitage in BioOhio 7(1): 4, 1999.]

        “. . . Hodkinson & Casson (1991) determined that only 37.5% of the 1690 Hemiptera species in their rainforest samples from Sulawesi, Indonesia, are described. Knowing the approximate number of Hemiptera species described for the world fauna (about 71 000) they assumed that these, too, represent 37.5 % of a global total that must thus represent some 189 000 hemipteran species. Finally, given that Hemiptera currently represent about 7.5% of the described insects of the world, they assume that the same is true for the undescribed insects of the world, and use this proportion to arrive at an estimate of about 2.5 million species for the world insect fauna. . . . The appearance of ‘step-by-step’ estimation in such examples is illusory. In fact, the estimate depends entirely on the degree to which the state of taxonomic knowledge of Sulawesi Hemiptera is typical of global Insecta; the global estimate of 2.5 million species is simply the number of described insect species divided by 0.375”
        [Excerpt from R.K. Colwell and J.A. Coddington. 1994. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond., Biol. Sci. 345: 101-118.]

        “The effects of habitat removal from an ancient woodland site have been studied at Buddon Wood [England], a site which was celebrated for its rare beetles in the nineteenth century but which has since been clear-felled in the Second World War, partially burnt in the 1950’s and quarried over two-thirds of its area since the 1970s (M.B. Jeeves, unpublished results) ”   [Excerpt from D.A. Lott. 1996. Insects of mature trees and ancient woodland. pp 72-76 in M.D. Eyre (Ed.), Environmental monitoring, surveillance and conservation using invertebrates. EMS Publications, Newcastle upon Tyne.]

        “There is a view that conservation management should be for the whole habitat, not just for a single species. There is a view that by managing for the whole habitat, all the component species will look after themselves. There is the view that the world is flat and that the moon is made of cream cheese. Such views have to be respected but should not hinder progress in wildlife conservation or astrogeology.” [Excerpt from D.A. Sheppard. 1996. Managing habitats for single species conservation. pp. 53-59 in M.D. Eyre (Ed.), cited above.]

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(Andrew Jackson)