The role of the taxonomist in sustaining Australia's biodiversity and its importance for our economy
 

Australia is a wealthy country in terms of affluence and natural resources. Yet we largely neglect our substantial biodiversity. Does it matter?
 

Biodiversity drives sustainable agriculture, a salutary lesson taught us by the otherwise successful Green Revolution in rice production in Asia. Agrochemicals coaxed magnificent yield responses from improved rice varieties but they depleted the massive biodiversity – involving thousands of species - which we now appreciate is essential for a healthy and sustainable rice ecosystem. Taxonomists and

See Reference 1

 community ecologists were central to unravelling this puzzle. Understanding and conserving biodiversity does matter.
 

Manufacturers, such as Boeing and General Motors depend on the reliable and timely supply of the many components that enable the construction of their aircraft or cars. Suppose these companies had labels and descriptions for only 1 in 4 of the components, and understood the function of less than 1 in a 100. Suppose you then discovered that these companies were spending vast sums of money looking for additional component parts on Mars.
 

Even to contemplate such a situation would be patently absurd. Yet there are parallels between this farcical scenario and mankind’s attitude to biodiversity. In 2000 a NASA space probe to Mars, in part to seek evidence for life on that planet, failed to reach its target. NASA explained that the mission was done on the cheap – only $US300 million. By comparison, most countries, including Australia, spend little on exploring life on earth.
 

It might be argued that the manufacturing example is irrelevant and presupposes that the biota is the product of intelligent design, each taxon serving a preordained and interrelated function in a Gaia-like global ecosystem, rather than the product of an evolutionary process. [Ironically, the Gaia hypothesis was formulated by James Lovelock when he was a NASA scientist.] Even if we accept the more persuasive evolutionary argument for our biosphere, we could reasonably suppose that humans to survive, even flourish, don’t need to catalogue and understand the function of the many plants, animals and micro-organisms that comprise biodiversity. After all, animal populations, including primitive man, have survived and enjoyed a secure future without such knowledge. So why now?
 

The ‘inconvenient truth’ is that modern mankind depends on biodiversity for economic and ecological survival. Yet, the pressures of our increasing numbers, and a legitimate determination to achieve a higher standard of living in developing countries, is causing a loss of biodiversity at a rate that is unprecedented over evolutionary time. Habitat loss, climate change and chemical pollution, all direct consequences of human activity, are three major factors reducing biodiversity. We have long past the stage where our impact as hunters and gatherers has a tolerable impact on the biosphere.
 

Our relationship with the environment has become more complex and represents a fractious dynamism between disturbed and natural habitats (the on-going tussle between conserving and exploiting biodiversity). For example, prior to the arrival of Europeans in Australia, aboriginal communities sourced over 4,000 plants for food and health. But since European settlement, we depend on exotic plants and animals for food and economic development. Many of our crops require pollination by the exotic honeybee, Apis mellifera. Some, like almonds, are totally dependent on commercial pollination services. Without feral populations of the honeybee and a viable commercial beekeeping industry, crop losses would exceed $1.7billion pa.
 

Serious concerns have been raised about the viability of the small but critical beekeeping industry, but so far with little effective action to save the industry.

Two threats warrant particular mention.
 

First, for the past 30 years beekeepers and researchers could safely import bee breeding stock through the quarantine facility at Eastern Creek, west of Sydney. This facility also caters for livestock and pet quarantine. The specialised honeybee component was added by the Commonwealth in the 1970s and since then has been managed by NSW's Department of Primary Industries and Energy. Recently, these quarantine facilities were sold to private enterprise and then leased back by the Commonwealth until 2010 with no apparent provision beyond that date. If true, such action is short-sighted madness, posing a major threat to crops depending on honeybee pollination, not to mention direct threats to biodiversity through increased risks of pests, weeds and diseases entering Australia.
 

Second, environmentalists fail to appreciate the dynamic relationship between agricultural production and conservation when they pressure State Governments, eg Queensland, to exclude commercial beekeepers from public lands, on the narrow and ideological grounds that the honeybee is exotic - rather than looking at sensible rules of access that have acceptable impact on biodiversity. And there's the rub; we don’t have an adequate handle on biodiversity to determine what is ‘tolerable impact’. Relevant knowledge is in short supply. This is hardly an isolated case when it comes to conservation and exploitation of biodiversity.
 

Julian Cribb, in a recent article in The Australian, neatly outlined some key issues:
 

“We need in the short run to understand what is here, what it does and how we can use it more wisely. In other words to avoid similar errors of ignorance to those which led to erosion, salinity, acidification, polluted soil and water, weed and pest invasions, diseases and loss of species. Especially we need experts who understand how these things function in the complexity of Australian landscapes, ecosystems and society.
 

In a world where knowledge has become the premium commodity, the primary fount of economic growth, sustainability and social progress, and nations are falling over themselves to train millions of new knowledge-producers, Australia – apparently – isn’t having it.
 

For two generations Australia has subsisted on the laissez-faire view that if we can’t produce a home-grown expert, then we can easily buy one from overseas - generally from a less prosperous culture. However there are fields in which this simply isn’t true – and some of them are those most critical to our long-term existence.
 

There is for example, a real crisis in the availability of taxonomists. Those trained in the 1960s are now retiring, and almost none have been trained in the last twenty years because governments decided we didn’t need any more information about what lived in Australia. In a continent which is, biologically speaking, still 90 per cent unexplored this was a notably myopic lapse.
 

A taxonomist may seem unimportant as an individual, but the knowledge they give us will still be in use a thousand years hence, which is more than can be said of much contemporary ‘knowledge’. It is an investment in the future of Australia.”
 

To depend heavily on a cohort of retired taxonomists devoting their waking hours, in many cases for 25 years or more beyond the normal retirement age, with no replacements being groomed, is unsustainable; worse, it is simply irresponsible. Let’s consider some specific examples to illustrate that we are running out of time.
 

The scribbly gum moth, embedded in Australian folklore by May Gibbs in her popular children’s book, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, was last studied in 1937. So little was known about the taxonomy and biology of this elusive species that Ian Common, in his definitive 1990 book ‘Moths of Australia’ (authored in his retirement), decided to make no reference at all to this ‘familiar’ insect. Recently, triggered by a high school science project which suggested that there may be three distinct species of scribbly gum moth just in the ACT, the taxonomy and biology of this ‘group’ is being pursued by entomologist, Max Day. Max recently celebrated his 90^th birthday. Thankfully, he still enjoys good health. Four species of scribbly gum moth have now been confirmed for Black Mountain alone and the total number of species decorating our gum trees is expected to be considerable. Max, for the first time, is getting a handle on their complex life cycle. Of course, the world may still go around without our knowing how many species of scribbly moth exist, and what they do, before we capriciously confine them to the ‘delete’ basket. But, culturally, we will be the poorer if nature’s graffiti expert vanishes - merely as a consequence of ignorance and apathy.
 

At a more serious level, another largely Australian family of moths, the Oecophoridae, numbering over 5000 species, undoubtedly plays roles ranging from what we might bravely call the ‘frivolous’ to what we can certainly categorise as ‘essential’. Their larvae have carved out specialist niches; some species devouring green eucalypt leaves in situ; some species retreating to tunnels in tree trunks with fresh leaves; others breaking down the litter in eucalypt forests – contributing over the millennia to soil formation; still others constructing intricate homes inside droppings of marsupial browsers (such as koalas) and then consuming the dung itself; some species specialise in constructing domiciles in droppings of parrots that nest in termite mounds - with an additional species described by retired lepidopterist, Ted Edwards this year. The intense bushfires associated with exotic eucalypts in California are reputedly due to the build up of litter because there is reputedly no oecophorid-like fauna to decompose the accumulating litter. In all, we can be confident that there are 5,000 or more individual ‘David Attenborough’ stories about species in this one family of moth that have evolved in Australia around eucalypts.
 

On ecological, let alone cultural, grounds, we cannot afford to impoverish the biodiversity of this uniquely Australian family of insects. The framework for future research on oecophorids was laid down by retired entomologist, Ian Common, in three volumes which describe the family to the genus level with many observations about the general biology of its members. These tomes represent a life time of largely unpaid work by Ian and published as a retirement project before his death at 89 earlier this year. No one is now working on oecophorids, nor is likely to do so for decades to come.
 

The oecophorid story is not unique in terms of species richness, the critical role of its species for sustainable development, and our dependence on volunteer efforts by dedicated veteran taxonomists. The six volumes of Australian weevils (a family of 8,000 – 10,000 species), researched by entomologist, Elwood Zimmerman (Zimmie to the world), was largely a retirement project. He migrated to Australia from the USA when he was 60. Zimmie contributed $300,000 of his own funds to ensure the volume containing colour photos was published (632 colour plates, 5056 images illustrating 2,500 species of Australian weevils). He endowed a research position in CSIRO Entomology to ensure that beetle taxonomy would be continued after his death. Taxonomic clarification of one weevil species, Cyrtobagous salvinae, by staff at CSIRO’s Australian National Insect Collection, was critical to the successful biological control of the world’s worst water weed, Salivia molesta. Indeed, taxonomic clarification by a CSIRO botanist of the weed itself played a key role in our recognising an effective biocontrol agent in Brazil in 1981. [A serious loss of corporate memory allows current CSIRO senior management have us believe that this sort of cross-Divisional collaboration did not occur prior to the establishment of its Flagships.] Without this taxonomic capability, and collaboration across CSIRO Divisions, S. molesta, would still be a major water weed globally. Zimmie died during 2005 in his 90^th year; and he was working on a new species of weevil earlier on the day of his death. Luckily, his work lives on through his generous endowment to CSIRO Entomology, and his published work.
 

There may be as many as 50 retired insect taxonomists around Australia documenting our rich and diverse insect fauna. Other invertebrate groups where our knowledge is abysmal include wasps, flies, ants, nematodes and mites. In a telling comment about creeping managerialism in our research institutions, Australia’s sole retiree working full time on the 20,000 or so mite species in Australia, recently observed “the only real opportunity to do taxonomic research is as a post-doc or in retirement.” We wish him a long and healthy retirement.
 

When you add to this shortfall in invertebrate taxonomists, the dwindling numbers of botanists, fungal experts, microbiologists, marine biologists, and experts on other taxa, tackling what Ed Wilson has termed the ‘taxonomic impediment’ you realise that Australia has come to depend on a ‘Dad’s Army’ of taxonomists, probably numbered in the 100s. And they are, to say the least, a set of endangered species. Why is Australia depending on the goodwill, dedication and professionalism of so many retired taxonomists to address a problem of great national significance?
 

A Pavlovian response would be to blame the Howard Government. But, for once, they certainly don’t warrant all the blame. The problem was clearly acute during the days of the Hawke and Keating Governments when votes and Ministerial whiteboards, not knowledge creation, set the agenda. This tradition was inherited by the Howard Government. And State Governments, such as Peter Beattie’s Labor government in biodiverse- rich Queensland, have made no serious commitment to taxonomy or to some of the major threats to biodiversity, such as weed management. But Beattie and Senator Nick Minchin, encouraged by CSIRO, did set aside party politics to divert over $300 million of taxpayer funds to subsidise the Australian Magnesium Corporation. All we have to show for this misguided proxy generosity is a hole in the ground near Gladstone, along with many disillusioned small investors who lost over $800million, encouraged by the enthusiasm of Beattie and Minchin.
 

Despite, or because of such unanswered follies, there has been a decline in real terms for research and management of weeds in Queensland; and their relentless spread poses a major threat to biodiversity in this state. The ‘Smart’ State risks earning the title the ‘Weedy’ State. Certainly, any case for calling itself the ‘Biodiversity’ State is rapidly diminishing.
 

Meanwhile a report released by the CRC for Australian Weeds Management in August 2006 estimated that 127 individual weed species from 120 genera and 51 families were identified as threatening 204 threatened plant species in NSW alone, in turn putting at risk the survival of dependent invertebrate species.
 

And the Weeds CRC for Australian Weeds Management has recently complained very publicly that the lack of taxonomic capability is limiting our opportunities for biological control of weeds that pose a major threat to biodiversity. Similarly, Australia’s forest industry and its research community have made a commitment to conserving and managing biodiversity in the expanding hardwood plantations and native forests through the Cooperative Research Centre for Forestry. The major threats to achieving this objective are the lack of basic knowledge relating to forest biodiversity and our rapidly shrinking taxonomic capability to identify or describe species and what roles they play. Such examples of public good research are the exception in the CRC program now driven by short term commercial imperatives.
 

The federal bureaucracy, especially in the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) and the Office of the Chief Scientist, in particular during the term of Robyn Batterham, has a case to answer. Their persistent assault on the legitimacy of public good research has impacted on the CSIRO, universities, and museums with a broader adverse impact on funding schemes such as the Cooperative Research Centres program and ABRS (the Australian Biological Resource Study). Perhaps the most insidious of all government policy changes has been within the Australian Research Council, which under the pretext of the John Uhrig review, has been largely deprived of its autonomy as a Statutory Authority and is more directly answerable to the Minister, metered through senior bureaucrats within DEST.
 

Research is increasingly seen as the handmaid of industry with short-term horizons and a narrow perception that the principal pathway to economic and social impact of research is via defending intellectual property (IP) and patents. The commercial imperative reigns supreme. Many areas of knowledge creation through scientific endeavour will suffer from this trivialisation of the research process.
 

Regrettably, taxonomy is one of the most conspicuous of the casualties; and its practitioners are often the least able, or willing, to argue their case. This problem is not new; it was outlined with remarkable foresight by Jonathan Swift in 1726 when Gulliver, in his travels, visited the Academy at Lagado, and described the activities of its inmates, the so-called projectors (now called scientists). The author, after inspecting the work of one enthusiastic professor in the Academy, recalled: “I made him a small Present, for my Lord had furnished me with Money on Purpose, because he knew their Practice of begging from all who go to see them”.
 

Finally, the biological research community, particularly within our universities, must share some of the blame, for the withering of taxonomy teaching/training at tertiary level. As and when taxonomists retire, they are frequently replaced by recruits in trendier fields (eg biotechnology and information technology) where funding prospects are rosier. This, University administrators would argue, reflects the reality of life. Put another way, it reflects the priorities of Governments whose agendas are largely framed by bean counters in the supporting bureaucracies.
 

The tragedy here is that taxonomists have worked effectively with leading scientists in both biotechnology (eg DNA bar-coding for rapid identification of taxa) and information technology (interactive data bases and descriptive languages such as DELTA and LUCID). Introducing these new technologies into taxonomy now makes it imaginable that we will one day achieve the level of understanding of our biodiversity so that we can conserve and use it for mankind’s benefit in a sustainable manner. These new technologies are synergists, not substitutes, for traditional taxonomy.
 

In a letter from the Prime Minister, read by the then Science Minister, Peter McGauran, at the opening of the International Congress of Entomology, in Brisbane, August 2004, John Howard said the following: “To further encourage and promote the opportunities and benefits of pursuing a career in the sciences, including entomology where Australia is a world leader, the Government will work with universities and industry groups to conduct a major scientific skills audit to address areas of scientific skills shortage in Australia.”
 

The recognised dearth of taxonomists was thus one of the triggers for DEST’s “Audit of Science, Engineering and Technology Skills”. The summary report (July 2006) for this SET Audit states: “There has been strong recent growth in demand for some SET skills, reflecting growth in the resources sector, defence needs and infrastructure development and renewal. This has led to significant recruitment difficulties with respect to certain SET skill sets, particularly in engineering disciplines, and in sciences such as earth sciences, chemistry, spatial information sciences and entomology.”
 

This statement misses the point, at least for entomology and taxonomy. Demand in some skills areas, such as mining, is market-driven and the SET audit predicts a serious shortfall in the outflow of graduates. With entomology, and the discipline of taxonomy relevant to all areas of biodiversity - not just insects - there is no market out there, in the conventional sense, creating a demand that is or is not met. Governments, who are the custodians of public good research, and who are expected to deal with situations where there is market failure, eg quarantine and biodiversity management, must accept responsibility for determining the level of capability required and resourcing it adequately. The former Minister for Science, Peter McGauran, recognised the serious shortfall in support for taxonomy but nothing has happened ever since responsibility for Science was effectively marginalised in the wider Education portfolio.
 

Somehow, the cycle needs to be broken. This could be a challenge for the well-placed current Chief Scientist, Jim Peacock. His grassroots training was in evolution of the Australian flora and he played a central role in creating the vibrant National Herbarium in Canberra while he was Chief of CSIRO Plant Industry. If Dr Peacock were to argue as persistently and passionately for biodiversity and taxonomy as he has done for biotechnology, then Australia could ameliorate, or even avoid the serious problems, so elegantly articulated by Julian Cribb, that threaten our long term economic and social sustainability.

Epilogue. Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels, Chapter V, Part III) parodied the merit of exploiting biodiversity nearly three centuries back when he wrote about the aspirations of one boffin in the Academy at Lagado: “I went into another Room, where the Walls and Ceiling were all hung round with Cobwebs, except a narrow passage for the Artist to go in and out. At my Entrance he called aloud to me not to disturb his Webs. He lamented the fatal Mistake the World had been so long in of using Silk-Worms, while we had such plenty of domestick Insects, who infinitely excelled the Former, because they understood how to weave as well as spin. And he proposed farther, that by employing Spiders, the Charge of dying Silks should be wholly saved; whereof I was fully convinced when he shewed me a vast Number of Flies most beautifully coloured, wherewith he fed his Spiders; assuring us, that the Webs would take a Tincture from them; and as he had them of all Hues, he hoped to fit every Body's Fancy, as soon as he could find proper Food for the Flies, of certain Gums, Oyls, and other glutinous Matter to give a Strength and Consistence to the Threads.”

In penning the travels of Gulliver, Swift said: “my principal Design was to Inform, and not to amuse thee”. That remains our challenge today. It is a question of credibility and mobilising community opinion to change the political landscape. Taxonomy must be seen, not as the Cinderella, but as the queen of the biological sciences. For now, taxonomy’s everyone’s interest but no one’s responsibility.

Acknowledgement. I thank the cartoonists and/or the copyright holders for permission to use the cartoons that have appeared in this article.

Reference 1: WHITTEN, M. J. and W. H. SETTLE. (1998). The Role of the Small-scale Farmer in Preserving the Link between Biodiversity and Sustainable Agriculture. p187 - 207. In C. H. Chou and Kwang-Tsao Shao [eds], Frontiers in Biology: The Challenges of Biodiversity, Biotechnology and Sustainable Agriculture. Proceedings of 26th AGM, International Union of Biological Sciences, Taiwan 17-23 November 1997, Academia Sinica, Taipei 1998.
 

Max Whitten was Chief of CSIRO's Division of Entomology from 1981 - 1995. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academies of Science and Technological Sciences & Engineering.