Taxonomy, Ideology & the Structure of the Natural History Field Guide

Abstract

Field guides constructed along the lines suggested by the above entries will not take up any more space than do those constructed along conventional lines. For example, R. T. Peterson’s classic A Field Guide to the Birds (1980) organizes entries around four headings: Field Marks, Similar Species, Voice, and Range. Our entries, for animals or plants, also incorporate four headings: Foraging, Mating (or Fertilization and Dispersal in Plants), Adapting to Physical Hardships, and Avoiding Predators. Furthermore, the amount of information under each heading in our entries is approximately the same as the amount of information under each heading in the entries of other standard guides. Indeed, much of the same information that appears in conventional guides would appear in ours, though the ecologically sensitive context of our proposed guides would give that same information more value. To know that the call of the brown creeper is a thin “seee” is one thing; to understand that similar calls are used by chickadees, grosbeaks and wood warblers so as to render their calls inaudible to bird hawks is another. Our guides will also have, as all other identification guides do, accompanying illustrations, although we have not provided any in the entries above. In addition, our guides will have an index of major adaptations. Having seen a bird with a decurved bill, users may look up “bill, decurved” and be referred to the whimbrel, curlew, honey creeper and others. Finally, our ideas are an extension of the guild concept of Root (1967), who grouped species according to foraging mode only. However, foraging is only one of many adaptations incorporated into our fourfold model, a fact which means that each species fits into numerous classes simultaneously. Our scheme is in line with contemporary ecological thought, treating foraging adaptations as only a part of an organism’s natural history. © 1993, National Association of Biology Teachers. All rights reserved.