Taxonomy as a team sport

Abstract

Taxonomy is often characterized as a cottage industry of individuals working in isolation: the antithesis of big science as exemplified by particle physics or genome sequencing. Issues associated with new ways of working in large groups of researchers and how these relate to the use of new technologies as well as to interactions between people themselves are critical to the future of taxonomy. These human factors-both in terms of research partnerships and audiences for taxonomy-impact how individuals function within institutions; I draw on experience of large-scale taxonomic projects such as floras and NSF’s more recent Planetary Biodiversity Inventory experiment to explore these issues. People are often perceived as the problem, but they must be the solution as well, or we will fail in our aim to transform taxonomy into big science that can be done as a true team sport.