Managing Taxonomy in Sweden

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Managing Taxonomy in Sweden

• Sven O Kullander

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The Swedish Taxonomy Landscape

• Institutions
• People
• Taxa

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GBIF-Sweden

• National node for global biodiversity informatics
  since 2001
• Staff of 3.55
• Supported by the Swedish Research Council, at
  least till 2011
• Located in the Swedish Museum of Natural History
• Online resources
• www.gbif.se (Swedish Biodiversity Informatics
  Portal)
• www.gbif.se/coordex (mapping using Google mapping
  resources)
• www.gbif.se/falcon (national biodiversity
  information search engine)
• observer.gbif.se (maps, analyses, and
  datacleaning using UMN Mapserver implementation)
• gt 9 million objects provided to GBIF

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FishBase Sweden

• Consortium Member, Secretariat, and Mirror since
  2001
• Staff of 2.75
• Supported by tagged government funding
• Located in the Swedish Museum of Natural History
• Online resources
• www.fishbase.se (mirror)
• artedi.nrm.se (local portal)

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ArtPortalen (Species Gateway)

• Online reporting system for observations of
  organisms
• The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and
  the Swedish Species Information Centre
• Supported by the Swedish Environmental Protection
  Agency
• Located in the Swedish Agricultural University,
  Uppsala
• Online resource
• www.artportalen.se
• Bugs
• Birds
• Vascular plants
• Mushrooms
• Other groups forthcoming

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Svenska Artprojektet (Swedish Taxonomy Initiative)

• Project to describe all (50 000?) species
  occurring in Sweden
• 2001-2021
• Government funding
• Managed by the Species Information Centre
• Components
• NationalNyckeln - The Swedish Flora and Fauna
  Encyclopedia. Multivolume Encyclopedia with
  descriptions, keys and illustrations of every
  known Swedish species. Three volumes to date (in
  5 years)
• Svenska Artprojektet - Research grants mainly for
  inventories and revisions of less well known
  groups, including taxonomy training and support
  to PhD candidates. Many new species of insects
  discovered

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Svenska Artprojektet (Swedish Taxonomy Initiative)

• Components (continued)
• Museum support - Particularly for digitizing and
  organising existing collections. Supports several
  senior scientists
• Dynamic Taxa - National database of organism
  names

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Taxonomists

• Estimated number reported to GTI 90
• Universities, museums, private
• Mainly botanists and entomologists

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Universities

• Stockholm University (through NRM)
• Göteborg University
• Lund University
• Uppsala University
• Mostly molecular phylogeny students

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Collections

• Swedish Museum of Natural History
• Museum of Evolution, University of Uppsala
• Lund University, Museums of Zoology and Botany
• Natural History Museum, Göteborg
• Several smaller collections
• About 30 million objects. About 2 million
  digitized and available from GBIF

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Associations and Committees

• Annual meeting of systematists, with gt 100
  attendees, including many taxonomists
• Entomologiska föreningen (Entomological Society)
• Ornitologiska föreningen (Ornithological Society)
• SAMSA (Collaborative Committee for Swedish
  Natural History Museum Collections)

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Taxa

• Estimated about 50 000 multicellular species
  occurring in Sweden

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Fauna Europaea National State of Affairs - Sweden

• Organisation
• Local resources
• Reviewing/validation
• Taxonomic standards
• Techniques
• e-Taxonomy

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Organisation

• The Fauna Europaea focal point was/is with the
  Swedish GBIF node, located to the Swedish Museum
  of Natural History (NRM).
• Status dormant
• Fauna Europaea, GBIF, ENBI, FishBase, etc., may
  be regarded as Biodiversity Informatics
  activities
• Strongly endorsed and supported by NRM
• The major biodiversity informatics contact point
  is GBIF-Sweden with longterm support from the
  Research Council as a basic research
  infrastructure

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Local resources

• National species checklist program
• The Swedish Taxonomy Initiative
• Producing their own checklist for internal
  purposes. May have similar national role as ITIS
  in the United States
• Mapping local expertise
• Periodic national surveys
• Estimated about 90 taxonomists in Sweden
• Information systems
• The Swedish Species Information Centre
• GBIF-Sweden
• FishBase Sweden

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Reviewing/validation

• Swedish Fauna Europaea focal point did not
  establish a national network at that time.
  Specialists independently engaged in checklist
  reviews.
• Validation options need to be reviewed
• Because of inadequate funding for taxonomy, there
  may be specialist concerns about voluntary
  contributions
• In general we would prefer technical, automated
  solutions
• The Swedish Taxonomy Initiative will take too
  long (minimum 20 years)

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Taxonomic standards

• EU standards seem to be managed on a pragmatic
  level
• Swedish common names are requested in lieu of
  scientific names
• There seems to be no expressed need for standard
  taxonomy
• The Swedish Red List, commissioned by the
  Environmental Protection Agency, is updated every
  5 years and adheres rigidly to IUCN and
  thoroughly elaborated Swedish standards
• In addition there are opportunistic organism
  lists by other agencies wishing to show
  environmental concern

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Taxonomic standards case study

• The European sturgeon (well known as Acipenser
  sturio turned out to be a composite of Acipenser
  oxyrinchus and A. sturio)
• Acipenser oxyrinchus lived in the Baltic region
  now extinct. Alive and well along the North
  American eastern coast (red symbols on map)
• Acipenser sturio still present in the Gironde
  extinct from Atlantic and Mediterranean basins
  (blue symbols)
• Several syntypes of A. sturio, representing both
  species still not clear which species should be
  fixed as A. sturio.
• Acipenser oxyrinchus redlisted in Sweden, Germany
  and other countries as A. sturio
• The French sturgeon protected in France as A.
  sturio
• Case definitely calling for some standardisation

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Techniques

• All standards can be accommodated within database
  systems
• Priority must be given to scientific standard,
  i.e., classifications and names from most recent
  revision or ICZN decision
• Automated procedures may be used for various list
  cross-checking
• GBIF-Sweden happy to host and support use in
  Sweden of Fauna Europaea/EDIT standard checklists
  for validation and standards purposes

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Techniques (2)

• Museums, government agencies, and the Species
  Information Centre have databases and datasets
  that might contribute overall to other
  information systems
• Common names
• Conservation
• Images
• Abundance
• Tracking data
• Morphology
• Phenology
• Etc.
• Unfortunately generally in Swedish
• A Web Services network needs to be better
  developed (GBIF-Sweden may take a lead here)

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e-Taxonomy

• No formal Swedish participation in EDIT
• GBIF-Sweden and NRM nonetheless are prepared to
  make available internal resources for
  cybertaxonomy collaborative efforts, including
  EDIT iniatiatives and ZooBank