[NHCOLL-L:5204] Re: :

[Dennis R Paulson]

I agree with Malcolm. I study dragonflies, and while there has been a huge upswing of amateur interest in this group, very little of that is manifested in actual dragonfly research. The amateurs contribute tremendously to distribution records, they amass collections of valuable photos of all the species, and they sometimes write notes in newsletters about interesting observations, but rarely do they go on and actually conduct scientific research. There is a real dearth of both systematists and (professional) natural historians in this group.

I have also studied and taught about vertebrates for a long time, and I would say the same is true here. It is still the professionals, from universities and museums, that contribute almost all of the science, although the amateurs contribute greatly in their own areas of interest. The contributions of amateurs (e.g., birders, butterfliers, herp fanciers) are significant, but primarily in the area of distribution records, patterns of occurrence, and methods of identification. They often write the guide books and atlases, of great value in a changing world, while professionals are not given adequate recognition by their institutions for such endeavors.

I think some areas of our knowledge base would be a lot poorer if it weren't for amateur naturalists, but it is still the professionals, mostly those that are paid to study nature, that do the most to advance our knowledge of the biology (natural history) of plants and animals. And there are indeed fewer organismal biologists in universities nowadays, as we all know.

Dennis Paulson, Director Emeritus
Slater Museum of Natural History
University of Puget Sound
1500 N. Warner, #1088
Tacoma, WA 98416-1088
http://www.pugetsound.edu/academics/academic-resources/slater-museum/



On 1/22/11 5:55 PM, "malcolm McCallum" <malcolm.mccallum at herpconbio.org> wrote:

I'm not sure that all that much is being published by amateurs in my field.  There are a few that could be called that, but really they are often PHDS or MS folks who went into other fields and continue to do research....I don't really consider them amateurs.  In herpetology at least, we have literally hundreds to thousands of species for which we don't even know basic natural history like clutch size and diets.  I have been editing a journal for several years and was an editor on a state academy and a regional journal.  I can't ever remember having a submission from someone who was clearly an amateur and it actually being publishable.  Like all research, you are not done until its published.

On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 2:49 PM,  <rdavid at nmsu.edu> wrote:
True- and what will happen is that amateurs will (and are) taking over this
realm.  Beside, though taxonomy is getting some funding it is not trickling down
that much to smaller university collections.

David Richman
Curator of the Arthropod Museum
New Mexico State University

----- Original Message -----
From: malcolm McCallum <malcolm.mccallum at herpconbio.org>
Date: Thursday, January 20, 2011 1:44 pm
Subject: [NHCOLL-L:5190] Re: :
To: JPRICE at mus-nature.ca
Cc: NHCOLL-L at lists.yale.edu

> systematists are not dying out half as fast as those who study the
> naturalhistory of the species.
> There are NSF grant programs to fund systematics and programs to fund
> specifically the training of systematists.
> Currently, there are NO programs to fund natural history nor to fund
> training natural historians.
>
> Naming an organism without describing its life history is sort of like
> reading the title of a book and never opening it.
> I suppose some students would not get that metaphor! :)
> IF you don't know any of its life history its pretty darn difficult to
> implement meaningful conservation strategies.
>
> Malcolm McCallum
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 10:52 AM, Judith Price <JPRICE at mus-
> nature.ca <http://nature.ca> > wrote:
>
> >  Interesting post on Wired Science:
> > http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/01/extinction-of-
> taxonomists/#>
> >
> >
> > "We are currently in a biodiversity crisis. A quarter of all
> mammals face
> > extinction, and 90 percent of the largest ocean fish are gone.
> Species are
> > going extinct at rates equaled only five times in the history of
> life. But
> > the biodiversity crisis we are currently encountering isn't just
> a loss of
> > species, it's also a loss of knowledge regarding them.
> >
> > "Scientists who classify, describe and examine the relationships
> between> organisms are themselves going extinct. The millions of
> dollars spent
> > globally on technology to catalog species may actually be pushing
> out the
> > people we rely upon: taxonomists and systematists. We're like
> young children
> > frantic to add new baseball cards to our collections, while the
> actual> creators of the baseball cards themselves are vanishing."
> >
> > Judith
> >
> > Judith C. Price
> >
> > Secretary, Society for the Preservation of Natural History
> Collections>
> > Assistant Collections Manager, Invertebrates / Gestionnaire
> adjointe des
> > collections invertébrés
> >
> > Canadian Museum of Nature / Musée canadien de la Nature
> >
> > PO Box 3443 Station D / CP 3443 Succ <<D>>
> >
> > Ottawa, Ontario K1P 6P4 CANADA
> >
> > Tel.613.566.4263 / Fax.613.364.4027
> >
> > jprice at mus-nature.ca
> >
> > @nature_jcp
> >
> > www.nature.ca <http://www.nature.ca>  / www.spnhc.org <http://www.spnhc.org>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Malcolm L. McCallum
> Managing Editor,
> Herpetological Conservation and Biology
>
> "Peer pressure is designed to contain anyone with a sense of drive"
> - Allan
> Nation
>
> 1880's: "There's lots of good fish in the sea"  W.S. Gilbert
> 1990's:  Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss,
>            and pollution.
> 2000:  Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction
>          MAY help restore populations.
> 2022: Soylent Green is People!
>
> Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any
> attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may
> contain confidential and privileged information.  Any unauthorized
> review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited.  If you are not
> the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and
> destroy all copies of the original message.
>


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/private/nhcoll-l/attachments/20110125/8ec02721/attachment.html