The SANTO 2006 Global Biodiversity Survey: an attempt to reconcile the pace of taxonomy and conservation

2009·4.2 MB·English

by  Philippe Bouchet

The SANTO 2006 Global Biodiversity Survey:
an attempt to reconcile the pace of taxonomy
and conservation
Philippe BOUCHET
Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Département Systématique et Évolution,
case postale 51, 57 rue Cuvier, F-75231 Paris cedex 05 (France)
[email protected]
Hervé LE GUYADER
UMR 7138 “Systématique, Adaptation, Évolution”,
Université Pierre & Marie Curie,
7 quai Saint Bernard, F-75252 Paris cedex 05 (France)
Olivier PASCAL
Pro-Natura International, 15 avenue de Ségur, F-75007 Paris (France)
Bouchet P., Le Guyader H. & Pascal O. 2009. — The SANTO 2006 Global Biodiversity Survey: an
attempt to reconcile the pace of taxonomy and conservation. Zoosystema 31 (3) : 401-406.
When the description of the gecko Lepidodactylus pace of academic research with that of environmental
buleli was published in October 2008, one of the decision-making.
journalists that reported the discovery in Vanuatu Historically, the time-proven approach to docu-
entitled his press release “Better later than never”. menting biodiversity – and certainly the most famil-
Yet, less than two calendar years had elapsed be- iar to the readers of this journal – is undoubtedly
tween the collecting of suspect eggs in the forests of that of taxonomical inventories. Taxonomists travel
Penaoru, their rearing in captivity by reptile buff s, the world to discover species, document where they
the recognition of a new species and its description live, name them and establish their classifi cation. To
by Ivan Ineich, and fi nally its publication in the a taxonomist, “every species counts”. Th ey return
taxonomy journal Zootaxa (Ineich 2008). To an to their “home” institution with specimens of taxa
academic research scientist, this was a remarkably that have attracted their attention for one reason
swift sequence of events. To a lay person, this is an or another (suspected new species, rare or seldom
agonizingly long period of time. We live in an age seen species, population with unusual variation,
of immediacy, and the journalist’s “Better later than etc.). After two and half centuries of such explora-
never” epitomizes the diffi culty in reconciling the tion, taxonomists have successfully documented
ZOOSYSTEMA • 2009 • 31 (3) © Publications Scientifi ques du Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris. www.zoosystema.com 401
Bouchet P. et al.
was rich in terrestrial endem-
Forests, mountains and rivers Karst
Hokua ics. Th e quest to delineate the
fi ner details of this big picture
Wunpuko
continues to this day, and the
crossing
SANTO 2006 Global Biodi-
versity Survey (Bouchet et al.
Penaoru Peavot Loren 2008) was part of this long
Lonepre
tradition. But we now live in an
Lori age of environmental anxiety,
Tasmate Matantas and taxonomists are not good
Fapon
Butmas at delivering in a timely fashion
Sarabo
Tabwemasana facts and data that are mean-
ingful for nature management
Funafus Aoré and conservation. Taxonomists
are obsessed with species and
Malo
their names, and they consider
their work “done” only when
Fallows and aliens Marine
the last specimen of the last
sample has been bestowed with
Big Bay
a species identifi cation. As a
Mavea result, it takes years – many
years – for taxonomists to de-
Aésa
Matantas liver their results: this time lag
is part of what has been called
Vanuatu Maritime College
Butmas the “taxonomic impediment”
(see, e.g., Evenhuis 2007, but
Laruegaanville Aoré see also Flowers 2007). Ten
years, even fi ve years, is not a
Malo time frame that fares well in our
age of immediacy: managers,
funding bodies, decision mak-
ers, like to have “immediate”
results. Th ese limitations of
Location on Espiritu Santo of the study sites for each of the four themes that structured the taxonomical work have paved
SANTO 2006 Global Biodiversity Survey. Forests, mountains and rivers: thick stipples,
intensive sampling (Penaoru area); thin stipples, less intensive sampling; ★, scattered the way for a new approach to
sampling. Karst: ●, dry caves; ○, caves with aquifer. Fallows and aliens: a very disturbed biodiversity research and moni-
site (Luganville area), a site less intensively transformed (Matantas) and a low pressure
toring, i.e. biodiversity assess-
site (Butmas); as background, the map shows the population density (1988 census,
population of Luganville not shown), tracks and airfi elds. Marine: ●, dive and intertidal ments. Conservationists need
sites; segments, trawl or dredge hauls. “immediate” science-based facts
to inspire decisions and policy
around 1.8 million species, and continue to de- on land and sea use and management. But con-
scribe new species at the pace of 16 000 per year. servationists are daunted by the magnitude of the
By the end of the 19th century, the big picture biodiversity they want to highlight, promote, and
of biogeographical realms was already clear: the conserve. Th e “taxonomic impediment” is real. As
“Southern Seas” formed a single biogeographical a consequence, biodiversity assessments focus on a
marine province – part of the vast Indo-West Pa- few selected taxa for which there is the knowledge
cifi c region –, while each island or island group and work force to identify them on the spot: birds
402 ZOOSYSTEMA • 2009 • 31 (3)
Th e SANTO 2006 Global Biodiversity Survey
Insect trapping using intercept fl ight traps (top) and scuba diver collecting fi sh in deep reefs “twilight zone” (bottom) during SANTO
2006 Global Biodiversity Survey. Photos: Xavier Desmier.
ZOOSYSTEMA • 2009 • 31 (3) 403
Bouchet P. et al.
and mammals, trees, reef corals and fi shes, and, at requires no explanation. With the publication of
best, a handful of charismatic invertebrates such the paper by Richard Pyle, John Earle and Brian
as butterfl ies and dung beetles. Conservation In- Greene describing new species of damselfi shes from
ternational, the infl uent Washington-based Non deep coral reefs of the Pacifi c Ocean, the 1st of
Governmental Organization, has coined (and January 2008 was a special day in the development
trademarked!) the term Rapid Biological Assessment of “cybertaxonomy”, a modern form of publishing
for this approach. Typically, conservationists leave and disseminating the results of taxonomy (Pyle et
the fi eld with “data” and species lists for selected al. 2008). Th is was the fi rst work to embed links
taxa, and (very) marginally with specimens. On a to a whole new generation of databases: Zoo-
global scale, the Rapid Assessment approach has Bank (http://www.zoobank.org), Barcode of Life
been successful in highlighting areas of conserva- Database (BOLD, http://www.boldsystems.org),
tion interest, in raising and disseminating envi- MorphBank (http://www.m orphbank.net) and
ronmental awareness, and in bringing together more, and it is not insignifi cant that it contained
the worlds of public agencies (the World Bank, the descriptions of two new species from Santo,
USAID, etc.), private funding (corporate and Chromis brevirostris and C. earina. In fact, at the
foundations) and public opinion. But Vanuatu time of this writing, we can be satisfi ed that a small
does not have any of the charismatic vertebrates menagerie of new species from Santo has already
that, elsewhere, are the fl agships of conservation been described, including also a millipede (Golo-
(e.g., primates, cats, or even crocodiles), and this vatch et al. 2008), a crab (Ng & Naruse 2007),
may be the reason why none of the major inter- and several marine snails (Kantor et al. 2008; Ter-
national NGOs are operating in the country. Yet, ryn & Holford 2008).
serious science-based conservation in the South For such species, and those described in the
Pacifi c cannot aff ord to ignore, e.g., the snails, the present volume of the journal Zoosystema, the time
weevils or the geckos, all of which have astonish- lag between collection and description of new spe-
ingly high levels of single-island or island-group cies has been successfully reduced. And this is the
endemism, and are threatened by loss of habitat half-full glass. But these new species represent only
and the spread of aliens. a fraction of the new species from Santo awaiting
It is precisely this gap between taxonomy and formal identifi cation and description. And this is
conservation that the SANTO expedition has at- the half-empty (or much less!) glass. For instance,
tempted to bridge, and reconciling the pace of Paolo Albano has segregated to morphospecies
the two disciplines has not proven to be straight- the collection of Triphoridae, a family of sinis-
forward. However, well before the present issue tral marine microgastropods, collected during the
of Zoosystema was published, descriptions of new expedition. No less than 23 238 specimens were
species from Santo started to appear in less than six sampled, representing 259 species, of which 85 are
months after the expedition: Roland Gerstmeier represented by molecular samples. To place these
and Jürgen Schmidl (Gerstmeier & Schmidl 2007) fi gures in perspective, it should be recalled that
very appropriately named the fi rst “SANTO 2006 the whole of European seas have only 19 species,
new species” after the island of Espiritu Santo it- and the whole of Japan – from the Kuriles in the
self, the cleriid beetle Omadius santo. Th e “spirit North to tropical Ryukyus in the South – has only
of the place” also haunted Damia Jaume and Eric 109. Given the current chaos in triphorid system-
Q ueinnec when they named a new freshwater iso- atics, it might take a decade, or more, to actually
pod Exosphaeroides quirosi after Pedro Fernandez de bridge the gap between these 259 morphospecies
Quirós [also spelled Queiros], the fi rst European and named entities. However names are essential
to reach Espiritu Santo in 1606, exactly 400 years to communicate about properties and attributes
before the SANTO 2006 expedition (Jaume & of species (Th ompson 1997), and there is justifi -
Queinnec 2007). Th e specifi c epithet of the mayfl y able concern for the gap between discovering and
Caenis vanuatensis Malzacher & Staniczek, 2007, documenting the diversity of the world and backing
404 ZOOSYSTEMA • 2009 • 31 (3)
Th e SANTO 2006 Global Biodiversity Survey
Collection of freshwater animals in a small creek during SANTO 2006 Global Biodiversity Survey. Photo: Xavier Desmier.
this exercise with sound nomenclature (Bouchet & in the forthcoming volume Th e Natural History
Strong in press). of Santo (Bouchet et al. in press). We are however
Th e SANTO 2006 Global Biodiversity Survey especially grateful to Russell Nari and Maxime
did not “solve” the taxonomic impediment. It was Korman Carlot, at the Vanuatu Ministry of Lands, to
perhaps only moderately successful in bridging Joel Path, at the Province of Sanma, and to Bernard
the mentality gap between academic biodiversity Sexe, at the French Embassy, for their support
exploration and operational conservation. But it throughout the project; to the directors and staff
did attempt to reconcile the pace of taxonomical of Vanuatu Agricultural Research and Technical
research and conservation action, and it succeeded Center (VARTC) and Vanuatu Maritime College
spectacularly in communicating with the general (VMC), the custom chiefs and communities from
public the exhilaration of exploration and discovery, Aoré, Butmas, Funafus, Malo, Natawa, Peavot,
and this in a Pacifi c island nation without primates, Penaoru, Tasmate, Vathe, Wunpoku and many
cats or crocodiles. other villages, who hosted the expedition scientists
with a delightful blend of patience, unselfi shness
and amused curiosity.
Acknowledgements
An expedition such as SANTO 2006 was only made Philippe Bouchet,
possible because of the support of many organisa- Hervé Le Guyader,
tions, institutions and persons, too numerous to Olivier Pascal
be listed here, but which will be given full credit Directors, SANTO 2006 Global Biodiversity Survey
ZOOSYSTEMA • 2009 • 31 (3) 405
Bouchet P. et al.
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