Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Trends in Taxonomy today: an overview about the main topics in Taxonomy

2008; University of Granada; Issue: 19 Linguagem: Espanhol

1130-4251

José M. Guerra‐García, Free Espinosa, José Carlos García‐Gómez,

Mycorrhizal Fungi and Plant Interactions

espanolLa Taxonomia es la ciencia de la descripcion y la clasificacion de los organismos, fundamental en la biologia basica y aplicada. Desde Linneo, se han nombrado alrededor de 1.7 millones de especies, y se estima que solo se ha descrito el 5-10% de la biota mundial; obviamente, la taxonomia desempena un papel fundamental al respecto. Sin embargo, la taxonomia esta en crisis: la financiacion no es adecuada, faltan taxonomos, los indices de impacto de las revistas de taxonomia son bajos, y los taxonomos no hemos sido capaces de mostrar a la sociedad y a otras disciplinas la importancia de la taxonomia. Afortunadamente, se ha progresado mucho durante los ultimos anos. El interes general sobre la conservacion de la biodiversidad, los avances informaticos, el progreso de las tecnicas moleculares, el desarrollo estadistico en estudios filogeneticos, y las nuevas iniciativas y proyectos para financiar la taxonomia, estan arrojando luz: la taxonomia se esta poniendo de moda nuevamente y terminos como Phylocode o Bar Coding se encuentran entre los mas controvertidos y discutidos del momento. Este estudio representa un resumen importante sobre las tendencias en taxonomia y revisa los principales conceptos y temas sobre la taxonomia actua EnglishTaxonomy is the science of the description and classification of organisms, essential in theoretical and applied biology. About 1.7 million species have been named since Linnaeus and it is estimated that only around 5-10% of the world’s biota has been described so far, and, obviously, taxonomy plays the major role in this sense. However, taxonomy is in crisis: funding for taxonomy is inadequate, there is a lack of taxonomists, the recruitment of young scientists into taxonomy and systematics is extremely low, the impact factor of taxonomical journals is very low, and taxonomists have not been able to get the society and other disciplines concerned about the importance of taxonomy. Fortunately, during the last years, several progresses are emerging. The general interest about biodiversity conservation, the advances of internet and web pages, the progress in molecular techniques, the development of statistics in phylogeny, and the new taxonomic funding initiatives and global projects are giving some light: taxonomy is getting fashionable again and topics like Phylocode and Bar Coding are among the most controversial and discussed subjects in taxonomy today. This study represents a major summary about modern trends in taxonomy, and the main concepts and topics in taxonomy today are revised.