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Living on the edge: parasite taxonomy in Australia
International Journal for Parasitology 34 (2004) 117–123 www.parasitology-online.com
Presidential Address
Living on the edge: parasite taxonomy in Australia T.H. Cribb* Department of Microbiology and Parasitology, Centre for Marine Studies, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia Received 19 September 2003; received in revised form 3 November 2003; accepted 3 November 2003
Abstract The way in which the huge Australian parasite fauna is described (discovery and naming) is the subject of this address. The approach to the task has never been well-organised so that a few groups of parasites are now relatively well-known because of the efforts of small groups of workers who have made sustained efforts in these groups, but equally some host –parasite systems have been almost completely ignored in that no worker has ever given them sustained attention. A high proportion of Australian parasites have been described by international workers. The sustaining of interest in a group of parasites over a long period is the key to real progress being made. The nature of the organisation of Australian science presently means that few positions are available for parasite taxonomists and funding for taxonomic research is scarce. Thus, parasite taxonomy (like the taxonomy of many groups of Australian plants and animals) can only be considered to be in crisis. q 2003 Australian Society for Parasitology Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Parasites; Taxonomy; Biodiversity; History; Crisis
1. Introduction The title of this address does not refer to the edge-of-theseat excitement that is life in parasite taxonomy in Australia (although it is exciting, for a variety of reasons). Rather, it refers to the fact that this discipline has been, and remains, a marginal activity in Australia and that, but for the happy accident of a few dedicated enthusiasts, we would know dramatically less about the parasites of Australian animals than we do now. In many areas, that is not much at all. My argument starts with the premise that it is a good thing for us to know about the parasites of our native animals. The reasons for this range from the economic to the esoteric. Parasites of native animals may play a role in the health of humans (rare in Australia), domesticated animals, aquaculture and native animal populations. Parasites are also a natural part of our ecosystem and, thus, in my view, are just as worthy of study as the platypus (although I would not be so bold as to argue that every parasite species has as much intrinsic interest as the platypus does). If this premise is accepted, then there is a need for some kind of process by which the parasites are studied. Perhaps the most logical train of events is for the parasites to first be collected and * Tel.: þ61-7-3365-2581; fax: þ 61-7-3365-4699. E-mail address: [email protected] (T.H. Cribb).
named, then to have their basic biology described (life cycles especially need to be elucidated), and, finally, complexities of their pathology, ecology and interaction with the ecosystem at large explored. Of course I do not suggest that the derived issues should be ignored until all the species have been described. However, it should be remembered that, in the broad, the second and third phases can progress only with difficulty if the parasites have not actually been found and described. In this address I will focus on just the first of these stages—the collection and the description of the fauna. These activities fall in the area of the pariah disciplines of taxonomy, classification and systematics. Given the unfortunate connotations of these words (for some) it is tempting to call the work ‘biodiversity studies’, but, in truth, taxonomy, classification and systematics are what it is really about, at least to begin with. So, if we are to know something of the parasites of Australian animals then we need to set the parameters of our task. Parasites, of course, are an ecological rather than a phylogenetic assemblage and as such the term encompasses many different groups of animals. There are major groups of parasites from the protists (perhaps seven phyla that can be considered entirely or significantly parasitic), the helminths (Acanthocephala, Platyhelminthes and Nematoda) and the Arthropoda (parasitic crustaceans, arachnids, lice, fleas and
0020-7519/$30.00 q 2003 Australian Society for Parasitology Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijpara.2003.11.004
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several other orders of insects). It is safe to say that for none of these groups of parasites have all or perhaps even most of the species been described. We lack estimates for the number of species of most parasite groups and those that we do have are probably wanting. I will consider the problem by reviewing progress in several major host – parasite assemblages.
2. Trematodes of fishes This assemblage of parasites is my own key focus. Although trematodes occur in all groups of vertebrates, and I have done some work on those in amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, the huge number of species in fishes has become my passion. My published studies on this group date from 1985. As I became increasingly familiar with the group over the years, I developed an interest in standing back and trying to consider the size and nature of the fauna as a whole. These musings culminated in an analysis in which I estimated that the total trematode fauna of Australia might be as many as 6000 species and that of Australian fishes might be over 5000 species (Cribb, 1998). With the passing of time I view these predictions with increasing alarm (some of the assumptions may not be particularly robust), comforted only by the dubious thought that my period of contribution to the field will be long past by the time that my predictions can be properly tested. Regardless of how many species there may be in total in Australia, we can be quite precise about how many are known now. There are 411 trematode species reported from Australian fishes so far. It seems unlikely that these could represent more than 20% of the fauna as a whole. By what process have we reached this relatively unimpressive level of knowledge? There are many ways in which we can consider the significance of the contribution to the understanding of the parasite fauna, but counting the number of parasite descriptions by different authors is perhaps the simplest. The 411 trematode species were described (i.e. given their scientific name) by 104 different scientists. The figure of 104 suggests that the field has received substantial attention from a broad range of scientists. This is not the case. Table 1 shows the relative significance of the most important contributions to the task of describing this fauna. Notable features of the table are that the top three contributions account for well over 50% of all descriptions and the top 15 account for over 80% of them. The largest contribution by far is that of Bray, Cribb and their colleagues. (The analysis combines the descriptions published by my colleague Rod Bray, me, our students and some of our colleagues that have emerged as essentially a single programme of study.) These studies have produced almost one-third of all the descriptions and more than half of all the records of trematodes from Australian fishes. The second and third largest contributions to the description of
Table 1 The most prominent describers of the 411 trematodes reported so far from Australian fishes Rank
Author
Number of species described
% Total
Cum. % total
Publication span
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Bray, Cribb et al. Yamaguti Manter Korotaeva Lebedev Martin Nicoll Crowcroft Linton Kurochkin Machida Rudolphi Parukhin Pritchard Johnston (T.H.) Johnston (S.J.) Looss
135 58 43 12 12 12 10 9 9 8 7 6 6 6 5 5 5
32.9 14.1 10.5 2.9 2.9 2.9 2.4 2.2 2.2 2.0 1.7 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.2 1.2 1.2
32.9 47.1 57.6 60.5 63.4 66.3 68.8 71.0 73.2 75.1 76.8 78.3 79.8 81.2 82.4 83.7 84.9
1973– 2003 1934– 1970 1925– 1971 1969– 1982 1968 1958– 1974 1915 1947– 1950 1898– 1926 1970– 1982 1971– 1993 1802– 1819 1961– 1971 1953– 1966 1927– 1940 1902– 1913 1899– 1907
trematodes from Australian waters come from two giants of the field, Yamaguti and Manter. These two authors between them described nearly 1000 species of trematodes from fishes from around the world. Yamaguti’s contribution to the knowledge of the Australian fauna (58 species) was made without his ever having visited the country. All the species described by him were actually reported from Australia by others. Nearly the same is true for Manter. Manter visited Australia in 1963 and from this visit he described 20 species of trematodes (especially with Walter Durio). He had a much larger collection awaiting description but this work was stopped prematurely by his untimely death in 1971. Many species described by Manter from elsewhere in the Pacific have also been reported subsequently from Australian waters. All the other contributions to the description of this fauna are relatively modest. The next largest contributions were made by Korotaeva, Lebedev, Martin and Nicoll who each described 10 –12 species. Korotaeva and Lebedev were Russians who collected from trawlers in the Australian southern oceans, Martin (an American) did work during sabbatical leave in Brisbane and Nicoll (an Englishman) worked in Townsville and produced a single significant paper on fish parasites. No other author has described as many as 10 species from this fauna. Of the next 10 most significant contributions just three were Australian workers (Crowcroft, and S.J. and T.H. Johnston). The remainder include American, Russian and German workers. These statistics lead to one of my central points. The description of the Australian parasite fauna has been achieved in the main by just a handful of authors making a consistent and sustained contribution. The sustaining of the contribution is important; the most valuable
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contributions have been by workers contributing over a long period of time. Further, there is no organisation of the study of the fauna. Speaking for myself, I can observe that the first employment for which I was short-listed following my PhD was to study the epidemiology of trichostrongyloid nematodes of sheep and goats in Fiji. If I had been selected to take that path (and doubtless it was wise selection that I was not) I can only guess that knowledge of trematodes of Australian fishes would be much as it was when I began to study them in the 1980s—languishing and done, if at all, largely by non-Australians.
3. A general pattern? If the trematodes of fishes have been studied only sporadically and as the result of some kind of accident, have the same principles driven work on other groups of parasites? It is my contention that they have. For the purposes of this address I have considered two other groups. The lice and parasitic protists. 3.1. Protists Analysis of the description of protists in Australia is made possible by the encyclopaedic checklist published recently by O’Donoghue and Adlard (2000) which reports 570 identified species of protists from the Australian fauna. These species have been described by the contributions of about 278 authors. The distribution of effort has been highly uneven (Table 2). Just 11 authors have described 10 or more species and the top 20 contributors account for nearly 42% of all the species. The single greatest contribution has been made by Ian Barker, a Canadian worker. Three Australians have made major contributions, the Mackerrases (here grouped together), T.H. Johnston and Cleland. As for the trematodes, there are many important contributions from non-Australian workers, either as a result of brief visits to Australia or through description of species described elsewhere and subsequently reported from here. Perhaps the most striking feature of this dataset is the lack of current activity. If we examine the period over which the most productive workers in the field were active we can notice that it appears that none are still publishing. Why is this the case? Certainly no one would argue that it is because all the protists are now known. Rather, I think it exemplifies the accidental nature of the study and description of the Australian fauna; in this case presently something of an unhappy accident. 3.2. Lice Analysis of description of lice is made possible by the checklist produced by Palma and Barker (1996). This checklist lists a neat 500 identified species. The same information discussed above is tabulated for the lice in
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Table 2 The most prominent describers of the 570 parasitic protists recorded from Australian hosts to 2000 Rank
Author
Number of species described
% Total
Cum. % total
Publication span
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Barker Mackerras Johnston Grassi Cleland Kane Molnar Rohde Cannon Paperna Delvinquier Moser Grulet Landau Lom Raff Su White Bancroft Gilruth
50 46 29 19 15 14 12 12 11 11 10 9 8 8 8 8 8 8 7 7
6.9 6.4 4.0 2.6 2.1 1.9 1.7 1.7 1.5 1.5 1.4 1.3 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.0 1.0
6.9 13.3 17.4 20.0 22.1 24.0 25.7 27.4 28.9 30.4 31.8 33.1 34.2 35.3 36.4 37.5 38.6 39.7 40.7 41.7
1974–1989 1925 þ 1961 1907–1932 1879–1917 1909–1912 1964–1965 1988 1988 1967–1988 1990–1997 1987 1989–1990 1982–1985 1966–1991 1992–1995 1911–1912 1994–1995 1994–1995 1918 1910–1912
Data from O’Donoghue and Adlard (2000).
Table 3. Although 81 authors have contributed to the task of describing the lice known from Australia, over 65% of the species have been reported by just 15 authors. Tellingly, for this group, the top 10 contributions to the description of the fauna were made by non-Australians. Again, many of the species involved are species found overseas that have subsequently been reported from Australia, but most are Table 3 The most prominent describers of the 500 species of lice recorded from Australian hosts to 1996 Rank
Author
Number of species described
% Total
Cum. % total
Publication span
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Timmermann Piaget Price Clay Nitzsch Linnaeus Burmeister Denny Rudow Emerson Giebel Harrison Ke´ler Le Soue¨f Tendeiro
41 40 31 30 28 23 22 22 22 21 20 18 18 14 14
7.36 7.18 5.57 5.39 5.03 4.13 3.95 3.95 3.95 3.77 3.59 3.23 3.23 2.51 2.51
7.36 14.54 20.11 25.49 30.52 34.65 38.60 42.55 46.50 50.27 53.86 57.09 60.32 60.32 65.35
1949–1977 1871–1890 1964–1992 1936–1981 1818–1874 1758 1838–1839 1842 1866–1870 1955–1988 1866–1876 1912–1937 1939–1971 1902 1955–1988
Data from Palma and Barker (1996).
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Australian species. Other features of the description of this fauna are the remarkable time-span of the publications of some of the major workers; Nitzsch published from 1818 to 1874 and Clay from 1936 to 1981. Also telling is that, again there appears to be just one worker now active in this field, the American R.D. Price.
paper about immunology can safely be ignored. A terrible taxonomic paper must be dealt with because the description of a new species is a scientific hypothesis that cannot be ignored. This is not a solution!
3.3. Some unhappy accidents
The role of museums in the study of diversity is a hot topic. Traditionally, biologists at Australian museums tended to be taxonomists working towards the goal of describing and understanding the fauna. Australia has long had two museums that could boast a significant interest in parasites as indicated by the presence of curators with a strong interest in the subject. These were and remain the South Australian Museum (SAM) and the Queensland Museum (QM). The SAM holds the Australian Helminthological Collection which was founded by T. Harvey Johnston. Curation of this collection was undertaken by the late Madeline Angel and Pat Thomas (nee Mawson). Both Angel and Mawson made substantial contributions to the description of the Australian helminth fauna (trematodes and nematodes, respectively). Angel and Thomas were succeeded by Sylvie Pichelin who studied acanthocephalans and more recently by Ian Whittington who is interested in monogeneans. Parasites have been promoted at the QM since the appointment of Lester Cannon in 1976. Cannon promoted study of parasites, did significant work in the area himself (especially on symbiotic turbellarians), and overlapped with and was essentially succeeded by Rob Adlard in 2002. The nature of museums is changing as they strive for political support and ‘relevance’. Thus, we see now that Rob Adlard maintains a major focus on the investigation of protist diseases of oysters (industry funding) and Ian Whittington maintains a major focus on parasites in finfish aquaculture (industry funding). Both retain an interest in taxonomy (protists of aquatic animals and Monogenea, respectively) but neither would claim that it is their principle activity. Is this a concern? Not necessarily. For museums to be forward looking, institutions involved in research of direct benefit to the community is a good thing. The question remains, however, where and by whom will the taxonomy be done?
If we know a reasonable amount about the groups of parasites mentioned above, then I argue it is because of happy accidents that a few scientists have chosen to give them sustained attention. For every happy accident, however, there are several unhappy ones. These are parasite groups that have never received the sustained attention that they require. In this category might be placed the trematodes of bats, the cestodes of birds, the nematodes of invertebrates and the protists of invertebrates. The evidence suggests that all of these parasite assemblages are likely to be rich in Australia. For example, the thelastomatoid nematodes of Australian terrestrial arthropods comprise just four species according to the literature, yet Aaron Jex (PhD student) has found at least 40 species in just two subfamilies of one family of cockroaches (Jex, pers. comm.). Lack of study renders parasites invisible. I challenge the reader to reflect on their broad understanding of the groups of parasites mentioned above; it is my prediction that the grasp of each group is likely to be negligible, especially when contrasted with relatively heavily studied subjects such as the parasites of Australian kangaroos.
4. How do we get the fauna described? Where should the taxonomists be? I believe that I have established that the description of the Australian parasite fauna has been patchy and unorganised. If this state of affairs is to change then who is it that should do the work? It has always been my view that parasite taxonomists should be independently wealthy and able to follow their passions as they please. Sadly the suppliers of independent wealth disagree. Thus, we must look to institutions to employ and support parasite taxonomists. 4.1. Every parasitologist should describe at least one parasite! Or so one would think from the number of authors who have indeed described just one or two species over their careers. Frequently, the efforts of once-only taxonomists are not of a high standard. The conventions and principles of the discipline are often not well understood and it is not rare for considerable difficulty to be created for those who come later and must disentangle the mess. It is my impression that other fields suffer much less from colleagues deciding to write one ill-informed paper than does taxonomy. A terrible
4.2. Museums
4.3. University departments There is presently a small handful of academics in Australian universities who have a major interest in and have made a significant contribution to the description of a section of the Australian parasite fauna. David Blair of James Cook University (trematodes—but latterly tragically, but wisely, moved into molecular parasitology), Ian Beveridge (Melbourne University—taxonomy of cestodes and nematodes), Leslie Warner (Central Queensland University—taxonomy of nematodes), and me. Active taxonomists in academic positions are an important source
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of the descriptions of the parasite fauna and, of course, of the training of future taxonomists. One of the great advantages of academic positions is that they have extended tenure which allows sufficient time for the development of a substantial body of work. One of the four taxonomists mentioned above (LW) will retire soon and it is unlikely that she (or any of the others) will be replaced by parasite taxonomists. The explanations lie, presumably, in the supposed lack of glamour in the field and the difficulty that it has in attracting major funding (see below). Certainly, as seen below, it is possible to attract students to the field.
describing the Australian fauna, however, in general PhD theses in taxonomy make a useful contribution to the task but one that is ultimately dwarfed by the size of the job. This leads me to reinforce an earlier conclusion. Longevity in the field is vital for a major contribution to taxonomy. The description of species is not a speedy process, especially when substantial revisionary work is required. In addition, typically the best work arises after quite some time in the field. Students who complete a PhD and move on immediately are doing so just as they are really starting to get the hang of the task.
4.4. PhD students
4.5. CSIRO, departments of primary industries
In the present age, taxonomists are likely to emerge only through the path of a PhD degree. What is the impact of taxonomic PhDs on the students and on taxonomy in Australia? To consider this I have reviewed the work and careers of Australian students (with whom I am familiar) who graduated with partially or completely taxonomic PhDs from the University of Queensland (Table 4). Of 17 PhD students whose thesis incorporated a substantial component of taxonomy, just four have moved on to work that incorporates a substantial amount of parasite taxonomy. Of these just one (me) is in permanent full-time work. What can we infer from these histories (apart from the fact that I have shown the least initiative of the cohort)? First, we can infer that a degree in taxonomy is no guarantee of (barely even an indication of) a future career in taxonomy. More positively, a degree in taxonomy is apparently no impediment to a wide range of interesting careers; whether the careers are those that would have been chosen in every case is, of course, not for me to speculate on. For the task of
These institutions no longer employ taxonomists in any significant numbers. Exceptions are fish and insect taxonomists where the task is seen to have immediate and direct economic implications. There is no prospect of change in the present climate; the likelihood of the appointment of a wildlife parasite taxonomist is vanishingly remote.
Table 4 The PhD topic and subsequent (or present) career of 17 students of the Department of Parasitology, The University of Queensland whose theses incorporated significant parasite taxonomy Student
Parasite group
Subsequent career
Anderson Butler Cameron Chambers Chisholm Cribb Deveney Ernst Hallett Jones Jue Sue Pichelin Sewell Spratt Watson West Young
Trematodes Cestodes Ciliates Trematoda Monogenea Trematoda Monogenea Monogenea Myxosporea Cestoda Trematoda Monogenea Turbellaria Nematoda Trematodes Copepoda Monogenea
Veterinary research Medicine Insect phylogenetics Aquaculture Monogenean ecology and taxonomy Trematode taxonomy Fisheries management Aquaculture Aquaculture Biomedical and ultrastructural studies Commerce Museum Curation; acanthocephalan taxonomy Ultrastructural studies Nematode taxonomy (and more!) Fisheries biology Biomedical industries Fisheries biology
4.6. International or local product? A topic that arises from time to time is that of the role of scientists from outside Australia in the description of the Australian fauna. Is it a good thing that scientists from other countries visit Australia collect our (are they ‘ours’?) parasites and return to describe them from their own countries? The answer must be a resounding ‘Yes’, for two reasons. First, such work has made and will continue to make a substantial contribution to the formidable task of describing our fauna, and clearly we need all the help that we can get. Second, it is always desirable to have a range of workers in a field—having all parasites from a particular group described by just one worker may ultimately lead to a poverty of ideas associated with the group. This endorsement of international contribution is made with one reservation. This is that we should feel dissatisfied with ourselves as a nation if the taxonomic task ever comes to be (or in some cases remains) completely dominated by workers from outside the country. Equally, Australian scientists should contribute to the world’s understanding of groups of parasites and not just restrict themselves to a narrow Australia-only perspective. Thus, we find that overall there is no obvious, direct employer of significant numbers of parasite taxonomists in Australia.
5. Funding and profile Beyond an appointment, taxonomists need money to fund their research. Taxonomic work has traditionally been thought of as capable of being pursued very cheaply. This is really no longer possible. Taxonomists tend to need technical help, they need money to travel (especially if, as
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is desirable, they are to collect systematically rather than by convenience), and increasingly they need to support molecular analyses to test their hypotheses. Where does this money come from? Within-institution support (e.g. within museums and universities) is typically negligible, so external competitive grants are essential. Two principle sources are potentially available in Australia. The first is the Australian Research Council (ARC). The ARC is not disposed to support taxonomic work for its own sake. Rather, it would prefer (for example) to support the exploration of evolutionary questions that may require some taxonomy to be done along the way. Whether this is reasonable is essentially moot, because the amount of support to taxonomy from the ARC is paltry. A search of the list of titles and descriptions of the new ARC Discovery grants awarded for 2004 reveals no mention of the word ‘taxonomy’ and just one of ‘taxonomic’. This list covers all biology in Australia. The second funding agency is the Australian Biological Resources Study (ABRS). This Federal agency was established precisely with the goal of facilitating the exploration and understanding of Australian biodiversity. The ABRS has an annual grants round which has suffered significant cuts in recent years. For 2002/2003 the ABRS announced just 15 new grants for the study of all Australian animals. These grants had a total value of $440 000, or , $30 000 each on average. Colleagues in other areas of biology have commented that such sums are not worth the trouble of application. Poor funding has an implication that extends beyond the immediate support for the work because a field that struggles to attract significant funding is potentially unattractive as a career option. Thus, the field has the capacity to spiral inwards towards extinction. Funding is a serious problem. Another problem for parasite taxonomy in Australia and elsewhere is the profile of its published output. The highranking journal in which I now write, maintains a broad intake of all kinds of scientific work related to parasites. Despite this policy, only a tiny fraction of the output relates to the description of parasites. In the past 2 years the journal has published descriptions of just three new species—a gyrodactylid (Huyse and Volckaert, 2002), a cryptosporidiid (Alvarez and Sitja, 2002) and a mesomycetozoan (Hertel et al., 2002). Presumably this is a response to the journal policy to publish only taxonomic papers ‘of broad interest, going beyond purely morphological descriptions which are best suited to specialist journals’!
6. Conclusions Australia has a relatively small population and the parasite fauna is large, so the task of describing and understanding that fauna is daunting. Review of the history of the description of elements of the Australian parasite fauna shows it to have been patchy. A few groups of parasites are now relatively well-known by way of
the efforts of what are really remarkably small cadres of workers who have made sustained efforts in these groups. A high proportion of Australian parasites have been described by international workers. The sustaining of the interest over a long period is the key to real progress being made in this task. The patchiness of effort is such that some host – parasite systems have been almost completely ignored in that no worker has ever given them sustained attention. The nature of the organisation of Australian science presently means that there are few if any natural habitats (opportunities for sustained reliable employment) for parasite taxonomists and funding for taxonomic research is scarce. Thus, taxonomists can be uncharitably likened to rubbish dumps—everyone wants to use them, no one wants to pay for them, and certainly no one wants one right next door! In the present climate there is no real prospect that development of understanding of our parasite fauna will remain anything but an accident continuing to happen. The present poor state of affairs and equally poor outlook is in the face of continued rhetoric from all levels about the importance of biodiversity. The ‘Biodiversity’ web-site of the Australian Government’s Department of the Environment and Heritage (http://www.ea.gov.au/biodiversity/ index.html) states: “We depend on biodiversity for our survival and quality of life. The most significant impediment to the conservation and management of biodiversity is our lack of knowledge about it and the effects of human population and activities on it.” Despite the abundance of such platitudes which have been repeated for many years now, the discipline of taxonomy continues to dwindle nationally. Perhaps my point ultimately is that non-taxonomists are deluded if they think that we have any serious kind of national program that is marching in orderly fashion towards understanding of our parasite fauna; we do not and we are not! Are these circumstances satisfactory? I say no. Apart from the fact that it concerns parasites and Australia specifically, little I have written above is new. Taxonomists and other enlightened biologists have been warning of the impending crisis in taxonomy and of the taxonomic impediment for many years and there are many papers that repeat the same themes (e.g. Green, 1998; Eggleton, 1999; Coomans, 2002; Mallet and Willmott, 2003). This alarm is repeated in the parasite community (Brooks and Hoberg, 2001; Scholz, 2001). In some parts of the world there has been a genuine response to the warnings. The governmental response has perhaps been strongest in the United States where the National Science Foundation’s Partnership for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy (PEET), supports competitively reviewed research projects that target groups of poorly known organisms with major funding (Rodman and Cody, 2003). Despite the rhetoric, nothing comparable has been attempted in Australia. Finally, I wish to record that I have never felt other than privileged to be able to pursue pure biological studies of our fascinating parasite fauna. It is my view that our discipline, and the nation as a whole will be the poorer if future
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generations of enthusiastic young parasitologists are not given the same opportunities as were afforded to me.
References Alvarez, P.P., Sitja, B.A., 2002. Cryptosporidium molnari n. sp. (Apicomplexa: Cryptosporidiidae) infecting two marine fish species, Sparus aurata L. and Dicentrarchus labrax L. Int. J. Parasitol. 32, 1007–1021. Brooks, D.R., Hoberg, E.P., 2001. Parasite systematics in the 21st century: opportunities and obstacles. Trends Parasitol. 17, 273 –275. Coomans, A., 2002. Present status and future of nematode systematics. Nematology 4, 573 –582. Cribb, T.H., 1998. The diversity of the Digenea of Australian animals. Int. J. Parasitol. 28, 899–911. Eggleton, P., 1999. Termite species description rates and the state of termite taxonomy. Insect. Soc. 46, 1– 5. Green, S.V., 1998. The taxonomic impediment in orthopteran research and conservation. J. Insect Conserv. 2, 151–159.
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Hertel, L.A., Bayne, C.J., Loker, E.S., 2002. The symbiont Capsaspora owczarzaki, nov. gen. nov. sp. isolated from three strains of the pulmonate snail Biomphalaria glabrata is related to members of the Mesomycetozoea. Int. J. Parasitol. 32, 1183– 1191. Huyse, T., Volckaert, F.A.M., 2002. Identification of a host-associated species complex using molecular and morphometric analyses, with the description of Gyrodactylus rugiensoides n. sp. (Gyrodactylidae, Monogenea). Int. J. Parasitol. 32, 907 –919. Mallet, J., Willmott, K., 2003. Taxonomy: renaissance or tower of Babel? Trends Ecol. Evol. 18, 57– 59. O’Donoghue, P.J., Adlard, R.D., 2000. Catalogue of protozoan parasites recorded in Australia. Mem. Queensland Mus. 45, 1 –163. Palma, R.L., Barker, S.C., 1996. Host –lice associations in the Australian fauna, Zoological Catalogue of Australia Volume 26. Psocoptera, Phthiraptera, Thysanoptera, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne. Rodman, J.E., Cody, J.H., 2003. The taxonomic impediment overcome: NSF’s partnerships for enhancing expertise in taxonomy (PEET) as a model. Syst. Biol. 52, 428 –435. Scholz, T., 2001. Taxonomy of helminths after the year 2000. Helminthologia (Bratislava) 38, 155– 163.
Presidential Address
Living on the edge: parasite taxonomy in Australia T.H. Cribb* Department of Microbiology and Parasitology, Centre for Marine Studies, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia Received 19 September 2003; received in revised form 3 November 2003; accepted 3 November 2003
Abstract The way in which the huge Australian parasite fauna is described (discovery and naming) is the subject of this address. The approach to the task has never been well-organised so that a few groups of parasites are now relatively well-known because of the efforts of small groups of workers who have made sustained efforts in these groups, but equally some host –parasite systems have been almost completely ignored in that no worker has ever given them sustained attention. A high proportion of Australian parasites have been described by international workers. The sustaining of interest in a group of parasites over a long period is the key to real progress being made. The nature of the organisation of Australian science presently means that few positions are available for parasite taxonomists and funding for taxonomic research is scarce. Thus, parasite taxonomy (like the taxonomy of many groups of Australian plants and animals) can only be considered to be in crisis. q 2003 Australian Society for Parasitology Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Parasites; Taxonomy; Biodiversity; History; Crisis
1. Introduction The title of this address does not refer to the edge-of-theseat excitement that is life in parasite taxonomy in Australia (although it is exciting, for a variety of reasons). Rather, it refers to the fact that this discipline has been, and remains, a marginal activity in Australia and that, but for the happy accident of a few dedicated enthusiasts, we would know dramatically less about the parasites of Australian animals than we do now. In many areas, that is not much at all. My argument starts with the premise that it is a good thing for us to know about the parasites of our native animals. The reasons for this range from the economic to the esoteric. Parasites of native animals may play a role in the health of humans (rare in Australia), domesticated animals, aquaculture and native animal populations. Parasites are also a natural part of our ecosystem and, thus, in my view, are just as worthy of study as the platypus (although I would not be so bold as to argue that every parasite species has as much intrinsic interest as the platypus does). If this premise is accepted, then there is a need for some kind of process by which the parasites are studied. Perhaps the most logical train of events is for the parasites to first be collected and * Tel.: þ61-7-3365-2581; fax: þ 61-7-3365-4699. E-mail address: [email protected] (T.H. Cribb).
named, then to have their basic biology described (life cycles especially need to be elucidated), and, finally, complexities of their pathology, ecology and interaction with the ecosystem at large explored. Of course I do not suggest that the derived issues should be ignored until all the species have been described. However, it should be remembered that, in the broad, the second and third phases can progress only with difficulty if the parasites have not actually been found and described. In this address I will focus on just the first of these stages—the collection and the description of the fauna. These activities fall in the area of the pariah disciplines of taxonomy, classification and systematics. Given the unfortunate connotations of these words (for some) it is tempting to call the work ‘biodiversity studies’, but, in truth, taxonomy, classification and systematics are what it is really about, at least to begin with. So, if we are to know something of the parasites of Australian animals then we need to set the parameters of our task. Parasites, of course, are an ecological rather than a phylogenetic assemblage and as such the term encompasses many different groups of animals. There are major groups of parasites from the protists (perhaps seven phyla that can be considered entirely or significantly parasitic), the helminths (Acanthocephala, Platyhelminthes and Nematoda) and the Arthropoda (parasitic crustaceans, arachnids, lice, fleas and
0020-7519/$30.00 q 2003 Australian Society for Parasitology Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijpara.2003.11.004
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several other orders of insects). It is safe to say that for none of these groups of parasites have all or perhaps even most of the species been described. We lack estimates for the number of species of most parasite groups and those that we do have are probably wanting. I will consider the problem by reviewing progress in several major host – parasite assemblages.
2. Trematodes of fishes This assemblage of parasites is my own key focus. Although trematodes occur in all groups of vertebrates, and I have done some work on those in amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, the huge number of species in fishes has become my passion. My published studies on this group date from 1985. As I became increasingly familiar with the group over the years, I developed an interest in standing back and trying to consider the size and nature of the fauna as a whole. These musings culminated in an analysis in which I estimated that the total trematode fauna of Australia might be as many as 6000 species and that of Australian fishes might be over 5000 species (Cribb, 1998). With the passing of time I view these predictions with increasing alarm (some of the assumptions may not be particularly robust), comforted only by the dubious thought that my period of contribution to the field will be long past by the time that my predictions can be properly tested. Regardless of how many species there may be in total in Australia, we can be quite precise about how many are known now. There are 411 trematode species reported from Australian fishes so far. It seems unlikely that these could represent more than 20% of the fauna as a whole. By what process have we reached this relatively unimpressive level of knowledge? There are many ways in which we can consider the significance of the contribution to the understanding of the parasite fauna, but counting the number of parasite descriptions by different authors is perhaps the simplest. The 411 trematode species were described (i.e. given their scientific name) by 104 different scientists. The figure of 104 suggests that the field has received substantial attention from a broad range of scientists. This is not the case. Table 1 shows the relative significance of the most important contributions to the task of describing this fauna. Notable features of the table are that the top three contributions account for well over 50% of all descriptions and the top 15 account for over 80% of them. The largest contribution by far is that of Bray, Cribb and their colleagues. (The analysis combines the descriptions published by my colleague Rod Bray, me, our students and some of our colleagues that have emerged as essentially a single programme of study.) These studies have produced almost one-third of all the descriptions and more than half of all the records of trematodes from Australian fishes. The second and third largest contributions to the description of
Table 1 The most prominent describers of the 411 trematodes reported so far from Australian fishes Rank
Author
Number of species described
% Total
Cum. % total
Publication span
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Bray, Cribb et al. Yamaguti Manter Korotaeva Lebedev Martin Nicoll Crowcroft Linton Kurochkin Machida Rudolphi Parukhin Pritchard Johnston (T.H.) Johnston (S.J.) Looss
135 58 43 12 12 12 10 9 9 8 7 6 6 6 5 5 5
32.9 14.1 10.5 2.9 2.9 2.9 2.4 2.2 2.2 2.0 1.7 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.2 1.2 1.2
32.9 47.1 57.6 60.5 63.4 66.3 68.8 71.0 73.2 75.1 76.8 78.3 79.8 81.2 82.4 83.7 84.9
1973– 2003 1934– 1970 1925– 1971 1969– 1982 1968 1958– 1974 1915 1947– 1950 1898– 1926 1970– 1982 1971– 1993 1802– 1819 1961– 1971 1953– 1966 1927– 1940 1902– 1913 1899– 1907
trematodes from Australian waters come from two giants of the field, Yamaguti and Manter. These two authors between them described nearly 1000 species of trematodes from fishes from around the world. Yamaguti’s contribution to the knowledge of the Australian fauna (58 species) was made without his ever having visited the country. All the species described by him were actually reported from Australia by others. Nearly the same is true for Manter. Manter visited Australia in 1963 and from this visit he described 20 species of trematodes (especially with Walter Durio). He had a much larger collection awaiting description but this work was stopped prematurely by his untimely death in 1971. Many species described by Manter from elsewhere in the Pacific have also been reported subsequently from Australian waters. All the other contributions to the description of this fauna are relatively modest. The next largest contributions were made by Korotaeva, Lebedev, Martin and Nicoll who each described 10 –12 species. Korotaeva and Lebedev were Russians who collected from trawlers in the Australian southern oceans, Martin (an American) did work during sabbatical leave in Brisbane and Nicoll (an Englishman) worked in Townsville and produced a single significant paper on fish parasites. No other author has described as many as 10 species from this fauna. Of the next 10 most significant contributions just three were Australian workers (Crowcroft, and S.J. and T.H. Johnston). The remainder include American, Russian and German workers. These statistics lead to one of my central points. The description of the Australian parasite fauna has been achieved in the main by just a handful of authors making a consistent and sustained contribution. The sustaining of the contribution is important; the most valuable
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contributions have been by workers contributing over a long period of time. Further, there is no organisation of the study of the fauna. Speaking for myself, I can observe that the first employment for which I was short-listed following my PhD was to study the epidemiology of trichostrongyloid nematodes of sheep and goats in Fiji. If I had been selected to take that path (and doubtless it was wise selection that I was not) I can only guess that knowledge of trematodes of Australian fishes would be much as it was when I began to study them in the 1980s—languishing and done, if at all, largely by non-Australians.
3. A general pattern? If the trematodes of fishes have been studied only sporadically and as the result of some kind of accident, have the same principles driven work on other groups of parasites? It is my contention that they have. For the purposes of this address I have considered two other groups. The lice and parasitic protists. 3.1. Protists Analysis of the description of protists in Australia is made possible by the encyclopaedic checklist published recently by O’Donoghue and Adlard (2000) which reports 570 identified species of protists from the Australian fauna. These species have been described by the contributions of about 278 authors. The distribution of effort has been highly uneven (Table 2). Just 11 authors have described 10 or more species and the top 20 contributors account for nearly 42% of all the species. The single greatest contribution has been made by Ian Barker, a Canadian worker. Three Australians have made major contributions, the Mackerrases (here grouped together), T.H. Johnston and Cleland. As for the trematodes, there are many important contributions from non-Australian workers, either as a result of brief visits to Australia or through description of species described elsewhere and subsequently reported from here. Perhaps the most striking feature of this dataset is the lack of current activity. If we examine the period over which the most productive workers in the field were active we can notice that it appears that none are still publishing. Why is this the case? Certainly no one would argue that it is because all the protists are now known. Rather, I think it exemplifies the accidental nature of the study and description of the Australian fauna; in this case presently something of an unhappy accident. 3.2. Lice Analysis of description of lice is made possible by the checklist produced by Palma and Barker (1996). This checklist lists a neat 500 identified species. The same information discussed above is tabulated for the lice in
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Table 2 The most prominent describers of the 570 parasitic protists recorded from Australian hosts to 2000 Rank
Author
Number of species described
% Total
Cum. % total
Publication span
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Barker Mackerras Johnston Grassi Cleland Kane Molnar Rohde Cannon Paperna Delvinquier Moser Grulet Landau Lom Raff Su White Bancroft Gilruth
50 46 29 19 15 14 12 12 11 11 10 9 8 8 8 8 8 8 7 7
6.9 6.4 4.0 2.6 2.1 1.9 1.7 1.7 1.5 1.5 1.4 1.3 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.0 1.0
6.9 13.3 17.4 20.0 22.1 24.0 25.7 27.4 28.9 30.4 31.8 33.1 34.2 35.3 36.4 37.5 38.6 39.7 40.7 41.7
1974–1989 1925 þ 1961 1907–1932 1879–1917 1909–1912 1964–1965 1988 1988 1967–1988 1990–1997 1987 1989–1990 1982–1985 1966–1991 1992–1995 1911–1912 1994–1995 1994–1995 1918 1910–1912
Data from O’Donoghue and Adlard (2000).
Table 3. Although 81 authors have contributed to the task of describing the lice known from Australia, over 65% of the species have been reported by just 15 authors. Tellingly, for this group, the top 10 contributions to the description of the fauna were made by non-Australians. Again, many of the species involved are species found overseas that have subsequently been reported from Australia, but most are Table 3 The most prominent describers of the 500 species of lice recorded from Australian hosts to 1996 Rank
Author
Number of species described
% Total
Cum. % total
Publication span
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Timmermann Piaget Price Clay Nitzsch Linnaeus Burmeister Denny Rudow Emerson Giebel Harrison Ke´ler Le Soue¨f Tendeiro
41 40 31 30 28 23 22 22 22 21 20 18 18 14 14
7.36 7.18 5.57 5.39 5.03 4.13 3.95 3.95 3.95 3.77 3.59 3.23 3.23 2.51 2.51
7.36 14.54 20.11 25.49 30.52 34.65 38.60 42.55 46.50 50.27 53.86 57.09 60.32 60.32 65.35
1949–1977 1871–1890 1964–1992 1936–1981 1818–1874 1758 1838–1839 1842 1866–1870 1955–1988 1866–1876 1912–1937 1939–1971 1902 1955–1988
Data from Palma and Barker (1996).
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Australian species. Other features of the description of this fauna are the remarkable time-span of the publications of some of the major workers; Nitzsch published from 1818 to 1874 and Clay from 1936 to 1981. Also telling is that, again there appears to be just one worker now active in this field, the American R.D. Price.
paper about immunology can safely be ignored. A terrible taxonomic paper must be dealt with because the description of a new species is a scientific hypothesis that cannot be ignored. This is not a solution!
3.3. Some unhappy accidents
The role of museums in the study of diversity is a hot topic. Traditionally, biologists at Australian museums tended to be taxonomists working towards the goal of describing and understanding the fauna. Australia has long had two museums that could boast a significant interest in parasites as indicated by the presence of curators with a strong interest in the subject. These were and remain the South Australian Museum (SAM) and the Queensland Museum (QM). The SAM holds the Australian Helminthological Collection which was founded by T. Harvey Johnston. Curation of this collection was undertaken by the late Madeline Angel and Pat Thomas (nee Mawson). Both Angel and Mawson made substantial contributions to the description of the Australian helminth fauna (trematodes and nematodes, respectively). Angel and Thomas were succeeded by Sylvie Pichelin who studied acanthocephalans and more recently by Ian Whittington who is interested in monogeneans. Parasites have been promoted at the QM since the appointment of Lester Cannon in 1976. Cannon promoted study of parasites, did significant work in the area himself (especially on symbiotic turbellarians), and overlapped with and was essentially succeeded by Rob Adlard in 2002. The nature of museums is changing as they strive for political support and ‘relevance’. Thus, we see now that Rob Adlard maintains a major focus on the investigation of protist diseases of oysters (industry funding) and Ian Whittington maintains a major focus on parasites in finfish aquaculture (industry funding). Both retain an interest in taxonomy (protists of aquatic animals and Monogenea, respectively) but neither would claim that it is their principle activity. Is this a concern? Not necessarily. For museums to be forward looking, institutions involved in research of direct benefit to the community is a good thing. The question remains, however, where and by whom will the taxonomy be done?
If we know a reasonable amount about the groups of parasites mentioned above, then I argue it is because of happy accidents that a few scientists have chosen to give them sustained attention. For every happy accident, however, there are several unhappy ones. These are parasite groups that have never received the sustained attention that they require. In this category might be placed the trematodes of bats, the cestodes of birds, the nematodes of invertebrates and the protists of invertebrates. The evidence suggests that all of these parasite assemblages are likely to be rich in Australia. For example, the thelastomatoid nematodes of Australian terrestrial arthropods comprise just four species according to the literature, yet Aaron Jex (PhD student) has found at least 40 species in just two subfamilies of one family of cockroaches (Jex, pers. comm.). Lack of study renders parasites invisible. I challenge the reader to reflect on their broad understanding of the groups of parasites mentioned above; it is my prediction that the grasp of each group is likely to be negligible, especially when contrasted with relatively heavily studied subjects such as the parasites of Australian kangaroos.
4. How do we get the fauna described? Where should the taxonomists be? I believe that I have established that the description of the Australian parasite fauna has been patchy and unorganised. If this state of affairs is to change then who is it that should do the work? It has always been my view that parasite taxonomists should be independently wealthy and able to follow their passions as they please. Sadly the suppliers of independent wealth disagree. Thus, we must look to institutions to employ and support parasite taxonomists. 4.1. Every parasitologist should describe at least one parasite! Or so one would think from the number of authors who have indeed described just one or two species over their careers. Frequently, the efforts of once-only taxonomists are not of a high standard. The conventions and principles of the discipline are often not well understood and it is not rare for considerable difficulty to be created for those who come later and must disentangle the mess. It is my impression that other fields suffer much less from colleagues deciding to write one ill-informed paper than does taxonomy. A terrible
4.2. Museums
4.3. University departments There is presently a small handful of academics in Australian universities who have a major interest in and have made a significant contribution to the description of a section of the Australian parasite fauna. David Blair of James Cook University (trematodes—but latterly tragically, but wisely, moved into molecular parasitology), Ian Beveridge (Melbourne University—taxonomy of cestodes and nematodes), Leslie Warner (Central Queensland University—taxonomy of nematodes), and me. Active taxonomists in academic positions are an important source
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of the descriptions of the parasite fauna and, of course, of the training of future taxonomists. One of the great advantages of academic positions is that they have extended tenure which allows sufficient time for the development of a substantial body of work. One of the four taxonomists mentioned above (LW) will retire soon and it is unlikely that she (or any of the others) will be replaced by parasite taxonomists. The explanations lie, presumably, in the supposed lack of glamour in the field and the difficulty that it has in attracting major funding (see below). Certainly, as seen below, it is possible to attract students to the field.
describing the Australian fauna, however, in general PhD theses in taxonomy make a useful contribution to the task but one that is ultimately dwarfed by the size of the job. This leads me to reinforce an earlier conclusion. Longevity in the field is vital for a major contribution to taxonomy. The description of species is not a speedy process, especially when substantial revisionary work is required. In addition, typically the best work arises after quite some time in the field. Students who complete a PhD and move on immediately are doing so just as they are really starting to get the hang of the task.
4.4. PhD students
4.5. CSIRO, departments of primary industries
In the present age, taxonomists are likely to emerge only through the path of a PhD degree. What is the impact of taxonomic PhDs on the students and on taxonomy in Australia? To consider this I have reviewed the work and careers of Australian students (with whom I am familiar) who graduated with partially or completely taxonomic PhDs from the University of Queensland (Table 4). Of 17 PhD students whose thesis incorporated a substantial component of taxonomy, just four have moved on to work that incorporates a substantial amount of parasite taxonomy. Of these just one (me) is in permanent full-time work. What can we infer from these histories (apart from the fact that I have shown the least initiative of the cohort)? First, we can infer that a degree in taxonomy is no guarantee of (barely even an indication of) a future career in taxonomy. More positively, a degree in taxonomy is apparently no impediment to a wide range of interesting careers; whether the careers are those that would have been chosen in every case is, of course, not for me to speculate on. For the task of
These institutions no longer employ taxonomists in any significant numbers. Exceptions are fish and insect taxonomists where the task is seen to have immediate and direct economic implications. There is no prospect of change in the present climate; the likelihood of the appointment of a wildlife parasite taxonomist is vanishingly remote.
Table 4 The PhD topic and subsequent (or present) career of 17 students of the Department of Parasitology, The University of Queensland whose theses incorporated significant parasite taxonomy Student
Parasite group
Subsequent career
Anderson Butler Cameron Chambers Chisholm Cribb Deveney Ernst Hallett Jones Jue Sue Pichelin Sewell Spratt Watson West Young
Trematodes Cestodes Ciliates Trematoda Monogenea Trematoda Monogenea Monogenea Myxosporea Cestoda Trematoda Monogenea Turbellaria Nematoda Trematodes Copepoda Monogenea
Veterinary research Medicine Insect phylogenetics Aquaculture Monogenean ecology and taxonomy Trematode taxonomy Fisheries management Aquaculture Aquaculture Biomedical and ultrastructural studies Commerce Museum Curation; acanthocephalan taxonomy Ultrastructural studies Nematode taxonomy (and more!) Fisheries biology Biomedical industries Fisheries biology
4.6. International or local product? A topic that arises from time to time is that of the role of scientists from outside Australia in the description of the Australian fauna. Is it a good thing that scientists from other countries visit Australia collect our (are they ‘ours’?) parasites and return to describe them from their own countries? The answer must be a resounding ‘Yes’, for two reasons. First, such work has made and will continue to make a substantial contribution to the formidable task of describing our fauna, and clearly we need all the help that we can get. Second, it is always desirable to have a range of workers in a field—having all parasites from a particular group described by just one worker may ultimately lead to a poverty of ideas associated with the group. This endorsement of international contribution is made with one reservation. This is that we should feel dissatisfied with ourselves as a nation if the taxonomic task ever comes to be (or in some cases remains) completely dominated by workers from outside the country. Equally, Australian scientists should contribute to the world’s understanding of groups of parasites and not just restrict themselves to a narrow Australia-only perspective. Thus, we find that overall there is no obvious, direct employer of significant numbers of parasite taxonomists in Australia.
5. Funding and profile Beyond an appointment, taxonomists need money to fund their research. Taxonomic work has traditionally been thought of as capable of being pursued very cheaply. This is really no longer possible. Taxonomists tend to need technical help, they need money to travel (especially if, as
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is desirable, they are to collect systematically rather than by convenience), and increasingly they need to support molecular analyses to test their hypotheses. Where does this money come from? Within-institution support (e.g. within museums and universities) is typically negligible, so external competitive grants are essential. Two principle sources are potentially available in Australia. The first is the Australian Research Council (ARC). The ARC is not disposed to support taxonomic work for its own sake. Rather, it would prefer (for example) to support the exploration of evolutionary questions that may require some taxonomy to be done along the way. Whether this is reasonable is essentially moot, because the amount of support to taxonomy from the ARC is paltry. A search of the list of titles and descriptions of the new ARC Discovery grants awarded for 2004 reveals no mention of the word ‘taxonomy’ and just one of ‘taxonomic’. This list covers all biology in Australia. The second funding agency is the Australian Biological Resources Study (ABRS). This Federal agency was established precisely with the goal of facilitating the exploration and understanding of Australian biodiversity. The ABRS has an annual grants round which has suffered significant cuts in recent years. For 2002/2003 the ABRS announced just 15 new grants for the study of all Australian animals. These grants had a total value of $440 000, or , $30 000 each on average. Colleagues in other areas of biology have commented that such sums are not worth the trouble of application. Poor funding has an implication that extends beyond the immediate support for the work because a field that struggles to attract significant funding is potentially unattractive as a career option. Thus, the field has the capacity to spiral inwards towards extinction. Funding is a serious problem. Another problem for parasite taxonomy in Australia and elsewhere is the profile of its published output. The highranking journal in which I now write, maintains a broad intake of all kinds of scientific work related to parasites. Despite this policy, only a tiny fraction of the output relates to the description of parasites. In the past 2 years the journal has published descriptions of just three new species—a gyrodactylid (Huyse and Volckaert, 2002), a cryptosporidiid (Alvarez and Sitja, 2002) and a mesomycetozoan (Hertel et al., 2002). Presumably this is a response to the journal policy to publish only taxonomic papers ‘of broad interest, going beyond purely morphological descriptions which are best suited to specialist journals’!
6. Conclusions Australia has a relatively small population and the parasite fauna is large, so the task of describing and understanding that fauna is daunting. Review of the history of the description of elements of the Australian parasite fauna shows it to have been patchy. A few groups of parasites are now relatively well-known by way of
the efforts of what are really remarkably small cadres of workers who have made sustained efforts in these groups. A high proportion of Australian parasites have been described by international workers. The sustaining of the interest over a long period is the key to real progress being made in this task. The patchiness of effort is such that some host – parasite systems have been almost completely ignored in that no worker has ever given them sustained attention. The nature of the organisation of Australian science presently means that there are few if any natural habitats (opportunities for sustained reliable employment) for parasite taxonomists and funding for taxonomic research is scarce. Thus, taxonomists can be uncharitably likened to rubbish dumps—everyone wants to use them, no one wants to pay for them, and certainly no one wants one right next door! In the present climate there is no real prospect that development of understanding of our parasite fauna will remain anything but an accident continuing to happen. The present poor state of affairs and equally poor outlook is in the face of continued rhetoric from all levels about the importance of biodiversity. The ‘Biodiversity’ web-site of the Australian Government’s Department of the Environment and Heritage (http://www.ea.gov.au/biodiversity/ index.html) states: “We depend on biodiversity for our survival and quality of life. The most significant impediment to the conservation and management of biodiversity is our lack of knowledge about it and the effects of human population and activities on it.” Despite the abundance of such platitudes which have been repeated for many years now, the discipline of taxonomy continues to dwindle nationally. Perhaps my point ultimately is that non-taxonomists are deluded if they think that we have any serious kind of national program that is marching in orderly fashion towards understanding of our parasite fauna; we do not and we are not! Are these circumstances satisfactory? I say no. Apart from the fact that it concerns parasites and Australia specifically, little I have written above is new. Taxonomists and other enlightened biologists have been warning of the impending crisis in taxonomy and of the taxonomic impediment for many years and there are many papers that repeat the same themes (e.g. Green, 1998; Eggleton, 1999; Coomans, 2002; Mallet and Willmott, 2003). This alarm is repeated in the parasite community (Brooks and Hoberg, 2001; Scholz, 2001). In some parts of the world there has been a genuine response to the warnings. The governmental response has perhaps been strongest in the United States where the National Science Foundation’s Partnership for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy (PEET), supports competitively reviewed research projects that target groups of poorly known organisms with major funding (Rodman and Cody, 2003). Despite the rhetoric, nothing comparable has been attempted in Australia. Finally, I wish to record that I have never felt other than privileged to be able to pursue pure biological studies of our fascinating parasite fauna. It is my view that our discipline, and the nation as a whole will be the poorer if future
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generations of enthusiastic young parasitologists are not given the same opportunities as were afforded to me.
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Hertel, L.A., Bayne, C.J., Loker, E.S., 2002. The symbiont Capsaspora owczarzaki, nov. gen. nov. sp. isolated from three strains of the pulmonate snail Biomphalaria glabrata is related to members of the Mesomycetozoea. Int. J. Parasitol. 32, 1183– 1191. Huyse, T., Volckaert, F.A.M., 2002. Identification of a host-associated species complex using molecular and morphometric analyses, with the description of Gyrodactylus rugiensoides n. sp. (Gyrodactylidae, Monogenea). Int. J. Parasitol. 32, 907 –919. Mallet, J., Willmott, K., 2003. Taxonomy: renaissance or tower of Babel? Trends Ecol. Evol. 18, 57– 59. O’Donoghue, P.J., Adlard, R.D., 2000. Catalogue of protozoan parasites recorded in Australia. Mem. Queensland Mus. 45, 1 –163. Palma, R.L., Barker, S.C., 1996. Host –lice associations in the Australian fauna, Zoological Catalogue of Australia Volume 26. Psocoptera, Phthiraptera, Thysanoptera, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne. Rodman, J.E., Cody, J.H., 2003. The taxonomic impediment overcome: NSF’s partnerships for enhancing expertise in taxonomy (PEET) as a model. Syst. Biol. 52, 428 –435. Scholz, T., 2001. Taxonomy of helminths after the year 2000. Helminthologia (Bratislava) 38, 155– 163.