Triage for the biosphere: The need and rationale for taxonomic inventoriesand phylogenetic studies of parasites

A parasitological perspective in biodiversity survey and inventory provides powerful insights into the history, structure, and maintenance of the bios phere. Parasitology contributes a powerful conceptual paradigm or landscape that links ecology, systematics, evolution, biogeography, behavior, and an array of biological phenomena from the molecular to the organismal level a cross the continuum of microparasites to macroparasites and their vertebrat e and invertebrate hosts. Effective survey and inventory can be strategical ly focused or can take a synoptic approach, such as that represented by the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory. We argue that parasitology should be an i ntegral component of any programs for biodiversity assessment on local, reg ional, or global scales. Taxonomists, who constitute the global taxasphere, hold the key to the development of effective surveys and inventories and e ventual linkage to significant environmental and socioeconomic issues. The tax asphere is like a triage team. The "battlefield" is the biosphere, and the "war" is human activities that degrade the biosphere. Sadly, at the poi nt in time that we realize we have documented only a tiny portion of the wo rld's diversity, and want to document more, we find that one of the most ra re and declining groups of biologists is the taxasphere. This taxonomic imp ediment, or critical lack of global taxonomic expertise recognized by Syste matics Agenda 2000 and DIVERSITAS, prevents initiation and completion of bi odiversity research programs at a critical juncture, where substantial comp onents of global diversity are threatened. The Convention for Biological Di versity mandates that we document the biosphere more fully, and as a conseq uence, it is necessary to revitalize the taxasphere. One foundation for dev elopment of taxonomic expertise and knowledge is the Global Taxonomy Initia tive and its 3 structural components: (1) systematic inventory, (2) predict ive classifications, and (3) systematic knowledge bases. We argue that incl usion of parasites is critical to the success of the Global Taxonomy Initia tive. Predictive databases that integrate ecological and phylogenetic knowl edge from the study of parasites are synergistic, adding substantially grea ter ecological, historical, and biogeography context for the study of the b iosphere than that derived from data on Free-living organisms alone.