Why is there no service to support taxonomy?

Increasing complexity and specialisation of modern sciences has led to increasingly collaborative publications, as well as the involvement of commercial services. Modern integrative taxonomy likewise depends on many lines of evidence and is increasingly complex, but the trend of collaboration lags and various attempts at 'turbo taxonomy' have been unsatisfactory. We are developing a taxonomic service in the Senckenberg Ocean Species Alliance to provide fundamental data for new species descriptions. This will also function as a hub to connect a global network of taxonomists, assembling an alliance of scientists working on potential new species to tackle both the extinction and inclusion crises we face today. The current rate of new species descriptions is simply too slow; the discipline is often dismissed as old fashioned, and there is a crisis level need for taxonomic descriptions to come to grips with the scale of Anthropocene biodiversity loss. Here, we envision how the process of describing and naming species would benefit from a service supporting the acquisition of descriptive data.

Automated summary

The increasing complexity and specialisation of modern sciences have led to the need for collaborative publications and involvement of commercial services. However, modern integrative taxonomy lags behind in terms of collaboration, and attempts at 'turbo taxonomy' have been unsatisfactory. To address this, we are developing a taxonomic service that provides fundamental data for new species descriptions and connects a global network of taxonomists. This service aims to tackle the challenges of extinction and inclusion crises in Anthropocene biodiversity loss.