Evaluating the progress and needs of taxonomy since the Convention on Biological Diversity: going beyond the rate of species description

There is a long tradition of assessing the activity and progress of taxonomy with quantitative indicators, such as, for example, number of taxonomists, species described and species collected. These evaluations play a key role in the context of a worldwide concern over biodiversity and its governance. We have described and analysed these evaluations since 1992, the year in which the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was adopted. We showed that despite the establishment of a dedicated body inside the CBD (the Global Taxonomy Initiative), these quantitative evaluations are mostly sporadic and independent initiatives, performed by non-taxonomists. They do not map the places where most of the taxonomic activities take place, and they are performed on small scales, with scarce and heterogeneous sources of data, making comparisons almost impossible. Most of the indicators they use refer to the activity of species description. We argue that there is a need to rethink the way we evaluate taxonomy today and we discuss why it is urgent to move beyond indicators of species description. We suggest the use of a new set of indicators that would focus on taxonomic resources and dynamics, instead of taxonomic outputs.