There is at present no consensus among practitioners of modern systematics with regards to the nature of their object of study, and the same goes for those who are working to catalog biodiversity. The proposed project is an attempt to re-orient old debates on these topics by asking foundational questions in a new way while still paying attention to the philosophical, historical, and social implications of systematics and its applications.
The project has two goals. The first is to examine and test some foundational ontological assumptions behind modern systematics and contemporary efforts to understand biodiversity. Once questions about units of analysis have been addressed, it will be possible to ask value, logistical, and policy questions in an informed way: How should we understand biodiversity? How is it best cataloged? Which species concepts work best in particular situations? Is there a unique best species concept? In what ways does it make sense for some or all of the various database projects to work together or to adopt the same ontology?
This work will proceed by way of two workshops. In the first, the PI will work with researchers at Arizona State University as well as with eminent species theorists from around the world to compare six of the most widely used approaches to species discovery using the same group (beetles of the genus Eleodes) and the same morphological, molecular, and combined data sets. The second workshop will bring together representatives from several biodiversity databasing projects to examine assumptions, compare units of analysis, and look for ways to work in concert.
This project should shape the way each of the participant groups thinks about their units of study, and this has the potential for large-scale ramifications for everything from species definitions to project missions to database ontology and wider conceptions about what biodiversity is and what we should care about it.
