A Fading Field

A Fading Field

A Fading Field Traditional taxonomists are an endangered species. Could their unique brand of knowledge disappear, too?	逐漸消失的領域 傳統的分類學家變成瀕危物種了。而他們獨特的知識也會消失嗎？
Anthony Cognato, an entomologist at Michigan State University, is a bark beetle expert. He's made a career out of collecting, identifying, and classifying the insects—members of the subfamily Scolytinae—that make a living by cultivating fungal gardens in tunnels they bore in dead trees. Even though he's an expert in bark beetles, Cognato can still be surprised by the organisms he's devoted his career to studying.	Anthony Cognato是目前任教於密西根州立大學的昆蟲學家，也是一位蠹蟲（bark beetle）的專家。他的職業就是採集、鑑定和區分這些小蠹蟲亞科（Scolytinae）的昆蟲，而這一群昆蟲在死亡的樹幹上鑽出隧道，然後在隧道中培養真菌花園（fungal gardens）並以這些真菌維生。雖然Cognato是蠹蟲的專家 ，可是他仍然在研究的過程中不斷因這些生物而感到驚訝。
A few years ago, Cognato's graduate student, Jiri Hulcr, spent 18 months in the rainforests of Papua New Guinea, surveying the island's bark beetle fauna across a 1,000-kilometer transect. Hulcr set up three sampling sites, each 500 kilometers apart, by felling trees and waiting for bark beetles to inhabit the dead wood and establish their fungal gardens, called galleries. As he collected beetles, Hulcr began to notice a pattern that he showed to his advisor during Cognato's visit to the field sites. "When you collected this one smaller species, it was always associated with this other larger species," Cognato recalls. "Their galleries were always located right next to each other."	幾年前，Congnato的研究生Jiri Hulcr在巴布亞新幾內亞的雨林中花了十八個月的時間，沿一千公里的穿越線調查島嶼上蠹蟲的生物相。Hulcr設了三個採樣點，每一個各離五百公里遠，在這三個採樣點把樹砍倒，等待蠹蟲棲息到死的樹木上面並建立牠們的真菌花園，稱為展示館（galleries）。當Hulcr開始收集這些蠹蟲的時候，他開始發現一個有趣的情況，並且在他的指導教授Cognato到野外測站拜訪的時候 描述給他看：「當你採集這種比較小型的物種時，總會在旁邊發現其他比較大型的物種。」Cognato回憶 說：「牠們的展示館總會座落在相鄰的位置旁。」
Cognato encouraged Hulcr to collect data on the frequency of this phenomenon, in which the smaller, yellowish species of beetle seemed to bore its tunnel within a centimeter of the larger, long-legged species. "He had the data and it was pretty obvious," Cognato says. "Basically you always found these species together."	Cognato鼓勵Hulcr繼續收集這種現象的頻率資料，也就是比較小型的黃色蠹蟲物種似乎會在大型而長腳 的蠹蟲物種旁邊一公分內挖掘牠自己的隧道。Cognato說：「Hulcr他有資料，而且非常明顯。基本上你總是可以一起發現這些物種。」
With the pattern established, the researchers next sought to get to the bottom of the two beetles' relationship. They hypothesized that the smaller species was somehow leaching off of the larger species by stealing fungi rather than collecting and seeding their own spores. To test their hypothesis, they needed to look at the insects' morphology, so they temporarily set aside the molecular tools that are de rigueur among most biologists, rolled up their sleeves, and used some of the microscopes and dissection tools that have sat in the taxonomic toolbox for centuries.	建立了這個模式之後，研究者接下來開始尋找這兩種蠹蟲的關係到底建立在什麼上面。他們假設比較小的物種以某種方法藉由過濾來偷取較大物種的真菌，而不是自己採集和種植自己的真菌孢子。為了測試他們的假說，他們必須去觀察這些昆蟲的型態，所以他們暫時把目前大多數生物學家所慣用的分子生物工具拋在一旁，而使用一些已經被放在分類學工具箱已經好幾世紀的顯微鏡和解剖工具。
Back in Cognato's Michigan State University lab, Hulcr dissected hundreds of specimens of the smaller beetle species that he had collected in the field. He dipped their heads in paraffin and made multiple histological slices, looking for specialized fungal spore-carrying structures, called mycangia, that virtually every species of bark beetle harbors in their mandibles. He found none, demonstrating that the smaller species did, in fact, depend on another source for its fungi. To confirm, Hulcr sequenced the DNA of the fungal communities he sampled from the tunnels of both the larger and smaller beetles, and showed they matched. The two taxonomists had identified a completely new ecological phenomenon that they dubbed "mycocleptism," or fungi-stealing. While comparing the DNA of the fungi was an important confirmation of mycocleptism, the scientists would never have spotted the behavior if they hadn't observed it in the field and taken a close look at the insects' morphology.	回到Cognato在密西根州立大學的實驗室，Hulcr解剖數百隻他從野外採集到的小型物種蠹蟲標本。他把牠們的頭浸泡在石蠟裡面，然後製作許多組織切片來找特化的真菌孢子攜帶構造，稱為貯菌器（mycangia），而這個構造隱藏在每一種蠹蟲的上下頷。而Hulcr發現的確在小型物種的蠹蟲找不到貯菌器，也就是這種蠹蟲實際上是依靠其他的來源取得真菌。為了驗證這一點，Hulcr定序了他分別從大型蠹蟲和小型蠹蟲的隧道取得的真菌群聚DNA，並且發現這兩個地方取得的真菌是吻合的。這兩位分類學者發現了一種全新的生態現象，他們稱之為「真菌竊取」（"mycocleptism," or fungi-stealing）。雖然比對真菌的DNA是真菌竊取的重要驗證之一，不過如果科學家沒有在野外觀察，並且更進一步仔細研究昆蟲的型態的話，那麼這個行為可能永遠都不會被發現。
"You get more out of your systematic studies if you can actually go and collect your organism of interest," Cognato says. "It allows you to observe so much more that you can't observe in a DNA sequence." The subfamily to which these bark beetles belong contains the most commonly imported exotic beetles into the United States, and some species are currently contributing to the decimation of tree populations in the coastal southeast. There is no known control method at the moment, but knowing more about how the beetles make their livings may provide key insights into how to control the pest.	Cognato說：「如果你可以實際去到野外並且採集你有興趣的生物，你就可以從研究中獲得更多，因為親自體驗可以讓你觀察到很多你並沒有辦法從DNA序列中觀察到的現象。」小蠹蟲亞科包含了那些最常被輸入美國的外來種甲蟲，而有一些物種目前已經在美國的東南沿岸造成三個樹木族群的大量死亡。目前還不知道怎麼去控制這些昆蟲，不過努力去瞭解這些蠹蟲怎麼生存下去也許可以提供一些想法。
However, there are fewer and fewer biologists who practice traditional taxonomy, or the collection, description, naming and categorization of organisms through intense study of their physical attributes. In general, the field of taxonomy, or systematics as it is often called, has been leaning towards the molecular end of the spectrum since genetic technology matured in the late 1970s and 1980s, and traditional taxonomic skills have been dwindling as older taxonomic experts retire. Many taxonomists blend traditional methods, such as morphological and behavioral study, with modern molecular techniques, such as DNA sequencing, to fully characterize their pet taxa. But taxonomists like Cognato and Hulcr, who rely on fieldwork and morphological study as core aspects of their taxonomic work, appear to be slowly going extinct.	然而，懂得傳統分類學，或者說是那些非常詳細去研究生物的物理屬性之後，對生物進行採集、描述、命名和分門別類的生物學家卻越來越少了。一般來說，分類學（taxonomy）的領域，或是一般也叫做系統分類學（systematics）自從遺傳科技在1970年代到1980年代成熟之後，就已經往分子生物那一端傾斜了，再加上傳統的分類技術不斷隨著垂老的分類專家退休而逐漸凋零。許多分類學者混合了傳統的技術（像是形態學研究和行為學研究）和現代的分子生物技術（像是DNA定序）來完整描述他們研究的類群。但是像Cognato和Hulcr這種主要只靠野外工作和型態研究的分類學家，看起來已經慢慢步向滅絕之路了。
Most children are born taxonomists. Exploring, discovering, and naming the living things in one's environment, whether it's a backyard or a city block, seem to come naturally. Some of the first scientists, such as Aristotle, focused intense efforts on exploring and cataloging the living world around them, and at the height of global exploration from the 15th to 19th centuries, taxonomists were in great demand, as new lands and species were discovered. Other notable Western taxonomists include Ernst Haeckel, Carolus Linnaeus, and Charles Darwin.	許多小孩生來就是分類學家。不論在後院或是城市街區，探索，發現和對自己環境的生物命名似乎都是很自然的事情。有些最早期的科學家，例如亞里斯多德付出極大的努力去探索和對他們周遭的生物世界分門別類，而從15世紀到19世紀全球的探險最旺盛的那個年代，全世界對分類學家有非常大的需求，因為有很多新的陸地以及物種被發現。而其他重要的西方分類學家還有包括海克爾（Ernst Haeckel）、林奈（Carolus Linnaeus）和達爾文（Charles Darwin）。
Describing, naming, and preserving new taxonomic groups—specifically using the morphological skills that are traditionally central to the discipline's methodology—is just as important today, as researchers continue to uncover new genera and species in the unexplored corners of the globe. "Taxonomy provides the language of biodiversity," says Quentin Wheeler, an Arizona State University insect taxonomist and dean of that university's college of liberal arts and sciences.	描述、命名和維護新的分類群—尤其是使用形態學的技巧，是傳統的方法學重心—即使到今天，當研究者在地球的某一個未曾探勘的角落繼續發現新的屬和物種時，也一樣重要。亞利桑納州立大學昆蟲分類學家，也是該大學文理學院院長的Quentin Wheeler就說：「分類學提供了生物多樣性領域的語言。」
By some estimates, scientists have discovered, described, and named only 6 percent of the planet's species—less than 2 million of the 30 million that exist, at most.	根據一些估計，科學家們已經發現、描述並且命名的物種最多只有全球物種的6%，也就是三千萬個存在的物種裡面的不到兩百萬種。
That remaining 94% of species tend to reside in rapidly vanishing ecosystems—biodiversity hotspots—where scores of species likely slip into extinction without ever attracting scientific attention. Research published in 2004 estimated that certain areas on Earth will lose up to 37% of their species by 2050 due to climate change alone.	而還有94%的物種定居在快速消失的生態系之中，也就是那些以物種數量來打分數的生物多樣性熱點，很可能在還沒引起科學界的關注之前就面臨滅絕的危機。發表在2004年的研究估計在地球上的某些區域將會在2050年以前，光是因為氣候變遷就損失超過37%的物種。
The danger is that our planet's biodiversity is disappearing quicker than our accumulated mass of taxonomic expertise can catalog it. And in order to stop these extinctions, scientists have to understand how the species within each ecosystem live and relate. To fix a clock, you have to know how the individual parts work and interact, says Wheeler—and the same is true for ecosystems.	最大的危險是地球的生物多樣性消失的速度遠比我們累積龐大的分類資料還要快。為了停止這些生物的滅絕，科學家必須瞭解在每一個生態系之中的物種們是怎麼生活和互動。Wheeler說：「為了減緩滅絕的速度，你必須知道個體之間怎麼工作和互動，而生態系之間也同樣如此。」
Despite the importance of taxonomic expertise in the face of such a precarious situation, children these days with an interest in the natural world typically don't grow up to be taxonomists like Haeckel and Linnaeus, but instead study life using PCR, mass spectrometers, and DNA sequencers.	除了分類學專家面臨了這種危險的處境，對自然世界有興趣的小孩們這幾年來也不再像海克爾或林奈那樣長大，而是使用PCR、質譜儀和DNA定序儀來研究生物學。
Montgomery Wood, the world's foremost taxonomic expert in a family of globally distributed black flies, spent idle summer days turning over rocks, fording creeks, collecting bird nests, and catching insects. "I had nothing to do in the summer time, and I just chased things," says Wood, 76.	Montgomery Wood是研究的一個全球分佈的黑蠅科最著名的分類學專家，花了一整個夏季在翻石頭、在小溪涉水、收集鳥巢和捕抓昆蟲。76歲的他說：「我在夏天沒有事情可以做，所以我只好去追捕這些東西。」
Growing up on the fringes of London, Ontario, in the 1930s and 40s, Wood's peregrinations were not unusual, but his eye was perhaps keener, his curiosity sharper. Though he may not have realized it then, the young Wood was embarking on a scientific career that would span nearly five decades. He can identify many of family Tachinidae's approximately 10,000 named black fly species by sight. "I'm weak in [the black fly species of] Africa and China," he concedes.	在1930和1940年代，Wood成長於倫敦邊緣的安大略，他的經歷不並特別，但或許他的眼睛比較銳利，他的求知慾比較強烈。雖然他可能並不知道這些特質，年輕時的Wood卻也開始了他的科學職業生涯，並且持續了將近五十年。他可以靠眼睛鑑定出許多寄生蠅科（Tachinidae）的昆蟲，大約有一萬種已經命名的黑蠅。不過他承認：「我對非洲和中國的黑蠅類物種並不在行。」
Wood honed expertise in identifying thousands of species of flies the old-fashioned way: through exhaustive examination of the organisms' morphology and natural history. "What made me an expert in Tachinidae was to stay at them for an entire lifetime," he says.	Wood用一種很傳統的方式鍛鍊他自己鑑定好幾千種黑蠅：透過對生物體型態和自然史詳盡的研究和檢驗。他說：「讓我變成寄生蠅科專家的方法就是一輩子和牠們待在一起。」
Perhaps Wood should have seen the demise of his chosen profession coming. He recalls that when he was starting his PhD work on the taxonomy of Ontario's tachinids in the early 1960s, a fellow biologist at the University of Toronto questioned his decision to enter the field, with the promise of new and exciting technologies and methodologies—namely DNA analysis—poised to revolutionize modern biology. "He didn't say I was wasting my time," Wood remembers, "but he implied that."	或許Wood已經看到他所選擇的職業，黃昏已經漸漸逼近了。他回憶當他開始他的博士學位時，在1960年代早期他專注在安大略的寄生蠅，一個多倫多大學的生物學家就質疑他進入這個領域的決定，因為當時已經有一個更有前途的新科技和研究方法，叫做DNA分析，也造成了整個現代生物學的革命。Wood記得那位生物學家並沒有說Wood是在浪費時間，不過他其實是這樣暗示著。
Just like the organisms taxonomists study, the discipline of systematics and biology as a whole was evolving. By the 1980s, the field of systematics, like many other fields, became entranced by the promise of DNA analysis and its ability to decipher genetic codes, enabling taxonomists to look past an animal's skin and into its cells. Walter Judd, a University of Florida botanist, had a front row seat for this evolution in taxonomy. "When the excitement of molecular analyses hit, people started spending a lot of time in the lab," and less in the field, he says. As younger botanists sought to validate molecular analyses as taxonomic tools, they necessarily focused their study on more well-studied plant species, such as Arabidopsis, rather than seeking out undiscovered taxa in the field, according to Judd.	就像是分類學的研究，其實系統分類學和生物學的準則也在演化。在1980年代，系統分類學就像是其他領域一樣，因為DNA分析的技術而變得非常吸引人，而隨著遺傳密碼的破解，分類學者能夠穿透動物的表皮而看到細胞。佛羅里達大學的植物學家Walter Judd就是最先參與這場分類學革命的一份子。他說：「當令人興奮的分子分析出現之後，人們開始花許多的時間在實驗室，而在野外的時間卻越來越少了。」而根據Judd的說法，當年輕的植物學家試圖驗證分子分析作為分類學的工具時，他們必須把他們的研究焦點放在那些已經研究得很透徹的植物物種，像是阿拉伯芥（Arabidopsis），而不是去野外找那些還沒被人類發現的物種。
Now older taxonomists like Wood and Judd are retiring from museum and university positions, with institutions tending not to replace them with more taxonomists. The United Kingdom's Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, for example, has not had a gymnosperm taxonomist since the last one there retired in 2006, and has not replaced its last fern specialist, who retired in 2007.	現在，老一輩的分類學家，像是Wood和Judd都正要從博物館和大學的職位上退休了，而他們任職的機構卻並不打算找更多的分類學家來取代他們。例如英國皇家植物園（Kew）自從2006年，當最後一位裸子植物的分類學家退休後就再也沒有新的接班人了，而蕨類植物的分類學家在2007年退休之後也一樣。
Judd, whose work centers largely on the morphology of tropical flowering plants, says that taxonomic expertise could slip through our fingers in alarmingly short order. "I'm worried that in perhaps a generation or two we'll be in rough shape because there won't be people who know how to use the morphological features" to identify a species.	專注在研究熱帶開花植物的Judd說：「分類學專家可能以我們恐懼的速度消逝，我很擔憂也許在一個或兩個世代之內，就在也沒有人能夠用型態特徵來鑑定物種了。」
The primary federal funder of systematic research in the United States is the National Science Foundation. This year, the agency put $2.5 million (0.04% of its total budget) towards a program designed to help experts train young students in taxonomy.	美國主要的系統分類研究贊助單位是國家科學基金會（NSF），而今年他們花了250萬美元（佔總預算的0.04%）來幫助專家去訓練年輕的學生學習分類學。
Through the Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy (PEET) program, graduate students and postdocs of Gustavo Hormiga, a George Washington University spider systematist, learn to observe, measure, and draw their spiders while at the same time studying them with scanning electron microscopy and taking genetic samples to be analyzed for key diagnostic markers. Hormiga strongly encourages his students to complete taxonomic monographs—detailed publications that describe the taxonomy of organismal groups—and compile taxonomic keys, which give other researchers a map to identifying organisms. In this way, Hormiga says, his students are grounded in the traditional methods of taxonomy while utilizing modern methods to extract as much useful information from their specimens as possible. "This is not about being modern or crusty or anything," Hormiga says. "It's about having data."	隨著PEEP（Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy，強化分類專長合作計畫），華盛頓大學蜘蛛系統分類學家Gustavo Hormiga的研究生和博士後研究人員學著如何觀察、測量，並同時畫下他們研究的蜘蛛作為鑑定用的關鍵特徵。Hormiga強烈鼓勵他的學生完成分類學的論文，這些發表裡面詳細描述生物類群的分類學，並且把分類的檢索表也作好，這樣可以給其他的研究者一張好的地圖，去鑑定這些物種。Hormiga說，這樣一來，他的學生就可以基於傳統的分類學方法，並且利用現代的方法從他們研究的生物身上去萃取出更多有用的資訊。Hormiga說：「這其實並不是現代或陳舊的問題，只是要取得資料罷了。」
The PEET program doled out its first round of grants in 1995 in the face of a rapid decline of experts in the field. An NSF survey conducted in the mid-1990s found only 940 systematic biologists working at doctorate-granting institutions, and one quarter of those were only adjunct faculty members. More than 80% of the institutions that responded to the NSF survey said that they would not hire systematists in the future if new positions opened up.2 "There was a strong perception in the scientific community that many of the folks that were doing taxonomics and systematics were getting old and retiring and weren't being replaced by their institutions," according to Scott Snyder, a PEET program officer at NSF. Since its inception, PEET, a biennial program that awards 5-year grants of $750,000 to successful applicants, has helped train hundreds of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in taxonomic science. However, there are indications that the dwindling of taxonomy has reached a point of no return, and even this influx of funding may not be enough to reverse the trend.	PEET計畫在1995年發放完第一輪的經費，當時正面臨野外的分類學專家急遽檢少的狀況。在1990年中期，NSF進行調查之後發現只有940位系統分類生物學家在博士授予的機構工作。而超過80%的機構回應NSF的調查說即使有開缺，他們未來並不打算聘僱系統分類學家。根據NSF的PEET計畫執行者Scott Snyder說：「在科學界很強地感知到許多做分類學和系統分類學研究的專家已經年老而且正要退休，但是他們的單位並不打算找年輕的新血來取代。」自從PEET計畫開始後，兩年一次的計畫發放為期五年，總共75萬美元經費已經被申請了，並且幫助在分類學領域訓練好幾百位研究生和博士研究人員。可是種種跡象卻顯示分類學已經衰退到一個無法回復的地步，而即使這些經費的湧入也不足以改變這個趨勢。
When Pricila Chaverri arrived at the University of Maryland about a year ago with a PEET grant in hand, she advertised on campus for undergraduate students to work on revising the taxonomy of fungi in the order Hypocreales, which she studies. Herself a graduate of the PEET program, she waited for the expressions of interest to roll in. None came. Frustrated, she changed her advertisement to highlight the fact that students would also learn molecular techniques, such as PCR and DNA sequence analysis, as they sought to fully characterize fungal specimens in her lab. "I got, like, a hundred applications," Chaverri recalls. "And they all wanted to learn molecular biology."	當Pricila Chaverri在一年前帶著PEET經費後到了馬里蘭大學，她在校園廣告號招大學部學生和她一起修訂她所研究的肉座菌目（Hypocreales）真菌。她自己也是從PEET計畫畢業的，等著看看有沒有人表達興趣。結果一個都沒有。她很沮喪地改了她的廣告，強調學生將會學到分子技術，像是PCR和DNA序列分析，因為這些也是她的實驗室要建立完整真菌標本特徵所需要的。Chaverri回憶說：「結果我收到了大約一百封的申請書，他們全都要學分子生物。」
Chaverri realizes that emphasizing the modernity of her research is a surefire way to attract attention from students and funding agencies alike. She's used the tactic so many times that she's begun to wonder about how she herself conducts research. "Sometimes I worry that I'm wasting my time looking at the morphology of fungi," Chaverri sighs, standing in her lab this spring as graduate students peer through microscopes at dead twigs harboring her fungal quarry. "But I like my fungi, so I'm going to keep looking at them."	Chaverri終於瞭解了強調她自己研究的現代化是吸引學生和贊助單位的必殺技。她使用這個手段非常多次，然後開始懷疑她自己要怎麼進行研究。當她的研究生們透過顯微鏡觀察枯枝上的真菌時，Chaverri站在她的實驗室嘆息著說：「有時候我會擔心我是不是在浪費我的時間去觀察真菌的型態。不過我喜歡我的真菌，所以我會繼續去看著它們。」
Looking at her fungi, in fact, led Chaverri to an unprecedented insight into a group of neotropical species that infect scale insects and other agricultural pests. Last year, Chaverri was studying genus Hypocrella, which contained several brightly colored species grouped together based on DNA sequence data. But Chaverri decided to look more closely at the morphology of the sprawling genus, and when she trained her microscope on the ascospores—long, sexual reproductive structures—of the species, she noticed some interesting differences. Some of the species in the genus had large ascospores that could disarticulate into many smaller parts, while others had smaller ascospores that did not disarticulate. Her study of the fungi resulted in the creation of two new genera, Moelleriella (the species with the large, disarticulating ascosporse) and Samuelsia (the species with the smaller ascospores).	實際上，觀察她的真菌讓Chaverri發現了前所未見的一群新熱帶區的真菌物種，這些真菌可以感染介殼蟲和其他的農業害蟲。去年，Chaverri正在用DNA序列的資料研究一群包括許多鮮明顏色的亞肉座菌屬（Hypocrella）物種。但是她決定仔細去看這個屬的型態特徵，當她用顯微鏡觀察子囊孢子（ascospores，一個長形的有性生殖構造），她注意到一些有趣的差異。這個屬裡面的一些物種有很大的子囊孢子可以脫落成許多比較小的片段，但是其他的物種因為子囊孢子比較小，所以無法再脫落成小片段。她對真菌研究的結論是創造了兩個新屬，分別是Moelleriella（有大而可以脫落的子囊孢子）和Samuelsia（這些物種的子囊孢子比較小）。
Far from being an arcane taxonomic revision, Chaverri's research may help to improve the way that researchers use particular species of fungi to control agricultural insect pests. For example, using fungi of genus Moelleriella may lead to more effective control of the scale insects or whiteflies that plague citrus growers in Florida, Chaverri says. "One can hypothesize that [Moelleriella] would be more successful on spreading to new trees or insects."	撇開晦澀難懂的分類學修訂，Chaverri的研究可能可以協助研究者使用一些特定物種的真菌來控制農業害蟲。例如，使用Moelleriella這個屬的真菌可能可以更有效控制在佛羅里達柑橘上生長的介殼蟲或粉蝨。Chaverri說：「我們可以假設Moelleriella這個屬的真菌可能會更成功散佈到新的樹上和昆蟲身上。」
Though Chaverri has managed to continue her taxonomic work, a 2007 survey by PEET graduates Ingi Agnarsson and Matja Kuntner found that 47% of PEET alumni no longer worked in taxonomy, and a further 9% had positions where taxonomy played only a minor role. In addition, 6% of the PEET program alumni were unemployed when contacted by Agnarsson and Kuntner. And the authors stress that the survey findings are likely overly rosy, because their ability to find and survey PEET graduates in part relied on their closeness to the field of taxonomy—in other words, some of the graduates they couldn't track down are likely so far removed from the field they couldn't be found. Some of the comments recorded by the two authors convey the disconcerting realities facing taxonomists today. "As it is now," one survey respondent wrote, "[PEET] trains students in skills absolutely not required by the job market."	雖然Chaverri繼續她的分類學工作，PEET計畫的畢業生Ingi Agnarsson和Matja Kuntner在2007年的調查卻發現有47%的PEET畢業生不再待在分類學的領域工作，而這之中只有9%的人有相關的工作，但是分類學只是次要的角色。此外，有6%的畢業生在PEET聯絡的時候是處於失業狀態，而作者們強調這個調查的結果可能太過樂觀，因為他們調查過程中去找到PEET畢業生和進行調查的能力有一部分是依賴他們對分類學領域的熟悉程度。換句話說，有一些畢業生他們根本無法追蹤到，因為他們已經遠離了這個領域，他們無從找起了。兩位作者表達了令人困窘的狀況，也是一些分類學者目前要面對的現實：「現在，PEET訓練的學生所獲得的技能完全不是工作市場上需要的。」
Nearly all the classically trained taxonomists with whom I spoke echoed this sentiment.	幾乎我所訪問的所有受過正統訓練分類學家都認同這個說法。
Ralph Holzenthal, a University of Minnesota entomologist and caddisfly expert, says that he's been fighting to fund his lab for 3 years, ever since his last round of PEET funding ran out. He once supported six graduate students with two overlapping NSF grants, but now can support only one with money from the NSF. Holzenthal adds that he's in his fourth round of revisions of an NSF grant application to update the taxonomy of caddisflies in Brazil, which are severely understudied. Fewer than 350 species have been recorded in a country that spans 8.5 million square kilometers, and Holzenthal estimates that as many as 850 species await discovery and description in the southeastern corner of Brazil. He says that cataloging these species could ultimately benefit the health of tropical streams and rivers, which are intimately tied to the health and life history of caddisflies in the area.	明尼蘇達大學的一個昆蟲學家和石蛾專家Ralph Holzenthal說自從他的最後一次PEET補助用完之後，他過去三年都在為他實驗室的經費奮戰。他曾經用兩個重疊的NSF經費支持六個研究生，但是現在他只能從NSF拿到支持一個研究生的經費。Holzenthal說他在他的NSF經費申請案第四次修正裡面加入了巴西石蛾的分類學研究，因為過去太缺乏研究了。在一個超過850萬平方公里的國家中，竟然只有不到350個物種被紀錄，而Holzenthal估計至少有850種在巴西的東南角落等著被發現和描述。他說如果把這些物種建檔起來，那麼最終對熱帶溪流河川的健康將非常有幫助，因為它們的健康和石蛾的健康與生活史關係非常密切。
Jerome Regier, an NSF-funded systematist at the University of Maryland, says that some classical taxonomists need to do a better job of convincing the scientific and funding communities of the importance of cataloguing the world's species before they disappear. "[Taxonomists have] got to interest graduate students in the [scientific] problems that they have. Species descriptions aren't problems as such," Regier says. "It's species loss that's a problem. It's habitat destruction that's a problem. You have to relate your species drawings to those bigger questions. The fact is you've got to get funding to carry this out."	馬里蘭大學的Jerome Regier是一位NSF資助的系統分類學家，他說有一些古典的分類學家需要更努力把工作做好，在他們消失之前說服科學界和經費提供者幫全世界的物種建檔是多麼重要的事情。分類學家必須要讓研究生們對科學問題感到興趣。Regier說物種描述並不是一個問題，物種的消失才是問題，棲地的破壞才是一個問題。你必須把你的物種描繪和這些更大的問題連結在一起。這就是你能不能取得研究經費的關鍵。
In some sense, administrators are justified in shunning taxonomists when it comes time to hire new faculty. A taxonomist has access to essentially a fraction of a percentage of the NSF budget, while a molecular biologist has at her fingertips the budget from the National Institutes of Health, typically four times larger than the NSF's. "If your objective is just to get a job, you probably shouldn't be in taxonomy at all, molecular or descriptive," said Holzenthal.	在某一些狀況，管理單位會在聘請新進人員的時候企圖迴避分類學家。一個分類學家可能只會從NSF得到一小部份的研究經費，但是一個分子生物學家卻可以從NIH（National Institutes of Health）拿到通常超過NSF四倍以上的經費。Holzenthal說：「如果你的目標是要獲得一份工作，你可能根本不應該跟分類學扯上關係。」
James Rodman, a botanist and former NSF program director who was instrumental in creating the PEET program in the mid-1990s, says that the disappearance of traditional taxonomy is only part of a larger problem. "More broadly speaking, organismal biology is dying out," Rodman says, now in semi-retirement as museum research associate at the University of Washington's Burke Museum. He says that colleagues tell him all the time that even in high schools, biology field trips are seldom, if ever, taken—a trend that ripples up through the university level as survey courses in entomology, mycology, and other organismal disciplines cease to exist. "We're no longer interested in knowing about the organisms of the world. That's the sadder tragedy."	James Rodman是一個植物學家，同時也是NSF前任的計畫執行者，也是在1990年代中期推動PEET計畫的主要推手。他說傳統分類學得消失只是大問題的一部分而已，更廣泛來說的話，其實所有的個體生物學（organismal biology）都已經死了。Rodman現在在華盛頓大學的Burke Museum的研究部門，處於半退休狀態。他的同事告訴他說即使從中學到大學，生物學幾乎所有的時間都已經很少牽涉到昆蟲學、真菌學和其他的個體生物學。我們不再對知道這些生物的世界感到興趣，這才是最讓人難過的悲劇。
Some taxonomists feel that their legacies will live on even though they are retiring and leaving the lifelong studies that often began with an organic fascination in the natural world around them. Ralph Holzenthal's mentor and PhD advisor in the 1980s was Oliver Flint, a curator emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution and a world-class caddisfly expert. Flint says that his lasting appreciation for the field assuages any feelings of loss for the lack of jobs available to traditional taxonomists. "I think [taxonomy and systematics are] healthy enough in terms of how they're executed. The sickness is that there are no jobs anymore."	有些分類學家感覺他們的遺產將會繼續存在，即使他們正要退休或是離開他們一輩子的研究，因為自然界本身就有極大的魅力。Oliver Flint是Ralph Holzenthal的導師，也是他在1980年代就讀博士學位的指導教授，是一個世界級的石蛾專家，並且在Smithsonian博物館裡面當榮譽館長。Flint說他認為分類學家非常健康，而病態的是他們卻沒有任何工作的機會了。
Monty Wood echoes Flint's sentiment. He says that he has no desire to lament the downfall of the type of taxonomy in which he was trained. "I have thought about it," Wood admits. "But I don't lose any sleep over it. There's nothing I can do about it."	Monty Wood也附和Flint的說法，他說他並不想為了分類學的衰落而感到悲痛，雖然他曾經有過這樣的念頭。但是Wood其實並沒有因為這件事情而失眠，因為他並無法改變任何的事情。
Instead, Wood says that he focuses on studying and preserving as many specimens as possible. Quentin Wheeler, the Arizona State University entomologist who is also director of the newly-created International Institute for Species Exploration, says that he hopes to create a "cyber-infrastructure," including digital images and virtual networks, that will give researchers around the world access to all of the nearly 3 billion biological specimens currently housed at natural history museums. He says that if modern technologies and more funding are successfully combined with continued taxonomic work, taxonomists have a good chance of describing and naming 8 million new species in the next 50 years.	取而代之的是，Wood把焦點放在盡可能去研究並保存更多的標本。而亞利桑那州立大學的昆蟲學家Quentin Wheeler，同時也是新成立的國際物種調查研究所（International Institute for Species Exploration），他說他希望可以成立一個網路架構的平台，包含了數位影像以及虛擬的關係網絡，可以讓全世界的研究者可以取得目前在各大自然史博物館的將近三十億件生物標本。他說如果現代科技以及更多的經費能夠成功的把分類學工作連結在一起，那麼分類學家將有機會可以在未來的50年內描述並且命名八百萬個新的物種。
Ironically, the demise of taxonomy and systematics might be attributable to its most fervent champions. "I think in the past there's been a tradition in classical taxonomy that it's OK to isolate yourself from the world to work in the museum," says Regier. "There has to be somewhat of a shift in culture." Indeed, because it formed the bedrock of biology for centuries, taxonomy carries with it a lot of perceptual baggage. "It's hard to get over this image of the systematist being just a stamp collector," says Cognato. But nothing could be further from the truth, he says. "Properly done, [traditional taxonomy] gets you out in the field and discovering many new things that wouldn't have been found without them."	諷刺的是，分類學和系統分類學的衰敗可能是因為它自己。Regier說：「我想過去傳統的古典分類學把自己關在博物館裡面還算過得去。可是現在文化已經改變了。」的確，分類學成為生物學的基礎已經好幾世紀了，而這樣的形象卻變成是一個負擔。Cognato說：「系統分類學家很難克服自己像是一個集郵者的形象。」但是事實終究是事實，持平而論，傳統分類學會把你帶到野外並且發現許多新的事情，而這些新知如果沒有透過傳統分類，是不會被發現的。