ETHICS IN TAXONOMY
SAJNA SHERIN MK
1ST MSC ZOOLOGY
What is ethics..?
A set of moral principles or values
• The discipline of dealing of what is good & bad and duty &
obligation.
• A system of moral principles and perceptions about right versus
wrong and resulting in a philosophy of conduct practiced by an
individual ,group , profession or culture.
ETHICS IN TAXONOMY
Some of the important aspects of ethics to be followed by the taxonomists (and use
of communities who seek help from taxonomists) are given below :
1.Credit
2.Lending and Borrowing of Specimens
3.Loan of Material
4.Exchange of Materials
5.Collaboration and Cooperation with Fellow researchers
6.Use of Language
7.Ethics of Taxonomic Publication
8.Authorship of taxonomic papers
9.Correspondance
10.Taxonomists and user communities
11.Suppression of relevant details
CREDIT
• When specimens are donated for the study by a taxonomist at his
request, the taxonomist must acknowledge the scientist or person
who donated the specimen.
• If any unpublished information received from any others are
included in a publication, proper acknowledgements must be
made by the author of the publication.
• Credit should be given to photographers or artists for their work
even if they are paid for their works.
• Credit should be given to the persons who collected the specimens.
• If a senior professor or specialist or colleague is consulted for developing a
research project, satisfactory and apt acknowledgements should be mentioned
in the publication.
• At the concluding part, acknowledgement should be given for the financial
assistance provided by funding agencies which provided the research grants for
the work.
LENDING AND BORROWING OF
SPECIMENS
. When a researcher publishes a new taxon, the type of
taxon becomes the property of science and it no longer is
his private property.
•The type should be well protected by the institution
which keeps it and bonafide specialist should be allowed
to examine it, if he so desires.
•The author and the institution should have the
obligation to respond to any request for information on
types.
LOAN OF MATERIAL
• When specimens are given on loan the borrower
should complete his studies as early as possible
and label each specimen with proper
determination labels and return them to the
lender.
• While returning the specimens extreme care
should be taken by the borrower in properly
packing the material.
• If the borrower would like to retain any specimen from the
borrowed collection, he should get prior permission from the
lender.
• It is always better that an agreement on the division of the
borrowed material be made at the initiation time of the lean so as
to make it clear which specimen/specimens can be retained and
which are/is not retained by the borrower.
EXCHANGE OF MATERIALS
• Exchange of specimens with other workers is always
advantageous for a taxonomist since by this method he can
enhance the diversity of taxa in his collection.
• It will be always better to have a generous policy in
exchanging material, trying always to help each other rather
than exchanging the specimen as a business.
COLLABORATION AND COOPERATION
WITH FELLOW RESEARCHES
• Collaboration and -Cooperation with Fellow researchers
• It is always better if fellow researchers know from each
other what they are doing in order to avoid duplication of
work.
• It is always better not to do the taxonomy of a group of
taxa in which another scientist is working.
• If a taxonomist has worked on a group of taxa of his
country for two or three years he should not be asked to
stop his work by some one else from another part of the
world on the pretext of his working in a world basis.
USES OF LANGUAGES
• A taxonomist should always avoid intemperate language in
discussions or reference to the works of other workers.
• Mutual mistrust among fellow workers should not be allowed
to end in using unethical language in scientific papers while
criticizing.
• Similarly while naming a taxon it is not appropriate to make
any indirect reference, or mock any religious or personal
sentiments of others.
ETHICS OF TAXONOMIC PUBLICATION
• Criticism can be done but only in a dignified and
courteous manner.
• Emotional phraseology and controversy should
be avoided in taxonomic papers.
• Using the first person pronoun too often in a
taxonomic work is in bad taste.
AUTHORSHIP OF TAXONOMIC PAPERS
• It is not advisable to have several authors
associated with a name of a single taxon.
• Some of the heads of institutions or
departments compel the subordinate workers
and students to put their names as first
authors of the papers for which they have
contributed nothing. Such practices are
against all norms of ethics in taxonomy or in
any other branch of science.
• The best way to deal with multiple
authorship is to use only the name of the
actual author who identify and describe the
taxon with the name of the taxon and put
all others as coauthors of the paper
CORRESPONDANCE
• A taxonomist often finds it essential to correspond
with other taxonomists -requesting for information on
types, reprints of publication and references of taxa.
• If one wants several reprints of the author he has to
explain briefly in his letter how far he has done his
work and what are his future plans. He should also
include copies of his publication along with the
request.
• When one receives the reprints, it should be
acknowledged.
• If there is any expense incurred by the sender of the reprints, by
way of postage, it is necessary for the recipient to offer the
expenses involved.
• While requesting reprints, the title of the paper, journal in which
it was published, and the year should be written clearly.
• Requests for loan of specimens should also be specific with
brief description of the work so far done by the borrower and
what he intends to do. The specimen should be returned as early
as possible.
• While writing letters one should avoid including anything
private which he otherwise does not like others to read.
TAXONOMISTS AND USER COMMUNITIES
• Not only the taxonomists who should follow the ethics
in taxonomy , the user communities who seek help
from taxonomist also should know some of the ethics
they have to follow:
• Some send specimens for identification to taxonomists
without getting prior permission from them. As a result
the sender may not get a prompt reply or he may not
get his specimen identified quickly.
• Some users irritate the taxonomist by repeatedly sending reminders
to them for speedy identification although the sender can state in his
first letter politely how important the identification is for his urgent
work.
• Since most specialists agree to identify specimens free of charge
just for the sake of science, it is courteous and sometimes expected
that the sender of specimens allows the specialist to retain at least
some of the specimens of his choice.
• If there is any new taxon identified by the specialist, he has every
right to publish the description of the new taxon since it is his
expertise of several years that helped in the identification of the
specimens.
• Often senders do not take care in properly packing the
specimens while dispatching them to the taxonomist. As
a result, the taxonomist receives badly damaged
specimens he will not be able to identify.
• Some send unsorted materials containing several diverse
orders or classes or families to a specialist who has
specialized only in one particular order or subfamily or
family
• Some senders do not give relevant data on hosts,
localities seasonal details, etc. of the specimens to the
taxonomists
• Some senders usually send only very few specimens to the
specialist even if they have plenty of specimens to spare.
Sending as many specimens as possible will help the
specialist to take care of the variations within the taxa and to
dissect out one or two specimens to study the genitalia,
mouth parts, etc.
• Some senders after getting identification results from the
taxonomist, fails to acknowledge this help while publishing
papers mentioning the determination made by the
taxonomist.
SUPPRESSION OF RELEVANT DETAILS
• No good taxonomist will deliberately suppress
any relevant details while publishing his findings.
However this sometimes happen inadvertently or
through carelessness.
• Similarly, a scientist may give details of an
unpublished synonymy based on his own work to
a reviser and the reviser may sometimes fail
(unintentionally) to mention that the information
is based on the unpublished information given by
so and so. This action on the part of the reviser
may not be deliberate but happens inadvertently.
One has to be careful to see that such mistakes
are not avoided.
REFERENCE
• Narendran, T.C. (2006), An Introduction to Taxonomy : 1-80
Published by the Director, Zool. Surv. India, Kolkata
• https://academic.oup.com
• www.wikipedia.com
• https://www.researchgate.net
Thank
You
