Taxonomists: last stop before the final bus station!
When traveling by bus between some cities here in Santa Catarina, the driver always stopped somewhere, a few kilometers before the final bus station, and announced: “last stop before the final bus station”. It was an opportunity for some passengers to disembark, if the bus stop was close to their homes, without having to go to the terminal bus station (usually in the city center). I don't know if this happens in other regions of Brazil, but here in Santa Catarina, at least when I traveled by bus many years ago (usually to visit relatives), this was common. Why do I mention this fact? As an AMF taxonomist, I have this feeling: I am called by colleagues to participate in some work at the last minute, at the last stop before the final bus station, only when they need to identify the AMF species so that the work can go ahead and be published. To clear up whether this was just me being neurotic, I consulted two colleagues who are also taxonomists; one of them did not have this experience, the other also reported that he is usually consulted only when identifying the species.
Perhaps this practice is because taxonomists are seen by some non-taxonomist colleagues as “those who identify species only and argue (and sometimes disagreeing) which is the right name for which species”. AMF taxonomists, at least the ones I know here in Brazil and abroad, are professionals who have expertise beyond “looking at spore walls and naming species”. They have experience with sampling design in ecological studies, the number of samples needed for a meaningful analysis of AMF communities, with sampling, transport and storage procedure, the procedure for extracting and mounting spores on slides, and of course, in the morphological identification of AMF species. Thus, the experience of taxonomists must be considered at the beginning and during the development of a research project, and not only at the end.
Identifying AMF by observing the spores under the microscope takes time, reading, comparing, measuring, no matter how experienced the taxonomist is. Therefore, the guidance of a taxonomist on how to proceed, once the spores are extracted and mounted on slides, is crucial so that the work is well done and time is not wasted. I always remember a colleague who asked for help to identify species and I promptly accepted...to my surprise, the student came to my laboratory with 8 boxes with slides, 100 slides in each box, to identify the spores in a period of two weeks, some slides containing only one or two spores, which were mostly degraded!
I write this essay to sensitize colleagues who seek AMF taxonomists not only when they need a list of species in order to continue the work of their undergraduate and graduate students. Invite taxonomists to discuss the sample design, to guide the extraction and assembly of spores, to identify species and to assist in the discussion and interpretation of results. Have the taxonomist throughout the research journey and not just in those final moments of work, at that last stop before the final bus station!
Cheers,
Sidney Stürmer