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Systematics and Taxonomy (S&TC Reports)

Thank you very much. I join with others to congratulate the chairman of the committee, the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, and the supporting staff, whom I found particularly helpful. I was very pleased to be invited by the chairman to serve as a co-opted member of a committee on systematics and taxonomy, as in my early scientific days, I started off as a systematist interested in taxonomy. My particular interest was in metazoan invertebrates and their role in disease, particularly nematodes and transmitting arthropods. The committee concluded that systematics and taxonomy are of fundamental importance to our understanding of the natural world and, I would add, to a full understanding of the threats of pathogens, their transmission and their control. These pathogens are at the periphery of our country and will come out in the tropics we know not when. The committee also concluded that disciplines such as sequencing and taxonomy were in decline in the United Kingdom and that if that decline were allowed to continue, there would be serious consequences for the country’s ability to deliver a host of policy aims, including disease identification and surveillance of exotic threats, and an effective response to climate change, wildlife biology, and so on. We said that the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills should take a lead role, a recommendation which was not accepted. In particular, the report identified fungal taxonomic problems. Fortunately, that has now been attended to, at least partially. My noble friend Lord Selborne has a strong association with Kew and, no doubt, will be guiding the work there. Another area where taxonomic development is hard hit is entomology. An excellent article in the February issue of Biologist by Dr Simon Leather of Imperial College London gives a succinct analysis of the future of entomology, while one of his colleagues has written bluntly that British entomology may be on the verge of extinction. The decline has been progressive since the 1970s. Although there was only one entomological department in the United Kingdom at that time and one BSc entomology degree, at Imperial College, seven UK universities offered a degree in agricultural zoology, essentially specialising in entomology and parasitology, including plant nemotology. Now there are no entomology departments, no undergraduate entomology degrees and only one Master of Science degree in entomology, which is at Imperial College. Typically, students registered for zoology or biology degrees will cover the whole of invertebrates in 12 lectures. Hitherto, much of the enthusiasm for entomology has been taken up by amateurs, who have often been parsons and other men of the cloth who have studied part time. Some of us will be familiar with the natural philosophy or natural biology of so-and-so in so-and-so village. Here, too, there has been a marked 35 per cent decline in membership of the Amateur Entomological Society. When exotic disease strikes this country, as it has quite recently with bluetongue, there is a scramble for experts who can identify the transmitting insects—the Culicoides, or midges, as they are often called—to assess the vector potential of the various strains of the midge. Although we do a reasonable job, we have to rely somewhat on people on the continent of Europe to help us out. The number of species in the phylum Arthropodium is massive. Many of them are still unknown and likely to remain so until we have many more people looking at them in detail. The dearth of entomologists and the lack of entomological training are an important issue. That should be compared with the vertebrate situation where, with few exceptions, the fauna is well known, well studied and well written up. How do we compare with other countries? The country that I know best is the United States, where I worked for 15 years. Now, with homeland security developments, it is keen to develop science across the board, including invertebrate science. For example, in the United States there are 16 universities with departments of entomology, offering Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in entomology, and an additional 22 universities that offer entomological minors. In the United States, the major funding agencies—the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation—are aware of the importance of entomology, and grant applications to these bodies in entomology, for example, are given the same scrutiny as other proposals via the section on tropical medicine and parasitology, of which I declare an interest, having been the chairman of that study group several years ago. Additionally, the US army and US navy have their funded research programmes, although I understand that the navy is closing down its research facilities. The problems in the United Kingdom are not unique in Europe. For example, in France concern has been expressed about the shortage of medical and veterinary entomologists. At present, there are approximately 100 such people, of whom half are over 50. That indicates that recruitment is not as good as it should be. In my opening comments, I mentioned my interest in nematodes, which includes parasitic as well as free-living and soil parasitic nematodes. Often, soil nematodes are included with arthropods—wrongly, of course; nevertheless one has to put up with it. However, as with arthropods, little is known about the free-living nematodes, except where they cause plant diseases, such as the genus Caenorhabditis, which has been used at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge in the development of a vast understanding of cell biology. As with many other invertebrates, their importance could be crucial, especially where climate change may cause changes in their populations and also in relation to their vector potential for viruses and other pathogens. I have pointed out on more than one occasion that with parasitic nematodes, which cause disease in man and animals, the free-living stages that occur in the soil vastly outnumber the parasitic forms that occur inside animals or humans. We know so little about them but suspect much of them. An example of this suspicion, although we do not know it for certain, is their role in the genetic exchange of anti-parasitic resistance between the parasitic stages that occur in the soil. Having been somewhat negative about science and the support for science, I am pleased to acknowledge what I consider to be an innovative project on the gene sequencing of Caenorhabditis in California, USA, in relation to these free-living forms of parasitic nematodes. It will provide a strong base for diagnosis, surveillance, the development of anti-parasitic compounds and a better understanding of drug resistance and vaccine production. As I said, much basic information has been gleaned on cell replication biology by the study of these free-living nematodes at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. The downstream application of the genome sequence data will provide a powerful tool for the way in which we do science in the field. Especially, it will provide enhanced preparedness for potential exotic invaders. I have often said that the price of freedom from exotic infections, which is likely to increase with climate change, is constant vigilance with regard to what is going on. For constant vigilance, a stronger base of systematics and taxonomy than we have at present is needed.