| I agree that many taxonomists liked (and still like) to play as stamp collectors, but labelling taxonomy as this is like throwing away the baby with the dirty water. understanding function without knowing structure is a dull enterprise. thermodynamic ecology might work up to a certain point, but it loses just the diversity of ways in which the same function is played by different structures. Labelling taxonomy as a stamp collector activity is an old-fashioned attitude. the triumphs of functional ecology are very tenuous. Ecosystem modelling based on function does not work. we need more. and if biodiversity enters the scene, then we need to recognize species. not for the sake of doing it, but to understand the intimate functioning of the system. then, it is obvious, from the components we have to reconstruct the functioning. and there are the famous emerging properties. but the function does not give the structure. all approaches are necessary to understand diversity. I stressed taxonomy more, simply because, deep in their hearts, functional ecologists think that it is like stamp collection and we can do without it. One might say that biogeochemistry is pressing some buttons in some instrument and shaking some vials, and that modelling is just self-gratification with some algorythms. probably all these activities are just this, but if we succeed in putting them together, then we'll have the emerging properties we need to understand nature. Superiority complexes are just this: complexes. we have to heal from them or we'll continue to miss the main target of our job: understanding nature. biodiversity without recognition of the diversity of forms in which life expresses itself is nonsense. it is not enough, but it is the basis of the understanding. if we do not agree on this, then let's stop talking about biodiversity. |
