On specimen killing in the era of conservation crisis – A quantitative case for modernizing taxonomy and biodiversity inventories

Background to the work
For centuries taxonomy has relied on dead animal specimens, a practice that persists today despite the emergence of innovative biodiversity assessment methods. Taxonomists and conservationists are engaged in vigorous discussions over the necessity of killing animals for specimen sampling, but quantitative data on taxonomic trends and specimen sampling over time, which could inform these debates, are lacking.
Methods
We interrogated a long-term research database documenting 2,723 land vertebrate and 419 invertebrate taxa from Madagascar, and their associated specimens conserved in the major natural history museums. We further compared specimen collection and species description rates for the birds, mammals and scorpions over the last two centuries, to identify trends and links to taxon descriptions.
Results
We located 15,364 specimens documenting endemic mammals and 11,666 specimens documenting endemic birds collected between 1820 and 2010. Most specimens were collected at the time of the Mission Zoologique Franco-Anglo-Américaine (MZFAA) in the 1930s and during the last two decades, with major differences according to the groups considered. The small mammal and bat collections date primarily from recent years, and are paralleled by the description of new species. Lemur specimens were collected during the MZFAA but the descriptions of new taxa are recent, with the type series limited to non-killed specimens. Bird specimens, particularly of non-passerines, are mainly from the time of the MZFAA. The passerines have also been intensely collected during the last two decades; the new material has been used to solve the phylogeny of the groups and only two new endemic taxa of passerine birds have been described over the last two decades.
Conclusions
Our data show that specimen collection has been critical for advancing our understanding of the taxonomy of Madagascar’s biodiversity at the onset of zoological work in Madagascar, but less so in recent decades. It is crucial to look for alternatives to avoid killing animals in the name of documenting life, and encourage all efforts to share the information attached to historical and recent collections held in natural history museums. In times of conservation crisis and the advancement in digital technologies and open source sharing, it seems obsolete to kill animals in well-known taxonomic groups for the sake of enriching natural history collections around the world.

研究背景
数个世纪以来，生物分类学（taxonomy）一直依赖死亡动物标本，即便创新型生物多样性评估（biodiversity assessment）方法已然涌现，这一实践时至今日仍未被摒弃。分类学家们（taxonomists）与保护生物学家们（conservationists）正就“为获取标本（specimen，复数为specimens）采样而捕杀动物”的必要性展开激烈讨论，但现有研究缺乏可为此类辩论提供参考的、关于分类学趋势与长期标本采样的定量数据（quantitative data）。

研究方法
我们检索了一份长期研究数据库，该库记录了来自马达加斯加的2723个陆生脊椎动物（land vertebrate）类群（taxon，复数为taxa）与419个无脊椎动物（invertebrate）类群，以及保存在各大主要自然历史博物馆（natural history museum）中的对应标本。我们还对比了过去两个世纪以来鸟类、哺乳类与蝎子的标本采集速率与物种描述速率，以识别相关趋势及其与类群描述的关联。

研究结果
我们检索到1820年至2010年间采集的15364份特有哺乳动物（endemic mammal）标本与11666份特有鸟类（endemic bird）标本。绝大多数标本采集于20世纪30年代的法英美动物考察团（Mission Zoologique Franco-Anglo-Américaine, MZFAA）时期，以及近二十年，且不同类群间存在显著差异。小型哺乳类与蝙蝠的标本采集主要集中在近年，这与新物种的描述进程相呼应。狐猴标本采集于该考察团时期，但新类群的描述工作则在近期完成，且其模式系列（type series）仅包含非致死采集标本。鸟类标本，尤其是非雀形目（non-passerine）鸟类标本，主要采集自该考察团时期。雀形目（passerine）鸟类在近二十年也被大量采集；这些新采集的标本被用于解析相关类群的系统发育（phylogeny）关系，但近二十年来仅描述了2个新的特有雀形目类群。

研究结论
我们的数据表明，在马达加斯加动物学研究起步阶段，标本采集对推动我们对其生物多样性分类学的认知至关重要，但近几十年来其重要性已有所下降。当前亟需寻找替代方案，以避免为记录物种而捕杀动物，并鼓励各方共享自然历史博物馆所藏历史与近期采集标本的相关信息。在保护危机（conservation crisis）频发、数字技术与开源（open source）共享不断进步的当下，为丰富全球自然历史馆藏而对知名分类类群的动物进行捕杀的做法，已然过时。