Modern floristics and collaborative taxonomy

Abstract

While in recent decades molecular biology has brought about invaluable progress regarding the natural relationships between the main orchid groups and is today allowing ever greater precision in the evaluation of relationships between closely related species, the need to correctly understand taxonomic concepts and interpret the circumscription of species in light of their natural variation has become even more urgent. This is particularly critical in the case of those taxa described at the origins of the modern nomenclatory system, which often lack original materials of unambiguous interpretation, as well as for complexes of species of wide distribution, whose effective understanding requires a comparable level of documentation through distant geographical areas, impossible for the individual botanist to complete. At least in the specific case of the Orchidaceae, with which I deal more directly - but I suppose that the topic is generally transversal to systematics -, a methodologically common approach in the documentation of the species has shown that in many cases it can replace direct observation, made impossible by the location of the populations of interest. A “mapping” of the morphological characteristics expressed in individuals of the populations of type- localities, and their comparison with similar documents created across the supposed distribution ranges of the species would be able to provide much more accurate answers to our questions relating to the identity of the species and the real diversity of the groups under study. This points to the formation of a network of botanists who share a minimum common set of concepts and techniques to carry out shared taxonomic work. “Shared taxonomy” constitutes a new frontier for the study of complex groups of plants, and the formation of the network or networks necessary to accomplish it is one of the major challenges of contemporary botany.