IMPORTANCE OF SYSTEMATICS 15 



for everybody who wanted them, this would be an inadequate view of 

 the function of systematics in institutions so concerned with the inter- 

 actions of organisms and their am.bient medium as those devoted to lim- 

 nology and oceanography. Perhaps it is time to emphasize that by syste- 

 matics we have in mind the analytical appraisal of categories in nature, 

 both as species and populations, as well as the more descriptive phases 

 that are usually associated with the term "systematics." Taxonomy is 

 roughly the same thing, but for some semantic reason the word excites 

 contempt rather than interest in some minds. Perhaps this is based 

 on the impression that museums, especially public museums that must 

 serve the taxpayer in the provinces with his jar of bugs or box of shells 

 as well as the specialist with his research collection, have seldom done 

 more than identify material and produce monographs on collections of 

 dead organisms, and this is all that is known about "taxonomy." In 

 justice to the unfortunate museum curator, it must be said that he has 

 time for little else. 



Some taxonomists — or systematists — who work in universities and 

 research institutions (where they may have been hired by inadvertence) 

 have tried to lighten their burden somewhat by sugar-coating their in- 

 terests with the term "biosystematics." Well, a rose by any other name 

 — but when the ships close for action a good pirate flies his colors, so 

 let us continue to use the term systematics (although "biosystematics" 

 might have some value if we also recognized "geosystematics," i. e., the 

 description and classification of new seamounts and trenches, and similar 

 verbal confections). 



Systematics, then, is that branch of biology- devoted to the study of 

 dynamic processes as expressed in the structure and comparative mor- 

 phology of organisms; so defined, systematics cannot easily be practiced 

 in museums since it requires continuous reappraisal of living populations 

 rather than assembled relics; such systematics, we are tempted to say, 

 is too good for museums. Certainly institutions devoted to research in 

 aquatic environments are continuously collecting the finest type of ma- 

 terial for such critical systematic work, and the "let George do it" atti- 

 tude is not only short sighted, it is impractical and a disservice to science. 

 There are simply not enough Georges for what has to be done; or if 

 there are, they are not employed in posts where they may best function. 

 There is no dearth of students interested in systematics and there is no 

 dearth of work yet to be done, even in the routine cataloging of local 

 flora and fauna. And, as Ave learn more about the environment and the 

 distribution of organisms in relation to factors not considered in earlier 



