Tamames J, Rosselló-Móra R.
Microbial taxonomy seems to be an expanding discipline especially in Asian countries. By contrast, the number of taxonomists in Western countries are in decline, and the reasons for this could either be economic or due to interest. Losing taxonomy expertise could have consequences for Western countries.
Taxonomists play an important role in describing the extent of biological diversity and framing it in a classification schema that is of general scientific purpose. However, only a very small proportion of the scientific community possesses expertise in this field. There is a general feeling that such expertise is slowly disappearing, a fact that may act negatively on the understanding of hitherto undiscovered biological diversity. Results of a bibliographic survey of the current state of the taxonomist community researching prokaryotes seem to warn Western countries, who were the leaders in this field in the 20th century, about losing taxonomy expertise.