The Last of Its Kind?

books and arts virus children’s relationship to their world. available online this autumn, providing an Bear’s two Darwin novels were not writ- enormous free resource. Wilson’s Pheidole ten just to entertain. He also seeks to teach in the New World will not be part of this readers about science, to highlight our utili- system,as the book is copyrighted:as a result, tarian politics and our inability to get along apart from the unprotected nomenclatorial with each other, and to provide a quasi- information and links to those images rational basis for theology and morality. He available at Harvard’s online Primary Type advances a world view in which we are all Specimen Database, its 624 descriptions part of the vast neural network of life,cutting cannot be readily integrated into the world- across ethnic borders, species divides and wide biodiversity knowledge base. This the chasms between taxonomic kingdoms, raises serious issues about an academic in balance, and in two-way communication, publisher’s obligations to make biodiversity with the ecosystem. Bear might be off the data freely available for non-commercial mark, or he might just be anticipating research,education and conservation. the next giant leap in our understanding of The inaccessibility of published records evolution and ourselves. I frustrates efforts to compile lists of the Michael A. Goldman is in the Department of world’s living species, and to develop the Biology, San Francisco State University, next generation of tools and data reposi- San Francisco, California 94132-1722, USA. tories that can be seamlessly woven into systems such as GenBank, biodiversity monitoring systems, or the fledgling Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Records are hidden in thousands of journals and The last of its kind? books,and access to new work is increasingly Pheidole in the New World: restricted by an ever more proprietary A Dominant, Hyperdiverse copyright environment. Money aside, even Ant Genus password protection impedes the building by Edward O. Wilson of information networks. Harvard University Press: 2003. 818 pp. Most of the species described in Pheidole $125.00, £83.50, E125.00 in the New World are based on material Donat Agosti collected in the tropics, where most of the world’s species live and vanish. The Conven- “Everything goes.” Philosopher Paul Feyer- tion on Biological Diversity, sadly still not abend’s statement of anarchy in scientific ratified by the United States, calls for the method — that you can research however exchange of scientific information and repat- you like — might well hold for taxonomic riation of data to the place of origin. Selling monographing. The field is plagued by an expensive books doesn’t aid this process. increasing shortage of specialists, despite Wilson isn’t just a taxonomist — he is the ever-growing pressure to complete the a prominent biologist and an outspoken ‘catalogue of life’ with descriptions of new environmentalist. His style of science and species and revisions of known species. his involvement with conservation set pre- Pheidole in the New World makes a sizeable Adding ants: Pheidole subsphaerica (top), cedents far beyond taxonomy. He espouses advance, describing 624 species of ant, of P. cursor and P. lupus are three of 337 new ant the development of an Internet-based which 337 are new to science. It was writ- species described by E. O. Wilson. ‘encyclopaedia of life’, stresses the virtue of ten by Harvard University biologist E. O. the biodiversity commons — a movement Wilson, one of the world’s leading biolo- trated glossary, and an uninspiring, unillus- to make biodiversity information freely gists and environmentalists, and published trated key to species. The pièce de résistance accessible for non-commercial use — and by Harvard University Press, which has a is an accompanying CD-ROM, which com- would like to see taxonomy follow the DNA much higher profile than most of the 500- prises fantastic colour images of about half revolution (Trends Ecol. Evol. 18, 77–80; plus journals in which ant descriptions of the species and a simple search engine. 2003), but his book on Pheidole doesn’t usually appear. Ant taxonomy is at a vibrant stage of reflect these ideals. This important book is modelled on the development, with more than 130 active sci- In these days of biodiversity crises,taxon- highly successful Peterson’s field guides. entific contributors, all but two of whom are omy isn’t just a science where “everything Each species is given one page, of which half connected over the Internet. Since the last goes”.It has the potential to play a pivotal role is covered by lavish line drawings with very catalogue of the world’s ants was published in quantifying changes in biodiversity. It is helpful indicators marking the diagnostic — Barry Bolton’s A New General Catalogue of not enough to talk about the biodiversity characters. The rest of the page contains a the Ants of the World (Harvard University crisis; action is required. It is a pity that short description (including a series of Press,1995) — 1,630 new ant species,includ- Wilson, with his ingenuity and access to standard measurements), a handy indica- ing those in this book, have been described. resources, did not grasp the opportunity to tion of closely related species, a summary of A database (www.antbase.org) with a single present these important data in a more novel key biological features and the distribution web page for each species provides links and useful way, but instead preferred to pro- range. Unfortunately, details of the biologi- to an increasing number of extraordinary duce, in his own words, the “last of its kind”: cal materials examined are either missing websites, organized by region (such as another visually appealing monograph. I or incomplete. www.antweb.org) or theme (GenBank). Donat Agosti is in the Division of Invertebrate The book’s introduction includes some The entire 3,500 taxonomic publications Zoology, American Museum of Natural History, notes on the ecology of the genus Pheidole, covering the non-copyrighted systematics Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, some generalities on hyperdiversity, an illus- of the 11,574 known species of ant will be New York 10024-5192, USA.