What do taxonomists study

Find resumes. Help Center. Find Jobs. Post a Job. Home Hiring resources What Is a Taxonomist? Key Roles and Duties. What Is a Taxonomist? Post a Job Are you a job seeker? Find jobs. What is a taxonomist? Related: Making an Organizational Structure for a Business Types of taxonomists There are several types of taxonomists who apply their methodology and education to different industries: Natural science taxonomists Natural science taxonomists are generally what people think of when discussing the concept of taxonomy.

Digital taxonomists Digital taxonomists organize web content to make it easier for users to access. Business taxonomists Business taxonomists develop hierarchies and classifications of different jobs, responsibilities and economic activities. A Guide for Business Operators Computing taxonomists Taxonomy is also a key profession in computer science, creating definitions for different computing and software systems as they develop. Academic taxonomists Educational and academic taxonomists create frameworks for teaching others and explaining academic concepts.

A Guide to Employer Taxes What does a taxonomist do? Some of the key responsibilities of a taxonomist include: Mapping the characteristics of concepts and organisms Collecting scientific specimens Creating organizational methods Analyzing student or user behavior Interpreting and analyzing data Identify new and unique concepts Apply established naming strategies to new ideas Explaining the context of classifications to colleagues Producing reports and articles Taxonomists work independently when performing research and also collaborate with other professionals in their field to implement the organizational updates they develop after analyzing data.

Benefits of hiring a taxonomist Having a taxonomist at your company can provide data-driven strategies for approaching business success and customer relationships, regardless of industry. The key benefits of hiring a taxonomist are: Accessibility Taxonomists make information more accessible and user-friendly to colleagues and customers.

Consistency Having an established plan for organizing titles and information at your business can help you and your employees be more consistent. Solution-oriented workflows Taxonomists make decisions based on user experience and solving problems. How to hire a taxonomist Follow these steps to hire a taxonomist at your organization: 1. Craft a job description Explain the specific type of taxonomy that you want to implement at your workplace in the job description.

Search professional associations Taxonomy is a highly specialized profession and it can be challenging to find a candidate that has all of the qualifications you need and significant industry experience. Here are some sample interview questions for a taxonomist: Would you use polyhierarchy or monohierarchy when developing a taxonomy for our business? Posted Taxonomist jobs typically require the following number of years of experience.

Not all job postings list experience requirements. Below are listings of the most common general and specialized skills Taxonomist positions expect applicants to have as well as the most common skills that distinguish individuals from their peers.

The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is also listed. A professional who wishes to excel in this career path may consider developing the following highly valued skills. The percentage of job postings that specifically mention each skill is listed along with the marginal value: the average salary difference between postings that request that skill and those that do not. Sometimes employers post jobs with Taxonomist skills but a different job title.

Some common alternative job titles include:. If you are interested in exploring occupations with similar skills, you may want to research the following job titles. Note that we only list occupations that have at least one corresponding NC State Online and Distance Education program. Here are the employers that have posted the most Taxonomist jobs in the past year along with how many they have posted. This accurate accounting of the value of taxonomic studies will also provide familiar metrics for colleagues and administrators, and will be invaluable in the allocation of funding and the long term recruitment of young taxonomists.

We therefore propose the following guidelines:. Any study based on a formally named organism should include the citation of the original author s and date. We acknowledge that this is already practiced in many, but by no means all journals. In addition, this citation must be included in the literature cited - a practice that is currently extremely rare e. All published taxonomic sources monographs, identification keys, primary taxonomic literature and revisions used for identification or as a source of nomenclatural information e.

The lack of these citations precludes an assessment of quality and reliability of the identification s and associated taxonomic information. Thus, independent verification of results and conclusions - the fundament of science - is not possible. Researchers are encouraged to include taxonomists as co-authors when they have made substantial contributions to the research program or where the conclusions of the paper are solely dependent on the accurate identification of the study taxon.

One of the leading journals in ecology, Ecology Letters, follows the proposed guidelines, with the exception of well-established species such as Homo sapiens Linnaeus, [ 38 ], Drosophila melanogaster and Escherichia coli Migula, [ 39 ].

A most recent suggestion [ 40 ] dealt with a solution for special citation of taxonomic work when used in wiki pages by combining both the original non-wiki source and the respective wiki page. It might be argued that publications that are based on studies of multiple species, such as large phylogenetic analyses of an entire metazoan or plant group e.

However, this is no different than the long lists of GenBank entries for sequences or alignments that have come to dominate our publications and associated supplementary materials.

Also, arguments that it is difficult to deal with the older literature are becoming increasingly obsolete as the number of online taxonomic databases e.

Authors working on projects involving large species data sets would also be more likely to seek out taxonomists for assistance with subsequent co-authorship - already a common practice for bioinformatical or mathematical problems in phylogenetic or statistical analyses.

This will increase communication and collaboration as well as the accuracy and usefulness of the vetted work. It might also be argued that citing old literature is not necessary and that taxonomic hypotheses should be handled as in other disciplines: these hypotheses become "general knowledge" and no longer require citation, such as the seminal discoveries of natural selection published by Wallace in [ 41 ] and Darwin in [ 42 ], or of plate tectonics published by Wegener in [ 43 ].

However, as was shown with the example of Hirudo medicinalis , even "well-established" species can become imprecise, and refined hypotheses with new species names must be formulated. Especially in the time of molecular analyses, we can expect many more surprises with broad implications for various fields, including human welfare. The recent findings [ 44 ] of unknown subgroups within the Anopheles gambiae Giles, [ 45 ] complex [ 46 ] that exhibit a high susceptibility to infection with wild Plasmodium falciparum Welch, [ 47 ] must be cited in future analyses to acknowledge one's awareness of sympatric species with different ecological and behavioral strategies within the same strains.

The finding of cryptic species in spitting cobras [ 48 ], as well as the rearrangement of the large species complex of the Asian pitvipers into distinct genera [ 49 ] has a direct implication on categorization of their medical importance, as well as antivenin indication, prescription and research [ 50 ]. Results like these are not restricted to small and cryptic living species but also comprise large animals such as turtles, monitor lizards, antelopes or bovids [ 51 — 53 ] with direct implications on conservation biology and related fields [ 53 , 54 ].

Hence it is more important than ever to include all means used for identification, so that the authors' awareness of taxonomic problems that can potentially confound their study, including species concepts applied [ 10 ], is obvious to the readers of their published results.

In addition, we would encourage all taxonomists, who are in one way or another responsible for journal administration to ensure that their publications are indexed by ISI SM.

Based on the situation in molluscan literature pers. Mikkelsen , we assume that more than 90 percent of all taxonomic journals are not indexed so that the overwhelming numbers of taxonomic citations are simply not counted.

The inclusion in the ISI SM data base will increase the awareness of the journal and guarantee a more accurate calculation of journal and author citation metrics. We estimate that indexing half of all taxonomic journals available today would increase citation indices CIs fivefold. Taxonomic work has profound implications for all kinds of scientific disciplines. Previous attempts of a few colleagues to encourage citation policies concerning taxonomic descriptions [ 30 , 36 ] have been largely ignored.

Therefore, we once again emphatically appeal to colleagues and editors of journals for a much broader acknowledgement of the scientific work of taxonomists. The citation protocol as outlined above would give fair credit and recognition to those scientists who have dedicated their research careers to unveiling the earth's biodiversity and to the journals who have specialized in reporting these results. Currently, neither is recognized for their important contributions irrespective of their geographical location [ 1 ].

In addition, citation of species and taxon authorities will validate the taxonomic names used in scientific studies and will increase the robustness and usefulness of their results. We are well aware of the severe shortcomings and weaknesses of CIs in systematics and taxonomy [ 16 , 26 , 55 — 57 ]. However, we cannot ignore the system and its impact; instead we should fully participate to ensure fair and accurate representation of our colleagues and journals.

The citation protocol outlined above will require little additional investment by researchers and editors, but would be an important acknowledgement of the vital contributions of taxonomists and hopefully increase the survival rate of this endangered group of scientists. Front Zoology. Article Google Scholar. J Bact. Linnaeus C: Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis.

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Systema Naturae - the Linnean Ark. Edited by: Polaszek A. Moreno CE, Halffter G: Assessing the completeness of bat biodiversity inventories using species accumulation curves. J Appl Ecol. Bortolus A: Error cascades in the biological sciences: the unwanted consequences of using bad taxonomy in ecology. Article PubMed Google Scholar. May RM: How many species are there on earth?.

Costello MJ, Wilson S, Houlding B: Predicting total global species richness using rates of species description and estimates of taxonomic effort. Syst Biol. United Nations Environment Programme. Book Google Scholar. Boero F: The study of species in the era of biodiversity: a tale of stupidity.

Int J Sci Soc. Dayrat B: Toward integrative taxonomy. Biol J Linn Soc. Front Zool. Haszprunar G: Species delimitations - not "only descriptive". Org Divers Evol. Werner YL: The case of impact factor versus taxonomy: a proposal. J Nat Hist. Velde van der G: Taxonomists make a name for themselves.