Taxonomy of Finfish (1+2)

5.1.1 Cypriniformes Fishes

Taxonomy is the pioneering exploration of life on earth. Taxonomy lays the foundation for the phylogenetic tree of life, it provides a requisite database for ecology and conservation science and that makes accessible to the vast and still largely unused benefits offered by biodiversity to humanity (Wilson, 2004). Taxonomic information is essential for biological research especially to the fields of biotechnology, bioengineering technology, and bioinformatics and without this knowledge progress in other disciplines will be limited. There are many areas where basic taxonomic information is directly linked to everyday needs such as in the management of fisheries, integrated pest management in agriculture and identification of invasive species.

At present the state of taxonomy is lamentably poor with few individuals working in the field and that inadequate members of people are being trained even though the member of scholars exploring various aspects of the biodiversity of organisms is actually much larger than it has ever been in the past. There is a negative relationship between biodiversity and systematic expertise (Gaston and May 1992), resulting that many species will probably never be identified. This will have major implications for conservation biology planning depends on number of species, reflecting richness, diversity, endemism, threat and many other attributes that can be compared across locations. Data over the past 50 years indicate that the number of named species has grown from ca 1.4 to 1.6 million (Raven, 2004) and the task is much greater because no more than 5% of the named organisms are understood in any biological detail.

Apart from Natural History Museum and Zoos, Universities have been largely abandoning the field of taxonomy in favour of new, rapidly expanding biological disciplines. The postulates of the double helical model for DNA and subsequent revolution that has occurred in all fields of biology has excited scientists, students and administrators alike. Consequently resources have been focused in that area.

 There are at present a rough estimate of 6000 taxonomists at work world wide on all organisms combined and this is a tiny slice of the biological community as a whole and this discipline remains one of the weakest and under funded (Wilson, 2002.).

Finally nothing will substitute for the activities of field naturalists though, we speak about instant identification through DNA analysis, hand held keys and other modern approaches unless there are many people who identify organisms (Haven, 2004).

Recently the scientific community has been active in developing international initiative in the area of taxonomy and systematics which resulted in BioNET International, species 2000 and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) similar regional initiates by the Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University through the Fisheries College and Research Institute in Tuticorin to train more and more taxonomists is a valid attempt and this should develop into a level of national initiative in the discipline of fish taxonomy.