Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016

Data from: Seagrass on the brink: decline of threatened seagrass Posidonia australis continues following protection

Seagrasses are in decline globally due to sustained pressure from coastal development, water quality declines and the ongoing threat from climate change. The result of this decline has been a loss of coastal productivity, a reduction in critical fisheries habitat and increased erosion. Attempts to slow this decline have included legislative protection of habitat and direct restoration efforts. Monitoring the success of these approaches requires tracking changes in the abundance of seagrasses, but such monitoring is frequently conducted on large scales that lack the sensitivity to detect changes in time. Here, we used high resolution aerial imagery to quantify the change in meadows dominated by Posidonia australis over five years at 14 sites in five estuaries in south-eastern Australia. Australia has some of the world's most diverse and extensive seagrass meadows, but the widely distributed P. australis has a slow growth rate, recovers poorly after disturbance, and suffers runaway attrition if the conditions for recovery are not met. In 2010, after declines of 12-57% between the 1940s and 1980s, P. australis was listed as a threatened ecological community in New South Wales. We quantified changes in area at fine scales and, where loss was observed, describe the general patterns of temporal decline within each meadow. Our results demonstrate that seagrass meadows dominated by P. australis underwent declines of ~ 2-40% total area at our study sites between 2009 and 2014. In the iconic Sydney Harbour, our analyses suggest that P. australis meadows are declining at an average rate greater than 10% yr-1, exceeding the global rate of seagrass decline. Highlighting these alarming declines across the study region should serve as means to prioritise management action and review the effectiveness of legislative listing as a method to limit impacts at an ecosystem level

Seagrass on the brink: Decline of threatened seagrass <i>Posidonia australis</i> continues following protection

<div><p>Seagrasses are in decline globally due to sustained pressure from coastal development, water quality declines and the ongoing threat from climate change. The result of this decline has been a change in coastal productivity, a reduction in critical fisheries habitat and increased erosion. Attempts to slow this decline have included legislative protection of habitat and direct restoration efforts. Monitoring the success of these approaches requires tracking changes in the abundance of seagrasses, but such monitoring is frequently conducted at either too coarse a spatial scale, or too infrequently to adequately detect changes within individual meadows. Here, we used high resolution aerial imagery to quantify the change in meadows dominated by <i>Posidonia australis</i> over five years at 14 sites in five estuaries in south-eastern Australia. Australia has some of the world's most diverse and extensive seagrass meadows, but the widely distributed <i>P</i>. <i>australis</i> has a slow growth rate, recovers poorly after disturbance, and suffers runaway attrition if the conditions for recovery are not met. In 2010, after declines of 12–57% between the 1940s and 1980s, <i>P</i>. <i>australis</i> was listed as a threatened ecological community in New South Wales. We quantified changes in area at fine spatial scales and, where loss was observed, describe the general patterns of temporal decline within each meadow. Our results demonstrate that seagrass meadows dominated by <i>P</i>. <i>australis</i> underwent declines of ~ 2–40% total area at 11 out of 14 study sites between 2009 and 2014. In the iconic Sydney Harbour, our analyses suggest that <i>P</i>. <i>australis</i> meadows are declining at an average rate greater than 10% yr^-1, exceeding the global rate of seagrass decline. Highlighting these alarming declines across the study region should serve as means to prioritise management action and review the effectiveness of legislative listing as a method to limit impacts at an ecosystem level.</p></div

Visual representation of change in meadow area.

<p>The image of Kurnell East in Botany Bay (June 2014, [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0190370#pone.0190370.ref039" target="_blank">39</a>]) is represented by (A). Inlaid boxes (B) and (C) represent the extent of meadow area both lost and gained since April 2010. Light brown = intact meadow; dark brown = meadow area lost since 2010; pale yellow = meadow area gained since 2010. Aerial imagery reprinted under a CC BY license with permission from Nearmap, original copyright 2014.</p

Percent change in meadow area for sites within estuaries of the Manning-Hawkesbury ecoregion from 2009–2014.

<p>MP = Marks Point, YN = Yacht Club North, YS = Yacht Club South, BH = Barrenjoey Head, SW = Seaplane Wharf, PB = Palm Beach Ferry, MW = Manly Wharf, BG = Balgowlah, QB = Quibray Bay, KW = Kurnell West, KE = Kurnell East, DB = Dolans Bay, GB = Gunnamatta Bay, BB = Burraneer Bay.</p

Techniques used to classify <i>P</i>. <i>australis</i> area using aerial imagery.

<p>The example above (A) is the most recent image from Kurnell East in Botany Bay (June 2014, [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0190370#pone.0190370.ref039" target="_blank">39</a>]). An example of fragmentation is enhanced (B), showing meadow damage following the laying of submarine cables. A multi-resolution segmentation algorithm was used to segment the image into polygons based on colour and texture (C), which were then manually classified as <i>P</i>. <i>australis</i> (pale green) or ‘other’ (D). The polygons were then dissolved to represent the full area of <i>P</i>. <i>australis</i> in the image (E), which could then be formally analysed. Point sampling (F) was used to rapidly estimate percent cover of <i>P</i>. <i>australis</i> from the remaining time series imagery to determine the rate of change in meadow area. Aerial imagery reprinted under a CC BY license with permission from Nearmap, original copyright 2014.</p

Site locations and total change in meadow area, perimeter and patchiness from the first available image (late 2009/early 2010), until the last available image (mid-2014).

<p>Study sites were ~520,000m². Declines in seagrass area are highlighted in bold. (continued below).</p

Temporal percent change in <i>P</i>. <i>australis</i> meadow cover from late 2009/early 2010 to mid-2014 in all sites within five estuaries.

<p>Each data point represents total percent change since the initial time point. Thin-plate spline regression lines (and 95% confidence interval) are added for those sites where change was significant over the study period. YS = Yacht Club South, YN = Yacht Club North, MP = Marks Point, BH = Barrenjoey Head, PB = Palm Beach Ferry, SW = Seaplane Wharf, BG = Balgowlah, MW = Manly Wharf, KE = Kurnell East, KW = Kurnell West, QB = Quibray Bay, DB = Dolans Bay, BB = Burraneer Bay GB = Gunnamatta Bay.</p

Map of locations along the New South Wales coastline where aerial imagery was obtained to estimate <i>P</i>. <i>australis</i> declines from 2009–2014.

<p>Map boundaries under CC Licence, originally published in 2004 by Geoscience Australia.</p