Strategic taxonomy in a biodiverse landscape: a novel approach to maximizing conservation outcomes for rare and poorly known flora

Abstract

In the face of escalating threats to the world’s biodiversity, there is a pressing need for accelerated taxonomic effort to better inform conservation planning and decision making, particularly in areas of exceptional species richness. We present a novel perspective on setting taxonomic research priorities and expediting the description of new taxa based on our experience in the biodiversity-rich state of Western Australia, which has a current known taxonomic backlog of 1,470 undescribed vascular plant taxa, a significant proportion of which are regarded as being of conservation concern. Biodiversity surveys associated with a mineral resources boom have led to the discovery of many new taxa, and have increased demand for reliable taxonomic information and better knowledge of rare and threatened taxa. In direct response to this, we developed a strategic taxonomy initiative to expedite the taxonomic description of species of conservation concern, particularly those that could be susceptible to mining activities. Over the six years of the initiative, 154 new taxa from 23 families and 45 genera were formally described, 86 % of which occur in areas subject to resource development or are otherwise of conservation concern. In addition, conservation assessments conducted on both newly described and newly discovered taxa resulted in the addition of 155 taxa to the Threatened and Priority Flora list for Western Australia. Whilst this initiative resulted in significant biodiversity conservation outcomes, promoted collaborations and built taxonomic capacity, there were inherent drawbacks to this targeted approach. An approach that combines strategic, high-throughput taxonomy with longer-term revisionary research is necessary to effectively reduce the taxonomic backlog in species-rich regions with incomplete taxonomic inventories.