SOSA's new approach to the taxonomy challenge

Taxonomy is the science of classifying and describing organisms and it is a crucial component in the protection of biological diversity.  But in a climate of significant anthropogenic change and increasing extinction rates, taxonomists – and science in general ­- face an incredible challenge: to describe vast numbers of unknown species before they vanish. SOSA is developing a new approach to taxonomy: building a scientific service that streamlines vetting, describing, and publishing new marine invertebrate species. This model aims for new species to be named more efficiently and rapidly and thus opening the opportunity for them to be adequately studied and protected.

This new approach to taxonomy is described in detail in SOSA’s recently published a paper in BioEssays: “Why is there no service to support taxonomy”. You can now also access the key points of this paper through our new video abstract, linked here and down below.