Research

The Swedish Taxonomy Initiative supports taxonomical research on poorly known Swedish organism groups. The broad purpose of this is to make all organism groups eligible as objects of further research within various scientific sectors and, not least important, to provide knowledge fundamental to the Swedish efforts to preserve biodiversity and render possible an ecologically sustainable development.

At present, large groups or organisms are so poorly known that it is impossible to study their ecology, behaviour and physiology, their potential content of substances valuable to mankind and their provision of ecosystem services. For many groups there are no reliable identification keys or handbooks enabling scientists to distinguish between the species, thereby ensuring that the name they use for the organism they study has the same meaning also to other scientists.

In order to improve the situation, fundamental scientific investigations concerning species delimitations, nomenclature and classification must be made, as well as inventories clarifying what species occur within the country. The taxonomical research is conducted by Swedish and international scientists and PhD students. Inventories are often performed as an important part of these research projects. There are, however, also large scale inventories – using e.g. Malaise traps in terrestrial habitats and grab samplers or dredges in aquatic habitats – conducted by specially employed staff.

So far, the research and the inventories funded by the Swedish Taxonomy Initiative have led to the discovery of c. 2,000 species new to Sweden, some 750 of which are also new to science. However, many species are left to discover, and the process of formally describing the new species already discovered is still in progress.