ANOTHER LIFE: KNOWING THE names of things is only an option in loving nature, writes Michael Viney
The sight of an unfamiliar, brightly-patterned hoverfly taking a feed of nectar no longer sends me indoors to get the book: I settle for the moment of pleasure.
The professional appraisal of nature needs a sharper acquaintance with names. Taxonomy is not only the science of describing and naming species, but of knowing where they belong in the classifications (order, family, genus and so on) by which humanity grapples with nature's torrential invention. An ecologist assessing the environmental impact of the next kilometre of dual-carriageway needs to know an awful lot of names, or at least how to arrive at them.
Among the weightier documents that thump through my letterbox are the annual Bulletins and Occasional Publications of the Irish Biogeographical Society, formed to encourage the study of biodiversity and especially the distribution of our plants and animals. Its home base is the Natural History Museum in Dublin, with its vast collections of specimens, but its members roam across the island, filling in the gaps and, with some regularity, finding species new to Ireland.
In the latest 400-page bulletin, a paper headed "Finding Jewels Among the Reeds" updates the checklist of a group of colourful reed beetles, the donaciines, some spotted "by searching water-lily pads with binoculars". And a new Irish water beetle from the Burren lakes, rather beautifully etched in green and purple, made the first cover of Biodiversity Ireland, the magazine of the new National Biodiversity Data Centre set up at Waterford.
With the IBS bulletin comes a catalogue of the Irish Ichneumonidae, the little wasps that specialise in laying their eggs in caterpillars, much to the benefit of our food crops. It gives Irish locations for 1,135 "definite" species, of which 222 are newly recorded for the island.
A decade ago, the insect fauna of Ireland could be reckoned at about 16,000 species. But new discoveries are trickling in all the time as new search schemes are mounted, north and south, and recording is intensified. The number of native plants - about 1,000 - is fairly well known, until one gets to the lichens and fungi. And the alien plants that have settled in Ireland already total more than 900.
Climate change, world traffic and trade will add hundreds more of everything. As Ireland wakes up to its ocean environment, teeming species of the underwater world must be reckoned with in conservation. A recent survey of marine life around Rathlin Island found an amazing 28 sponges which were new, not just to Ireland, but to science.
All this is a setting for recent revelations about the shortage of taxonomic skills in the booming professional field of Irish ecological consultancy. They appear in an appraisal of "Ecology in Ireland" in the current bulletin of the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, the professional body of practitioners in these islands.
Paul O'Donoghue heads a team of seven ecologists employed by Atkins (Ireland), the local arm of Atkins Global, selling engineering and environmental services to the national roads programme and other major projects. In the IIEM bulletin, In Practice, he describes the rapid growth in ecological recording and surveying in the past 10 years, driven by the EU-led need for Environmental Impact Assessments. This has boosted job opportunities for ecologists, both as self-employed consultants and technical company staff, but has also, he says, produced a shortage of graduates able to identify plants and habitats.
"Sadly, most university courses no longer focus on basic animal or plant taxonomy and identification skills." Recent exceptions, he adds, are the Masters in Biodiversity and Conservation in TCD and a new course in Ecological Assessment proposed for UCC.
The bulletin's editorial is by an Irish vegetation scientist, Jenny Neff, who has worked as an ecologist for 38 years and has been sounding out colleagues on the state of the profession. She finds them pleased with progress in knowledge and legislation, if worried about the many obstacles to letting them do their job properly. And yes, there is "the lack of a skill base in certain sectors of private consultancy, not helped by the development of broad-based environmental science qualifications".
No one, I'm sure, expects an ecologist to carry thousands of names in their head, and the digital camera and on-line database must have revolutionised work in the field. But plants are not always obligingly in flower, nor trees in leaf, nor insects on parade (or there in adult form) when habitat assessment must be carried out. Taxonomy is getting even more complex, as DNA analysis edges into the game. But ecologists still need, it seems, along with the thermos of coffee, a lot of nitty-gritty knowledge when out there on their knees.