Alpha e-taxonomy: responses from the systematics community to the biodiversity crisis S. J. Mayo 1 , R. Allkin 1 , W. Baker 1 , V. Blagoderov 2 , I. Brake 2 , B. Clark 3 , R. Govaerts 1 , C. Godfray 3 , A. Haigh 1 , R. Hand 4 , K. Harman 1 , M. Jackson 1 , N. Kilian 4 , D. W. Kirkup 1 , I. Kitching 2 , S. Knapp 2 , G. P. Lewis 1 , P. Malcolm 1 , E. von Raab-Straube 4 , D. M. Roberts 2 , M. Scoble 2 , D. A. Simpson 1 , C. Smith 2 , V. Smith 2 , S. Villalba 1 , L. Walley 2 & P. Wilkin 1 Summary. The crisis facing the conservation of biodiversity is reflected in a parallel crisis in alpha taxonomy. On one hand, there is an acute need from government and non-government organisations for large-scale and rela- tively stable species inventories on which to build major biodiversity information systems. On the other, molecular information will have an increasingly important impact on the evidential basis for delimiting species and is likely to result in greater scientific debate and controversy on their circumscription. This paper argues that alpha-taxonomy built on the Internet (alpha e-taxonomy) can provide a key component of the solution. Two main themes are considered: (1) the potential of e-taxonomic revisions for engaging both the specialist taxonomic community and a wider public in gathering taxonomic knowledge and deepening understanding of it, and (2) why alpha-species will continue to play an essential role in the conventional definition of species and what kinds of methodological development this implies for descriptive species taxonomy. The challenges and requirements for sustaining e- taxonomic revisions in the long-term are discussed, with particular reference to models being developed by five initiatives with botanical exemplar websites: CATE (Creating a Taxonomic E-Science), Solanaceae Source, GrassBase and EDIT (European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy) exemplar groups and scratchpads. These projects give a clear indication of the crucially important role of the national and regional taxonomic organisations and their networks in providing both leadership and a fruitful and beneficial human and technical environment for taxono- mists, both amateur and professional, to contribute their expertise towards a collective global enterprise. Key Words. alpha e-taxonomy, biodiversity, systematics. Introduction Papers by Scoble (2004), Godfray (2002), Godfray et al. (2007) and Scoble et al. (2007) have reviewed and discussed in detail the current broad picture of e- taxonomy. Thus, in this paper we focus specifically on the potential of e-taxonomy for delivering descriptive, morphology-based species taxonomies of higher plant groups. Our first main theme relates to the general public as a broad user community and the role that taxonomy fulfils in enhancing general understanding of biodiversity and the environment. We start from the premise that the most conspicuous plant and animal groups have the greatest impact on people’s aware- ness and therefore the highest priority for e-taxono- my. A second premise is that people have a strong desire for a greater understanding of their world, so by making it easier to acquire a deeper first-hand knowledge of species, greater involvement in biodi- versity conservation is likely to be stimulated. Achiev- ing this goal requires that e-taxonomy will be not just a simple media change from paper to internet pages, but will involve a more significant transformation into a multi-directional interaction in which the roles of Accepted for publication January 2008. 1 Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3AB, UK. 2 The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, UK. 3 Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Park Road, Oxford, OX1 3PS, UK. 4 Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin—Dahlem, Freie Universität Berlin, Königin-Luise-Str. 6-8, 14191, Berlin, Germany. E-mail: S.Mayo@rbgkew.org.uk KEW BULLETIN VOL. 63: 1–16 (2008) © The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2008