India, with its wide range of geographical and climatic conditions, has a rich and varied flora of some 45,000 species — almost 7% of the world's flowering plants. But their documentation is seriously compromised by the country's dearth of plant taxonomists.
Although DNA sequence data and barcoding are well on the way to being accepted as the global standard for species identification, India's plant taxonomists are struggling to keep up. A lack of proper training and infrastructure hampers molecular-systematics studies, so the evolutionary lineages of most of the country's plants remain poorly understood.
India's many outstanding botanists, familiar with regional flora, must help plant taxonomists to advance molecular-systematics studies and improve the evolutionary understanding of the country's rich biodiversity.
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Ajmal Ali, M., Choudhary, R. India needs more plant taxonomists. Nature 471, 37 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/471037d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/471037d