Knowledge of insect diversity in Brazil: Challenges and advances

Abstract

Insects will soon reach one million known species worldwide. Brazil, with about 9% of this total, and possibly another 400 thousand species yet to be discovered, harbors the highest insect diversity in the world. The country has a complement of about 140 active taxonomists, which means a quota of 3,600 insect species per professional. Each Brazilian taxonomist publishes, on average, about 100 species during a professional life span, so it would take 2-3 thousand years to only know the country's insect diversity. Some of the problems hindering the development of insect taxonomy in Brazil are: difficulties with international loans; difficulties with permission for dissecting loaned type specimens; low scientific esteem of taxonomic journals as assessed by the Impact Factor index; academic low esteem of taxonomy knowledge; legal restrictions to field work and disregard of the Brazilian legislation that regulates the final destination of biological material. If truly responsible actions towards preserving biological diversity are to be undertaken nationwide, key problems must be addressed and solved: creation of a national center of information on entomological diversity; investment in a core of institutions that would act as an axis for the development of taxonomic knowledge; investment in the formation of a new generation of taxonomists; elimination of bureaucratic obstacles currently hampering the accomplishment of the constitutional mandate for developing knowledge on biological diversity and developing organized actions to control the deforestation of highly biodiverse areas.