“Arunachal Pradesh yields a new frog species”, a friend read out loud from his phone screen. Then he read a few more lines in a mumble, looked up, and said, “This is great news, but I can’t see how this provides value to our lives. How does this discovery help humanity?”
I am sure many of us would have the same question. In a state of economic slowdown, ongoing wars, water scarcity, and a viral pandemic – why must something as trivial as a new species of frog make news?
To answer this question, let us look at Hydrophylax bahuvistara, a frog species discovered in Maharashtra in 20154. This frog secretes an antiviral peptide called Urumin in its slime. The peptide is potent enough to destroy drug-resistant H1 influenza viruses and has great potential as a therapeutic against the human influenza A virus.1 Hydrophylax bahuvistara was previously confused with Hydrophylax malabaricus (its sister species). So here, taxonomy has played an important role in correctly identifying the source of the new compound, thus preventing any misunderstanding in the future.
The scientists who classify new species are called ‘Taxonomists’. They usually publish their findings in journals or books, and this information provides a first-hand reference for generations to come. The origin of this field dates back to the time when humans started conversing and exchanging information for survival. Teaching your children which plants are edible and which are toxic also involves some degree of classification and ‘naming’. It was only after Carolus Linnaeus, an 18th-century botanist, who simplified the classification of organisms, that we started to study and really make sense of the living world around us. He organized the taxonomic clutter by putting giraffes and sheep in one basket, eagles and penguins in another, and so on. The rationale behind this arrangement was simple – similar organisms were grouped together.
So how did classifying organisms change the way we understand the living world? When Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered the first antibiotic ‘Penicillin’, he had to identify the species of fungi that restricted the bacterial growth in his culture dish. He eventually took help from Charles La Touche (a mycologist) and selected the name Penicillium rubrum. Later taxonomic studies on Fleming’s mould demonstrated that it did not belong to P. rubrum, but P. notatum. It produced very little amount of the bactericidal compound and mass production was not feasible. Samples from other species of the genus Penicillium showed that P. chrysogenum produced the largest amount of Penicillin. Accurate identification of its source allowed large scale manufacture which saved thousands of lives during World War II. Over 400 million units of Penicillin were available in 1942 and “By the end of the war, American pharmaceutical companies were producing 650 billion units a month”. It was important to correctly identify all the cryptic species; mass production of the antibiotic from the wrong mould would have serious consequences.
Why is it so difficult to recognize a species? you may ask. Well, taxonomy is a hypothesis and the distinction of a species can be explained to varying levels by the numerous species concepts. The most popular one is the biological species concept, which we all have studied in our schools. It states that “species are groups of interbreeding natural populations that are reproductively isolated from other such groups.” But this theory fails in instances of allopatric populations and is inapplicable onto asexual organisms. Moreover, Paleontologists cannot apply this theory when identifying fossil records. To overcome these drawbacks, modern taxonomists focus on classification systems that rely on phenetic as well as phylogenetic relations. The two primary steps of species delimitation should be to group individuals into potential lineages and to see if these groups are sufficiently reproductively isolated to be evolving independently of one another. (source) There is no agreed formula to decide how much is “sufficient”, trained taxonomists decide this based on what information they have.
Incorrect identification of the model organisms used in experiments can lead to a lot of confusion and loss of vital information, and result in difficulties of reproducibility. Taxonomy is not static; it is a growing field. Researchers strive to find explanations that best describe the differences between species to facilitate future research on that species. In 2011, advanced molecular research in the Penicillium spp. found that the mould belonged to one of the four independently evolving groups within P. chrysogenum. Thus, Fleming’s fungal strain was re-identified as P. rubens after 83 years. Today, with molecular evidence, the differences between these species are clearer than ever.
Taxonomy also forms the cornerstone of species conservation. The ecological importance of a region is ideally estimated by the number of species inhabiting it, the number of species endemic to it, and the evolutionary diversity among the resident species. All these approaches are valuable and require a clear understanding of what species are and how to differentiate between them. Edward O. Wilson, in his popular New York Times article states that “Making decisions about land protection without this fundamental knowledge (of taxonomy) would lead to irreversible mistakes.” He also reiterates the fact that around 80% of the estimated species diversity on the Earth still remains undiscovered.
With each discovery, we have another chance at curing dementia, solving the plastic waste problem, unraveling the secrets of earth’s geological history – the possibilities are endless. The solutions to many scourges afflicting humanity are hidden somewhere in the natural world. But large-scale human interventions and habitat destruction are increasingly resulting in mass extinctions. As a result, we are lowering our chances of finding solutions to our problems. We cannot possibly predict where the next miracle drug will come from. It may come from that frog in Arunachal or some other tiny obscure organism. The first step to knowing what lies in store would be to document and catalogue the species inhabiting the natural world.
Author
Anuj Shinde is an undergraduate Zoology student at Fergusson College, Pune, India. He is passionate about Ecology and Evolution. Amphibians and Reptiles (a.k.a Herps) have been an abiding theme of his life, he has always been fascinated by the secretive life they live and the various shapes & sizes they come in. HerpClub is a small initiative that he runs to communicate the Herpetological studies from the Indian subcontinent. He intends to pursue a career in scientific research and conservation, where he will try to understand their lives and behavior, and identify the various problems they face in their habitat. Follow him @anujherp on twitter.
Editors
Amrita Anand is in her 4th year of Ph.D. in Genetics and Genomics at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston. She studies the reprogramming potential of certain key factors in the regeneration of mouse inner ear hair cells. She has been actively pursuing Science communication over the last three years as she enjoys bridging the gap between scientists and non-experts. As an editor, she wants to make science more accessible to the public and also hopes the hard work behind the science gets due credit.
Saurja Dasgupta is originally from Kolkata, India. He obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, where he studied the structure, function, and evolution of catalytic RNA. He is currently doing his postdoctoral research at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, where he is trying to understand the biochemical milieu that could have given birth to life on earth (and elsewhere) and reconstruct primitive cells. One of his scientific dreams is to observe the spontaneous emergence of Darwinian evolution in a chemical system. When not thinking about science, Saurja pursues his love for the written word through poetry and song-writing (and meditating on Leonard Cohen’s music). His other passions are trying to make science easier to understand, and fighting unreason and pseudoscientific thinking with a mixture of calm compassion and swashbuckling spirit.
Illustrator
Dr. Manasi Pethe is a Protein Engineer with Bayer and the founder of PethDoodles. She loves to depict the behind the scenes images in a scientist’s life in an attempt to make science a more accessible career. Find her art on www.instagram.com/PethDoodles
Cover image – by Dr. Manasi Pethe
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