Meeting the challenge of the Decadal Plan- A bivalve’s eye view.

Lisa A. Kirkendale (Western Australian Museum).  

The goal of describing the Australian biota within a generation is daunting. This is doubly so for those of us working on invertebrates in a state as large and diverse as Western Australia! Focussing on molluscs, and bivalves in particular, I will review some of the familiar strategies being utilized to tackle dark taxa, such as nurturing international collaborations, developing industrial partnerships, integrating genomic and imaging methods and data and seeking fast publication options. I will also discuss how these strategies are not getting us far enough fast enough and analyze these and other key challenges. For example, reviewing how the current funding model for discovering species new to science could be extended. One aspect that it is important to consider in this conversation is how we tackle this problem, specifically, who are we bringing along and what legacy are we set to leave once we are done? I suggest circuit breakers that are challenging to implement but critical to embrace in order to greatly increase the pace of species descriptions.