Taxonomic Expertise Resource List
Accurate and timely diagnosis is critical to making effective regulatory decisions when pests, weeds, and diseases of possible regulatory significance are found associated with commodities in foreign and interstate commerce. The existing diagnosis experts are few in number and located among various federal, state, and county governmental agencies, universities, museums, and private industry. Retiring diagnostic experts are not being replaced in many organizations and universities are training fewer and fewer biosystematists.
NASDA believes that the National Plant Board should work with USDA-APHIS-PPQ, USDA-ARS and other appropriate groups to address this issue. USDA-APHIS-PPQ should coordinate this effort. NASDA also believes it would be beneficial for a catalog of existing taxonomic expertise in the United States to be developed and recognizes that the catalog will need regular updating and suggests APHIS maintain the catalog. It is also advisable for the National Plant Board and the USDA to review protocols for identification of potential pests, weeds, and disease found associated with commodities in foreign and interstate commerce, and develop a more efficient system based on a network of approved expert collaborators from cooperating organizations. NASDA encourages the further adoption of technological advances (PCR, digital imaging systems) to address identification needs and reduce processing time. NASDA also believes these systems should be developed to their fullest extent within individual states and link with federal cooperators.