Cataloguing life in India: The taxonomic imperative.

Taxonomy, the science of discovering, describing and naming new species has become critically important in this era of declining biodiversity. Cataloguing species is fundamental to conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. Taxonomy also forms the basis of elucidating evolutionary relationships among agricultural crops, parasites, pathogens and insect pests. Many pharmaceutical products are based on plants and the indigenous systems of medicines are based on our ability to accurately classify and describe living organisms. Thus taxonomy plays a vital role in the human well-being