Golden Anniversary of the Australian Society of Herpetologists
Uwakmfon
Herpetology is the study of frogs and reptiles and has had a long history within Australia (Shea 2014). The Australian Society of Herpetologists turned 50 in 2014, having been organised in 1964 with representatives from New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory meeting at Canberra High School to discuss what could be done to lift the profile of herpetological research in Australia. From this initial discussion arose the Australian Society of Herpetologists and the annual meeting that is moved around the country to provide the background for what herpetological research is being undertaken within Australia. Australia has a herpetofauna (crocodiles, snakes, lizards, turtles and frogs) that attracts research from within and outside Australia. Over the last three years, over a quarter of the papers that have been published in the Australian Journal of Zoology have been about herpetological projects. This area of research is still growing and developing (around 200 attendees at the last two annual meetings) as herpetological studies are characterising the large diversity of species within Australia, as well as examining the potential effects of climate change on the biology of the frogs, lizards and snakes present from temperate to tropical environments. One of the biggest questions with regard to biodiversity is ‘how many species’? To address that question requires some accordinwhatdefinesaspecies.ThepaperbyOliveretal.(2014) presents a modern approach to ensure that our understanding of biodiversity is integrated into conservation and biological research, as well as deal with species complexes in the rapidly advancing genetic techniques that can be used. In addition, they suggest that current morphological and genetic techniques can be used to make systematics research more efficient, but must also be integrated into other areas of biology as well.
