5 the state of science in south africa
B I O L O G I C A L S C I E N C E S
Institute (SANBI) in Pretoria, but with hun- ies. It has reached into other fields, such as
dreds of electronically-linked collaborating work on the origin of the spectacular spe-
collections throughout South and southern cies richness in the various centres of en-
Africa, has a million and a half accessions demism and the evolution of diseases and
of its own, and direct access to a million their vectors.
more, making it the largest plant collec-
tion in the southern hemisphere. South A second flourishing branch of biological
Africa has been a leader in the digitisation sciences in South Africa had its roots in
of voucher label information, providing economically important natural resources.
an important global information resource. The early economy of South Africa was ab-
The herbaria are associated with a system solutely dependent on forests, grazing and
of nine national botanical gardens that are wildlife, and when it became clear around
famous for their horticulture, but also un- the mid-1800s that they were rapidly be-
dertake research and ex-situ conservation. coming depleted, a dual interest arose: in
The national insect collections, for instance their ecology, on the one hand, and con-
of termites and bees, curated by the Agri- servation and management on the other.
culture Research Council (ARC), ants at the Studies of the ecological effects of wildfire
South African Museum, and Coleoptera by became a strength, breaking decisively
the Northern Flagship Institution are indis- from European and North American world-
pensible for the study of African species, as views that saw fire as always destructive
is the fish collection at the South African and disturbing, and embracing an African
Institute of Aquatic Biodiversity in Gra- perspective that fire is a key process in
hams-town. There are renowned specialists regional ecosystems. There is a strong tra-
in the taxonomy of several plant and animal dition of population ecology, well repre-
groups, but the coverage is not compre- sented in fisheries biology, ornithology and
hensive, and apparent failure of this scarce botanical studies in the fynbos and Karoo.
human resource to regenerate itself is an There are two strong schools of systems
oft-repeated concern. However, the broad- ecology in the country; one in the north
er field of systematics, embracing the evo- with a focus on savannas, and the other in
lutionary processes within populations and the south focusing on the marine Benguela
the relationships among groups of species, upwelling system. These ecosystem stud-
continues to be strong in South Africa, and ies, largely university-based and catalysed
has gained recent impetus from technical by the precursors to the current National
advances in molecular genetics. Thus South Research Foundation (NRF), prepared sev-
African scientists are actively engaged in eral South African researchers to take lead-
genome studies and in such enterprises as ing positions in the emerging field of global
the Barcode of Life. The field of evolutionary change, or earth systems science.
studies has been stimulated by the rich re-
gional palaeontological record, particularly The other branch of this ‘natural resource’
in the Karoo sediments, and by the ongoing focus grew into the contemporary South
regional palaeoanthropological discover- African strengths in conservation biology,
134
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