The Lack of Researchers: A Critical Threat to Studies on Freshwater Zooplankton in Latin America

Abstract

We highlight the lack of researchers studying freshwater zooplankton in Latin America and contextualize it within the global extinction of taxonomists, global loss of biodiversity, and regional reality to visualize the intensity of this threat and possible strategies for addressing it. The scarcity of researchers working on freshwater zooplankton currently threatens the future of these studies in the world. This global trend of the decreasing interest of scientists and local governments in learning about this important component of freshwater biodiversity is more accentuated in Latin America by regional drivers, such as brain drain, a lack of support by stakeholders, and the absence of planning for the rational use and conservation of this essential natural resource. All these drivers interact and have more dramatic consequences for regional research due to the recent reduction in government funds for science in some of these countries. In the context of Global Change; a loss of biodiversity due to this fact; and the misuse of drainage basins, overexploitation, and regional pressures, the lack of researchers studying freshwater zooplankton and, in general, all aquatic life has emerged as a critical threat to the delicate equilibrium of these ecosystems. Within this situation, scientific integration through intra-regional and extra-regional collaboration networks has emerged as an unavoidable strategy for the survival and future strengthening of studies on biodiversity and the conservation of freshwater zooplankton in Latin America. The development of new technologies such as DNA barcoding, metabarcoding, and metagenomics has emerged as a solution to this problem. Nevertheless, they should be considered as new tools towards integrative taxonomy and not as replacements for taxonomical studies.

1. Introduction

Recent reviews of studies of freshwater zooplankton in Latin America (LA) have shown a significant disparity in its development and current performance, with countries such as Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico having a large, abundant, and productive history of research activities [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Other countries in Central America, the Caribbean [7], and South America, such as Paraguay [8], Guyana, Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador are comparatively lacking in this respect.

In most LA countries with studies on freshwater zooplankton, persistent growth of the number of papers from the 70–80 years of the last century to the present is observed [1,6,9,10], with the notable exception of Venezuela [11]. In general, Venezuela has had a negative rate of knowledge production in the last decade [12]. This is a consequence of the decline in science and technology, the emigration of researchers (since 2015, more than 1200 researchers have migrated to other countries, with 77% coming from universities and 49% holding MSc and PhD degrees), and the lack of generational replacement to address scientific studies [13,14].

The regional trend of consistent growth is in accordance with general developments observed in the regional sciences during the last decades [15], and with time trends shown by the global production of papers on studies of freshwater zooplankton [16,17]. However, this growth is relatively very small compared to other world regions. According to Albuquerque Souza et al. [16], between 0 and 1906 papers were published in the countries of the region from 1991 to 2015, compared to 2484 and 8847 in North America and some European countries. Only Brazil and Mexico were in the top 20 countries in publications related to the field of freshwater zooplankton between 1991 and 2020 in the Web of Science [17]. Moreover, the scarce international or regional academic cooperation of freshwater zooplankton researchers is highlighted as a feature of the studies in the region [17].

This situation is particularly worrying in the context of the global biodiversity crisis [18] in one region with countries with the highest biodiversity in the world, such as Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, or Mexico, as well as all the smaller but no less important Central American countries.

Table 1 summarizes publications dealing with countries and new species descriptions of the eight megadiverse countries of the region, considering all biodiversity. Chat GPT 4o was used to organize data on papers available in the literature for each country/year in this table. Supplementary Material File S1 provides the list of references on the description of new species of the general biodiversity of the eight megadiverse countries of LA used in the elaboration of this table. We decided to include all groups because, over the past three years, very few papers describing new species of inland zooplankton were found, and only four rotifer species, one cladoceran, and six freshwater copepod species have been described in the four most productive and megadiverse Latin American countries: Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Peru.

Even considering all biodiversity species, relatively low scientific production and market differences are observed. These features could be attributed to the historical, social, economic, and political disparities that underpin the educational and scientific differences among the countries in the region [15,19]. However, the situation is much more complex because even large, relatively more scientifically productive LA countries such as Brazil and Mexico should produce more visible science [15]. These statements are particularly relevant for studies on the freshwater zooplankton biodiversity of the region [16,17].

The two leading countries of LA are Brazil and Mexico; however, collaborations between them are much lower than with the United States or Europe. The country with the fewest publications is Guatemala (Table 1).

The outstanding features of disparity and the dramatic exception of the recent decrease in papers on freshwater zooplankton published by Venezuela are significantly associated with the regional and local political, social, and economic crises, respectively [11]. These crises are a typical regional pattern with different intensities and frequencies. For example, in the case of Mexico, there has been a continuous significant reduction in publications on the Web of Science (consulted on 6 January 2025) in the last three years, reaching around 16% in 2024. As in Venezuela, this latter case is due to government cuts of funds that started in 2017 [20,21] and have continued in the last 5 years [22], and the changes in governance science [23]. Therefore, the threats to the future of any scientific activity in the region must initially be explored by analyzing the conditions and surroundings of the scientists who are, finally, doing these activities.

Here, we highlight the lack of researchers studying biodiversity, particularly in freshwater zooplankton in LA, and contextualize it within the global extinction of taxonomists, global loss of biodiversity, and regional reality to visualize the intensity of this threat and possible strategies for addressing it.

2. Global Extinction of Taxonomists and Global Loss of Biodiversity

Zoological biodiversity studies initially consisted of inventories, taxonomic lists, and species descriptions reinforced with ecological and evolutionary data. Over the last 20 years, the descriptions, evolutionary data, and phylogeography have been reinforced with molecular data based on DNA sequences of one (mostly COI) or more genes. These data eventually became the basis of biodiversity studies as they are presented today and with many practical applications such as the detection of exotic species [24], biomonitoring [25], and water quality based on indicators [26]. Recent studies have incorporated new statistical methods, molecular biology, remote sensing, stratigraphic dating, and computing techniques and environmental DNA (eDNA) [27,28]. These new methods have enabled us to study nature more precisely and quantitatively, allowing us to obtain a much more rigorous and robust understanding of complex processes and interactions in aquatic life than in the past [29]. The use of these new resources has led to an excessive focus on innovative technology. Thus, classical taxonomy is not considered “fashionable,” and many institutions prioritize molecular biology, genetics, and applied sciences over traditional taxonomy.

Some experts on taxonomy are participating in these fields through so-called integrative taxonomy [30] and direct applications after the construction of strong well-curated base-lines based, for example, in biomonitoring after non-invasive methods such as eDNA [31].

However, controversy has been raised regarding some adopted methodologies, particularly those involving massive, minimalistic species descriptions [32,33,34]. Moreover, the focus on inappropriate publication metrics in evaluating scientific output; the shifting priorities in natural history museums away from their traditional strengths; and other factors such as the lack of institutional support, leading to decreased funding for research, have led to a notable lack of interest in taxonomy and systematics among students and new and senior researchers [18,35]. Consequently, the taxonomical foundations on which biodiversity studies are based are negatively affected [18]. Thus, they are seriously threatened in the global scenario and consequently in LA as well.

Years ago, the universal extinction of taxonomists was accepted as a great threat to biodiversity studies [36,37,38]. Its co-occurrence with the increasing global loss of species by climatic change and anthropogenic activities [39,40,41] constitutes the “global biodiversity crisis”, in which the greatest part of biodiversity could remain unknown, and the extinction of many species before they are known must be expected [42,43].

This global biodiversity crisis could be more intense concerning the biodiversity of tiny organisms such as protozoa, rotifers, and microcrustaceans, the main components of freshwater zooplankton. Traditionally, this “invisible biodiversity” has been underestimated and poorly valued [44,45,46,47]. There is much talk about the extinction of large animals [48,49], but little is known about what is happening with “invisible biodiversity”.

3. How Numerous Are We?

Although we do not have quantitative information on the exact number of researchers studying freshwater zooplankton in the region, some indirect evidence indicates it is very low. For example, Ramirez and Gutierrez-Fonseca [50] show that freshwater research activities in Latin America are mainly directed toward the ecology of stream ecosystems (>90%), with few works focusing on lakes and wetlands, the main habitats of zooplankton. Brazil, the most productive country, with a consolidated history of freshwater zooplankton studies in the region [16,17], has just over a hundred researchers enrolled in its Neotropical Zooplankton Network (https://zooplanctonneotropicalbr.wordpress.com/, accessed 24 October 2024) according to its WhatsApp account. In this account, researchers from other countries are also included. In the recent Special Issue of Limnologica: “Neotropical inland water zooplankton: Knowledge and future advance” [51], the list of authors from eleven countries of South America, Central America, and the Caribbean comprised only 123 researchers. The number of Brazilian researchers is probably underrepresented because only the heads of laboratories were considered, but in a few countries, foreign researchers were co-authors. This is evidence of the lack of zooplanktologists in these countries.

As we said previously, this low number of researchers studying Latin American freshwater zooplankton, where the highest biodiversity in the world is found [52], does not escape the global trend of developing studies on the biodiversity of other zoological sciences, which is characterized by a constant decrease in the number of researchers [29].

The historical development of regional science has followed a similar pattern to other studies of zoological biodiversity. It started with papers of taxonomical inventories, new species, and lists of species, later advancing to predominant ecological field works, and, more recently, using experimentation and new technologies. Therefore, taxonomical studies are currently the minority of investigations in countries of the region.

One illustrative example is Brazil, where studies on the taxonomy of freshwater were well represented between 1990 and 2014, starting in the early 1900s, when foreign researchers visited Brazil. However, we found that taxonomic studies decreased after 1990 [53]. Recently, ecological studies have predominated over taxonomical studies on freshwater zooplankton in Brazil, mainly due to the scarcity of taxonomists specialized in zooplankton taxa [1]. The reliance on keys developed for other regions leads to many flaws in this kind of research. For example, in the Web of Science (search: Moina micrura and Brazil, consulted on 6 January 2025), there are 37 studies involving Moina micrura, a species that does not exist in Brazil [54]. This result evidences the need to begin efforts toward harmonized standards for freshwater biodiversity monitoring and biological assessment using zooplankton species as the basis [55,56].

Brazil frequently published callings aimed at taxonomic formation in a program named PROTAX (Capacitation Program in Taxonomy) (e.g., http://memoria2.cnpq.br/web/guest/chamadas-publicas?p_p_id=resultadosportlet_WAR_resultadoscnpqportlet_INSTANCE_0ZaM&filtro=abertas&detalha=chamadaDivulgada&idDivulgacao=12445, accessed 1 Novembre 2024) by the National Council of Research (CNPq). However, the funding provided is too few to attend all the project submissions, for example, in calling 24/2024 (above), just 26 projects were approved, compared to the nearly 213 recommended (but without guarantees of economical support) and the nearly 140 declassified. In the resume, 350 projects were submitted, and just 26 were approved. It is evident how scarce the resources invested in taxonomy are, just considering Brazil. This situation expands or is more critical in other countries. Of all these proposals, no researcher of zooplankton won the grant. Considering all of the proposals submitted, at least six projects were about these microcrustaceans (free-living parasites). The scarcity of resources is a discouragement to writing projects for this calling because a considerable amount of time is spent writing the proposal, and it is very difficult to gain these grants specifically. If the intention is to avoid the extinction of taxonomists, if science and society consider this as an essential area, then countries need to invest in permanent programs to incentivize this, especially from an integrative point of view. This strategy seeks to avoid the cumulus of proposals as related before in PROTAX.

Regarding the loss of biodiversity of freshwater zooplankton in LA, many processes associated with climatic change, fragmentation, and loss of habitats; the introduction of alien predators or zooplankter species competitors; and other anthropogenic stressors that threaten the biodiversity of freshwater bodies have been advancing in the region for many years [57,58,59,60].

Thus, there are extensive historical records of alien fish introductions, such as salmonids, trout, and tilapia, into lakes and ponds of different countries of LA [57,61]. In most cases, the consequences and strategies for mitigating the ecological impacts of these introductions have not been studied or are just starting [62].

The record of the probable loss of the only freshwater calanoid copepod of the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador [63,64], due to the illegal introduction of Tilapia and the erroneous management with regard to eradicating it, is an alarming sign of the intensity of zooplankton species loss due to human activities in the region. It stands out that it has occurred in one of the most emblematic protected areas of the world [65].

The presence and persistence of exotic cladocerans such as Daphnia lumholtzi and Moina macrocopa have been recorded in several Neotropics localities [11,28,66]. Similarly, the rotifer Kellicotia bostoniensis has been found in the neotropics [9,67,68], and the freshwater jellyfish Craspedacusta sowerbyi was found in Venezuela [11]. Another five exotic rotifer species have been recorded in Mexico [69].

Similarly, Mesocyclops pehpeiensis has been found in Mexico, Honduras, Cuba, and the United States from the south to near the border with Canada [24,70,71,72,73]. The effects of all these exotic species on the environment or the indigenous species are not known in any case. Therefore, the need to study the current scope of these invasions and how the invader can affect native species and structure, functions, and freshwater ecosystem services must be highlighted. It should be noted that most of the exotic species in the freshwater zooplankton cannot be identified by a non-specialist.

4. Regional Reality

In the region, the universal extinction of taxonomists is reinforced by regionally driven forces, such as extra-regional brain drain [74,75] as well as the limitations of the facilities, funding, and expertise often present in developing countries [76]. This situation is a consequence of prolonged periods of low or no local funding for research in many countries of the region [22], and the recent systematic reduction in grants and support for science in some countries with higher scientific output, such as Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina [77,78,79].

Although academic and research institutions in LA have high expectations for their researchers and require them to publish in high-impact journals [80], the financial research support is inadequate to meet these standards. Government institutions provide most grants in LA, but these are insufficient for the needs of a competitive research enterprise [19]. For Latin American freshwater scientists, fund limitations are the main obstacle in their research activities [50]. This financial insufficiency has been a constant in extensive historical data in the region. However, it has been sharpened recently with a systematic reduction in government funds in the regional scientific scenario. Some anti-science governments are taking a toll on researchers in their region [77]. The Venezuelan science crisis is the most pathetic and dramatic example of permanent and systematic disarticulation of the scientific structure and production by a government [81,82]. This trend seems to have recently begun to resonate with episodic appearances in other countries such as Mexico [23,78], Brazil [83,84], and Argentina [79], the countries of the region with a major presence and visibility in global sciences [15,85].

5. Final Considerations

The scarce number of researchers working on freshwater zooplankton biodiversity currently represents a threat to the future of these studies worldwide. This global trend of declining interest among young scientists in taxonomic studies is strongly reinforced in LA by regional realities, and this has emerged as a significant threat to biodiversity knowledge in the context of global species loss, habitat decline, and climate change.

It is crucial to conduct a national census of the scientific community in the region, focusing on the study of epicontinental waters, particularly zooplankton, to provide a comparative basis and identify the shortage of qualified personnel in this field. There is no correlation between a country’s biodiversity and the number of scientists studying it. Scientific integration through intra-regional and extra-regional collaboration networks has emerged as an essential strategy for the survival and future growth of regional science.

In the current economic and technological globalization background, international collaborations have become increasingly important in promoting various research fields. Many researchers have regarded international collaboration as one of the most effective ways to increase their productivity and visibility in the global context of science [86,87,88]. At the global level, the share of publications from international collaboration increased from 4.7% in 1980 to 25.7% in 2021 [89]. There are many reasons why international collaboration in research is increasingly expanding. Only through this integration will we be able to face the challenges that represent the sciences in the social, economic, and political conditions of our countries, and by more forcefully demanding improvements from the government regarding the situation of science and scientists in the region.

Integrating collaboration networks may facilitate (i) the search for international research funds; (ii) the complementarity of local funds between two or more countries; (iii) strengthening multinational postgraduate courses, favoring the academic mobility of experts and their students; (iv) the harmonization of standards for freshwater biodiversity monitoring and biological assessment; (v) the extensive use of new techniques, methods, or approaches; and (vi) the solving of scientific problems and asking of scientific questions over local dimensions.

Executing taxonomy training programs and courses, using modern methodological tools such as molecular genetics, and integrating them with ecological approaches (integrative taxonomy) are essential steps to take to attract more young researchers and students and make our research more visible in the international scientific community.

International and regional collaborations would facilitate similarly, signifying the beginning of efforts toward harmonized standards for freshwater biodiversity monitoring and biological assessment using zooplankton species as the basis [55,56]. It is important to highlight that the European Water Framework Directive implements policies to achieve a good ecological status for all European waterbodies. To determine the ecological potential in freshwater environments, abiotic (morphology, physical and chemical variables) and biotic (algae, fishes, etc.) metrics are used. Despite its importance in the trophic web, zooplankton was not included as one of the Biological Quality Elements (BQE) to determine the water quality [90,91,92]. This decision could have broader implications than it might seem at first glance. Without the official recognition of water quality assessments, research, and funding for zooplankton, there is a decrease in research, leading to a gradual loss of taxonomic expertise. This impacts not only Europe but also places like Latin America, where many European scientists work or collaborate (Table 1). As older experts retire and fewer young researchers specialize in zooplankton, global efforts in biodiversity monitoring and ecosystem assessment are weakened. Since zooplankton are key to aquatic food webs, ignoring them in monitoring can lead to incomplete evaluations and less effective water management.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, C.L. and M.E.-G.; writing—original draft preparation, C.L., C.B., G.P.-N. and M.E.-G.; and writing—review and editing, C.L., C.B., G.P.-N. and M.E.-G. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article. Further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Acknowledgments

We express our thanks to S. Woelf for revising the first version of the manuscript and for his valuable commentaries, and to the Office of the Vice-Rector for Research and Innovation (VIDI) and the Deanship of Research of the Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL), Ecuador for supporting our activities and the publication of this paper. Also, thanks to Luz M. Soto for her help with the text edition and for her work with references. Comments and suggestions from two anonymous referees enhanced the first versions of this manuscript. During the preparation of Table 1 of this work, the authors used Chat-GPT v. 4o to organize the data from the literature on the biodiversity of the eight megadiverse countries of LA in the last 3 years and their international collaborations. After using this tool, the authors reviewed and edited the content as needed and took full responsibility for the content of this table.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations are used in this manuscript:

LA	Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
PROTAX	Capacitation Program in Taxonomy

Footnotes

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Table

Table 1

Publications involving descriptions of new species found in the Web of Science index from eight megadiverse countries of LA in the last three years (Search: Address: “country”; Topic: “new species). In brackets are the number of collaborations with several countries.

Collaboration
	Total Publications	Only Country of Origin	With Other Countries	With Latin American Countries	Latin American Country with Most Collaborations	With USA	With Europe	Country of Europe with More Collaborations	With China or Russia
2024
Mexico	237	16	221	38	Brazil (20)	54	36	Germany (11), Spain (11)	0
Brazil	817	470	347	144	Colombia (53)	175	129	Germany (39)	Russia (4), China (21)
Colombia	154	15	139	78	Brazil (143)	46	33	Germany (25)	2
Costa rica	25	3	22	7	Panama (4)	13	10	Spain (6)	0
Ecuador	58	18	40	25	Colombia (10)	19	17	Germany (9)	0
Guatemala	1	0	1	1	Mexico	0	0	0	0
Peru	76	20	56	28	Ecuador (8)	26	20	Spain (8)	China (7)
Venezuela	23	1	22	18	Colombia (9)	6	7	Spain (3)	0
2023
Mexico	281	17	264	51	Brazil (28)	53	55	Germany (18)	2
Brazil	802	462	340	140	Colombia (42)	162	151	Germany (36)	Russia (7), China (13); both (2)
Colombia	133	4	129	73	Brazil (80)	40	38	Germany (14)	2
Costa Rica	27	3	24	11	Mexico (4)	17	11	Germany (5), Netherlands (5)	Russia (1), China (2); both (1)
Ecuador	52	13	39	20	Colombia (9)	22	29	German (11)	China (1)
Guatemala	2	0	2	1	Mexico	1	1	Poland	0
Peru	77	27	50	29	Colombia (9), Argentina (8)	26	17	Switzerland (5), Italy (4)	Russia (1), China (1)
Venezuela	17	2	15	11	Colombia(6)	2	5	Germany (3)	0
2022
Mexico	241	12	229	40	Brazil (15)	62	34	Germany (9)	1
Brazil	780	434	346	125	Colombia (34)	155	141	France (31) Germany (29)	Russia (7), China (15); both 1
Colombia	96	32	26	7	5	4	3	Scotland, Italy, and Switzerland (1 each)	0
Costa Rica	28	3	25	11	Panama (5)	12	9	Germany (5)	0
Ecuador	47	7	40	17	Peru (5), Mexico (4)	21	14	Germany (4), France (4)	China (1)
Guatemala	1	0	1	1	Mexico	0	0	0	0
Peru	50	11	39	20	Mexico (6)	21	8	Switzerland (3)	China (1)
Venezuela	18	5	13	10	Brazil (4)	7	2	Germany (1)	0

Supplementary Materials

The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/d17060381/s1. File S1: a list of literature references used to elaborate Table 1.

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