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13.

Systematic biology.

Descriptive accounts of arctic biota, animals and plants, were among
the first results of scientific investigations in the northlands, and they
continue to be basic to all other investigations for the simple reason that
research in every biological field is of little value without an exact
identification of the material. Although these accounts have resulted in
flora and fauna manuals for all parts of the Arctic, the amount of detailed
knowledge of the plants and animals of different regions varies considerably,
so that much work still needs to be done in these fields. All groups of biota
need to be studied in much greater detail in the field and laboratory, in order
to ascertain their variation, distribution, and abundance. Collection work
by field biologists needs to be encouraged, and if expensive facilities,
as airplanes and helicopters, could be made available to energetic biologists
collecting plants and animals, in a similar way as they are now used by geologists
looking for minerals and oil, then we will soon know as much about the variation
and distribution of arctic biota as those of the best known temperate lands.

Taxonomy and geography of all kinds of plants and animals need continued
study, and new methods and new approaches must be sought and applied to increase
the exactness in classification, among others to make it possible to evaluate
dispersal and survival ability. Since it is important for the understanding
of the history and evolution of every taxon of living beings that we understand
its place in evolution, emphasis ought to be made to define all species and
their lower units exactly and biologically, by aid of intrinsic characteristics.
For this, chromosome studies and other cytotaxonomical methods are important.
In vascular arctic plants and mosses such studies have already given considerable,
though still incomplete results. The cytology of lower plants and of animals
of the arctic lands is, however, very little known. Arctic and alpine regions