Question

How many occupations can you list that would need to use scientific names for plants? How would these groups of people be affected by a change in names for plants?

Answer 1

From ancient times, man realized the importance of plants and their products. Man's domestication of plants (crop cultivation) using grasses with small seeds and improving them by many ways like hybridization and polyploidy has come into the origin of human civilization and settlements and crop production began.

The problems like decreasing resources and increasing population is solved by enhancing crop yield through green revolution and also by developing disease, pest resistant crops utilizing the principles of biotechnology.

Progress in applied fields like agriculture, forestry, horticulture, flori-culture, etc are possible only through experiments in hybridization and genetic engineering.

New techniques of plant breeding are useful to develop hybrid varieties in crop plants like rice, wheat, maize, sugarcane, etc.

Adharvanaveda, written during 2000 B.C., contains wealth of information on several medicinal plants and their uses. The names are still used by ayurvedic doctors.

Krishiparasram, the oldest book in agriculture, dealt about agriculture and weeds. In his book Vriksha Ayurveda, described different types of forests, external, internal characters of plants including medicinal plants. All these studies will become very difficult in case the names of plants are changed.

Occupation	Use of scientific names of plants	Impact of scientific name change of plants
Botanist	He studies the plants starting from external to internal, also classification	It becomes difficult for him to keep track of plants studied when the names change
Ayurveda doctors	Study of plants like Neem, datura, digitalis, rauwolfia, ocimum, belladona	Medicinal plants and their products correlation becomes difficult
Homeopathy doctors	Study of plants like Arnica sincona, withania	Medicinal plants and their products correlation becomes difficult
Pharmacists	Production of antibiotics like penicillin	Plant products used in pharmacy becomes difficult
Taxonomist	Classification of the plants is mainly concerned with the names	It is impossible without binomial nomenclature changes
Enzymologist	Plant enzyme extraction for various uses	Face difficulty in correlating the extraction of enzymes from various plants
Palynologist	One who studies about pollen and their impact on plants, environment	Pollen study (fossil) and the plant name becomes difficult
Plant breeders	Deals with improvement and the production of new varieties of plants	Comparison of plants old and new, becomes difficult
Genetic engineers	Genes from one plant to another plant, one bacteria to another bacteria	This study is impossible to study genes and correlate them
Floriculturist	Flower development is studied	Study itself depends on the names and their varieties
Genetist	Deals with all aspects related to genes	Karyotype study with old names is done
Phyto-pathologist	Study of plant diseases and their control	It becomes difficult to find medicine for plant diseases and save plants
Horticulturist	Study of garden plants	Impacts plants used
Cosmetologist	Plant products are used like aloevera, for preparing cosmetics	If names are changed, product, plant relationship will be impacted
Physiologist	Plant kingdom is the only source which brings the solar energy	Physiological phenomenon changes and names are linked with each other
People involved in commercially important products (beverages, condiments, rubber gums, essential and aromatic oils)	Plant names are of great importance for their exploitation	Product extraction becomes difficult and growing plant communities becomes difficult
Biochemist	Chemical studies of plants	Chemical extraction and study becomes difficult
Industrialists (cloth, paper, sugar mills)	Usage of products for human welfare	Sensitive thing as name change will impact of quality of product
Petrol industry (petrol, coal, coke, gasoline yielding plants)	This industry needs scientific names of bio-diesel producing petro-plants such as jatropa and pongamia (rich in hydro-carbons)	The industry wil be effected if confusion is there in the names and has a global impact as these are highly commercial and perishable products
Scientist who control green house effect, soil pollution, bio-remediation, recycling of nutrients	Solve environmental degradation and maintenance	These people are highly effected
Scientists preparing bio-fertilizers	To avoid soil and water pollution caused by chemical fertilizers, prevention of soil erosion by sand-binding plants	To save the environment, it is important to know the names of plants of biosphere
Environmentalist	Solve environmental degradation and maintenance	As the plants are the only source that exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide, the study needs plant names
Astronauts & Space researchers	They carry low weight, high protein algae	If the names are changed, any fault will be difficult to cope up with the changes
Plant ecologist	Study of reciprocal relationship between plants and environment.	Study of biomes becomes difficult
Phyto-geographist	Study of geographical distribution of plants in the past and present	Study of plants distribution needs taxonomy. Name change will create chaos.
Economic botanist	Dealing with various types of plants essential to plant	Various places of the biosphere correlation of the new names is highly impossible
Agriculturist/Agronomist	Study of crop plants and science of field crop production	These are concerned with names and cultivation. Name change will create difficulty in identifying required plant
Bacteriologist	Study of bacteria	Various fields use bacteria and with the name change, identification becomes challenging
Forestry	People study plants in the forests and their products	They face difficulty in identifying the plants and their location