A recent article on ABC News describes a pretty dire situation approaching for the field of bee taxonomy in Australia.
It seems there are only four bee taxonomists remaining in Australia, all working part-time. Only one of them is paid for their work, and all of them are reaching relatively advanced years.
Taxonomy is of course crucial in underpinning all the work that biologists do; it's a kind of background assumption that animal species have been identified and delineated, and placed in their positions in the tree of life.
But the problem is funding. The risk seems to be that taxonomy is not regarded as equally worthy or groundbreaking as other research in biology, and so doesn't attract any resources.
And the work on Australian bees is far from "finished". While 1600 species have been identified already, it is estimated that there may be almost a thousand other species that are yet to be described.
It's quite sad that something as important as this for supporting the more "glamorous" research is being sidelined because of a lack of anyone valuing its contribution. There is some hope that the existing specialists may be able to train up a new generation, and the article describes how they have started a training course in bee taxonomy that has been drawing a lot of interest. The problem of course is still how to find a position as a taxonomist afterwards.
You can read the full article here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-10/bee-taxonomy-in-australia-a-dying-art/12647676