Are we divorced from the species we study?

In the past few years my interactions with the species I study have been restricted to strings of nucleotides spread across an LCD screen. Bioinformatics has provided me with an amazing window into some of the most interesting algae on Earth, but it has also made me feel distanced from my research organisms, and biology as a whole. This opinion article touches upon these feelings and asks whether many of us should reconsider our relationship to the taxa we investigate.