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How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean?

The diversity of life is one of the most striking aspects of our planet; hence knowing how many species inhabit Earth is among the most fundamental questions in science. Yet the answer to this question remains enigmatic, as efforts to sample the world's biodiversity to date have been limited an...

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Autores principales: Mora, Camilo, Tittensor, Derek P., Adl, Sina, Simpson, Alastair G. B., Worm, Boris
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160336/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21886479
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127
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author Mora, Camilo
Tittensor, Derek P.
Adl, Sina
Simpson, Alastair G. B.
Worm, Boris
author_facet Mora, Camilo
Tittensor, Derek P.
Adl, Sina
Simpson, Alastair G. B.
Worm, Boris
author_sort Mora, Camilo
collection PubMed
description The diversity of life is one of the most striking aspects of our planet; hence knowing how many species inhabit Earth is among the most fundamental questions in science. Yet the answer to this question remains enigmatic, as efforts to sample the world's biodiversity to date have been limited and thus have precluded direct quantification of global species richness, and because indirect estimates rely on assumptions that have proven highly controversial. Here we show that the higher taxonomic classification of species (i.e., the assignment of species to phylum, class, order, family, and genus) follows a consistent and predictable pattern from which the total number of species in a taxonomic group can be estimated. This approach was validated against well-known taxa, and when applied to all domains of life, it predicts ∼8.7 million (±1.3 million SE) eukaryotic species globally, of which ∼2.2 million (±0.18 million SE) are marine. In spite of 250 years of taxonomic classification and over 1.2 million species already catalogued in a central database, our results suggest that some 86% of existing species on Earth and 91% of species in the ocean still await description. Renewed interest in further exploration and taxonomy is required if this significant gap in our knowledge of life on Earth is to be closed.
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spelling pubmed-31603362011-08-30 How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean? Mora, Camilo Tittensor, Derek P. Adl, Sina Simpson, Alastair G. B. Worm, Boris PLoS Biol Research Article The diversity of life is one of the most striking aspects of our planet; hence knowing how many species inhabit Earth is among the most fundamental questions in science. Yet the answer to this question remains enigmatic, as efforts to sample the world's biodiversity to date have been limited and thus have precluded direct quantification of global species richness, and because indirect estimates rely on assumptions that have proven highly controversial. Here we show that the higher taxonomic classification of species (i.e., the assignment of species to phylum, class, order, family, and genus) follows a consistent and predictable pattern from which the total number of species in a taxonomic group can be estimated. This approach was validated against well-known taxa, and when applied to all domains of life, it predicts ∼8.7 million (±1.3 million SE) eukaryotic species globally, of which ∼2.2 million (±0.18 million SE) are marine. In spite of 250 years of taxonomic classification and over 1.2 million species already catalogued in a central database, our results suggest that some 86% of existing species on Earth and 91% of species in the ocean still await description. Renewed interest in further exploration and taxonomy is required if this significant gap in our knowledge of life on Earth is to be closed. Public Library of Science 2011-08-23 /pmc/articles/PMC3160336/ /pubmed/21886479 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127 Text en Mora et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Mora, Camilo
Tittensor, Derek P.
Adl, Sina
Simpson, Alastair G. B.
Worm, Boris
How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean?
title How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean?
title_full How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean?
title_fullStr How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean?
title_full_unstemmed How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean?
title_short How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean?
title_sort how many species are there on earth and in the ocean?
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160336/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21886479
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127
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