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Every Species on Earth
nickynicky9doors writes: "National Geographic News relates that scientists to date have identified less than 2 million distinct species with from 10 million to more than 100 million still undiscovered. Likening this dearth of information to doing chemistry knowing only one third of the periodic table, biologist Terry Gosliner is involved in the All Species Foundation. The foundation is attempting to discover, identify and classify every living species and place the catalogue online over the next 25 years. It is hoped new technology and new recruits to the field of taxonomy will make the timetable viable."
[we know] less than 2 million distinct species with from 10 million to more than 100 million still undiscovered. Likening this dearth of information to doing chemistry knowing only one third of the periodic table...
Seems to this non-biologist that it's more like knowing only 1/5th to 1/50th (or to be more precise, 1/50th to 1/5th) of the periodic table...
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
"Twenty-five years is one human generation," he said, "but it's six generations of students." If each successive student generation inspires similar growth in the next, "at the end of that pyramid you could have several hundred thousand new taxonomists."
Just classify a bug and send this email to 10 of your friends, and put your name at the bottom of the list, and remove the person at the top of the list!
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
The same way you know how many toes you have on your feet, count. Oh wait... they can't count unfound stuff can they? Good question.... perhaps they picked a number that would return good grant money?
I'm sure there are dozens of unidentified species living in there...
. . . the size that Noah's Ark should have been with 10 million pairs of creatures onboard.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
I hate tracking down bugs.
What do you mean, not those kind of bugs?
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
If you were to see, for the first time, a chihuahua and a St. Bernard next to each other, you might be tempted to label them as separate species at first, when in reality they're just different breeds of the same species. It would take a lot of study to determine how closely they were actually related.
If you draw the lines differently, you could probably get some extremely wild variations in the count for the number of species on Earth.
National Geographic News relates that scientists to date have identified less than 2 million distinct species with from 10 million to more than 100 million still undiscovered.
I read the article and it doesn't seem to offer any evidence other than speculation as to where this number comes from. It seems kinda large to me. I know humans don't occupy *every* place on the planet, but there are very few areas within the top 10,000 feet of the Earth's crust that aren't accessible to humans already. Are they suggesting that life is blossoming in the mantle?
How exactly did scientists come upon this number?
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
As someone who has described a species (and a genus while we are counting) and someone who uses taxonomic literature all too frequently I feel like I can say a few things:
1. Taxonomy is really important. Most of biology rests on good taxonomy.
2. Good taxonomic work requires massive amounts of work and training.
3. Bad taxonomy is worse than no taxonomy.
4. Taxonomic work is massively under funded and under appreciated... and it will continue to be so... as long as the tenure system requires lots of high profile papers (which taxonomy papers are not high profile and they take a long time to write).
The more taxonomy is appreciated the better, and I really hope that they pull it off... But we have a better chance of microsoft embracing the open source software movement.
MAK
Nice idea, but it is not going to happen. For example, take deep sea hydrothermal vents. The life around these was completely unexpected (different species, but similar to other species else where). There is a high probability that other such unexpected islands of life remain to be discovered.
Secondly, take places like Lake Vostok. Possibly there is life in here, and if there is there is possibly life elsewhere entombed under a million years of ice.
Added to this is there is a certain vagueness as to what a species actually is. I can't remember the details, but there is a species of bird (a gull I think) that is present round to world. As you go from east to west the individuals change slightly, but can still interbreed (which is, more or less, the definition of what a species is). Whoever, once you go round the world you get back to where you started, the individuals either side of the start line can no longer interbreed with those on the other side of the line. (I'd draw an ascii diagram but I can't really be bothered fighting the lameness filter). Are all these individuals one species or not? (A good analogy is a line of individuals - each one is within an inch in height of both neighbours (== can interbreed). When you form the line into a circle the two former end members are two feet apart in height (== can't interbreed)).
Then you have just the sheer practical difficulty of getting to places where there might be life - Challenger Deep? The seabed under Challenger deep? Oil bearing shale 3 miles down? We know (from our sole visit to Challenger Deep) that there is some sort of life down there, but have no clue as to what species.
A worthwhile undertaking, but doomed from the start - we can't, currently, get definite about giant squid, nevermind microscopic sea creatures.
The article doesn't mention anything about taking genetic samples but it would not be a bad idea to store DNA samples of all living things. Of course, this would give a good way to do the taxonomy as well, since the diversion of the DNA can be traced backward.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
On the off chance this was a serious question...
This is estimated using various sampling procedures. In simplified form, you can sparsely sample a large area for some taxon of interest. That gives you a low estimate of the number of species (you know you're missing lots of rare ones). Then you progressively more intensely sample smaller areas. (Why not intensely sample large areas? It's simply not possible to do it with available labor, plus intensive sampling tends to be destructive.) After a series of these efforts, culminating in complete sampling of very small areas (e.g. bagging an entire tree, gassing it, and identifying every single insect on it), you have a relationship between the intensity of sampling and the number of species (of a particular group) that you find. You can use that relationship to make (admittedly gross) estimates of how many species are still undiscovered in the rest of the sparsely-sampled world.
"Species" is one of those fuzzy terms that everyone thinks they know the meaning of, but on closer examination it's hard to pin down. Kind of like "teal" (is it blue? green? dark turquoise?) or "pr0n".
The current usage of the term can denote two groups of genetically identical (well, allowing for normal variation) animals but that do not share overlapping habitat ranges as separate species. Given the opportunity, they could interbreed and produce fertile offspring (the "classic" distinction of a species -- which fails utterly for things that reproduce asexually and for morphologically distinct animals -- like lions and tigers -- that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring, but generally don't).
Thus you get ecofreaks complaining about the imminent extinction of the left-handed mottled weed rat because the two fields where they live are about to be paved over, when in reality that critter is genetically identical to the right-footed fuzz-backed bush mouse and the big-eared worm-tailed ground squirrel that just happen to live in different areas and were originally described by different biologists.
So, what's their definition of "species"?
-- Alastair
Yesterday, I found this out this one of my message board threads.
Brief summary: "This is the latest figure reported at the American Museum of Natural History Social
Insects Website ("AntBase"), up by almost 500 since the last update. It has been estimated that another 20,000 remain to be described and named." --Dr. Ant
Wired News, CNN, and Netscape's News mentioned this AntBase.org Web site yesterday as well.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
This is not at all like the periodic table in chemistry. If you know anything about the periodic table, you can predict the existence of elements because of slots that a certain number of protrons and neutrons fill. Biology is much more complex and harder to predict.
--avandesande
Th
This is not a good analogy. Chemistry, like math or physics, is an exact science where elements are used as "building blocks" for other elements and compounds. Taxonomy is an inexact science, and the fact that a rare Jamaican fruit fly doesn't have a name yet will not affect other areas of science.
More information is always better, but suggesting that this lack of information somehow cripples biologists is sensationalism.
In order to understand why these estimates are so large, you have to realize the incredible biodiversity of the plan and insect kingdoms. Plants make up to 22 percent of the total number of species, and insects pretty much account for the rest. Mammals take up considerably less than 1% of that total.
Many of these species have such high evolutionary rates that they can evolve very quickly and often fill extremely specialized roles in a niche environment. Given this high rate of evolution, the mind-bogelling estimates of the total number, and the intrusionary nature of detection techniques, isn't this goal a little too unrealistic? It would seem to me that by the time you finally have catalogued them 'all,' a good percentage will have become extinct and whole bunch of new players will have emerged. In addition, verifying the continued existance of these species whould be an enourmous job.
IAAT (I am a taxonomist). This is a major pipe dream (at least the do it in 25 years worth).
In insect taxonomy if you are a highly trained (world class) you can describe around 50 species PER YEAR (at least doing an adequate job). The (small) family I work in has over 2000 undescribed species. There are fewer than 8 experts in the world on this group, only 2-4 are actually producing names actively, and these at rate of much fewer than 50/year. This is a relatively small family of Insects, there are many many larger ones with many many more undescribed species. You do the math.
The biggest problems is finding funding to do this work. Though taxonomists are invaluable to almost all biological studies (if you can't name your study organisms correctly you can't repeat the science) they are among the least well funded. Those that are funded are primarily big mega projects (like this one) that don't understand the nuts and bolt (i.e. code for computer buffs)...they are the administrators that the BOFH hates. So grandiose plans are contrived with know research into how one actually goes about training or naming the species involved. I've seen this happen several times (in insects there are thousands of trapped insects waiting to be sorted and dished out to experts but there is no funding to train taxonomist to be able to do identifications at even rough levels (family/genus) that would allow managable units of specimens to be passed along to "alpha" taxonomists (those that name species.
As for the molecular folks who say taxonomy is passay.. this is a joke. Before they (moleculoids) can even begin to sequence they have to have some level of taxonomic background in place in order to even select the individuals they will sequence.
If you know anything about taxonomy you know that a major problem is dealing with the nomenclature (how are species given names). You basically have to reference everything that is done in the past to ensure that your not naming a species that is already named. Just figuring out what has been done in the past is very problematic. There is very little funding available to deal with these problems. There is also very little infrastrcutre available to deal with these (there are more and more databases avaialable...and this is good).
THERE IS NO GLOBAL CLEARING HOUSE FOR SPECIES NAMES. Nobody has the time or resources to even complile a complete list of species that have already been named, let alone those to be named!!!
The long and short of this rant...you $$$ folks give money to those doing the grunt work...the actuall taxonomists, not the databases/web sites etc. Give it to the amature collector who knows what they are doing.
only infrmatn esentil to understandn mst b tranmitd
You know that any animal you can name "elephants, tigers, grizzly bears" are, of course, already classified. If people are hunting it (sport, poaching, etc.) it is, by definition, known to science. Exception being something hunted by/known only to very isolated native tribes.
See... the problem is you are looking for things you know to exist, but you can't really identify them by sight. You have to analyze the specimine to determine if it has been classified already. Also, I have to believe that the VAST majority of those 100 Million species are very small... tiny insects through microscopic marine life and bacteria.
I guess if we don't know a species even exists, we can't really determine if it's "at risk" yet. Granted, I think you are correct in saying we should start in the more fragile ecosystems.
Bottom line, it is a daunting task!
Jason
He's totally creeping out the Great One, eh...
Slashdothropdis Lathargicus
Large smelly mammal with unusual sense of humor, total lack of social skills, and incapable of proper spelling and grammar. Good with tools. Scavenger instincs. Enjoys free beer.
Someone you trust is one of us.
> I'm trying to write a website to do this
Hey, me too! I'm starting an Excel spreadsheet that will list every species on Earth. I'll pass it around to my friends and let them add the ones I missed. We should beat the 25 year estimate in that silly article.
Later on if it turns out to be too big a job for Excel I may "super-size" it to Access!
That ought to be able to handle simultaneous access from hundreds of thousands of researchers on a database of approximately 100 Million records, each recording containing research notes and DNA samples among other things.
Good luck, Municipia, I'll race you to the end!
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Of course there are errors. And even more importantly there are disagreements because species boundaries are fuzzy, not knife-edged things.
Various people have made analytical estimates of the number of undescribed species based on what we know about the numbers and distribution of described species.
Estimates have varied widely. The one thing we do know is that there are a lot more undescribed than described species.
Why do non-scientists always greet an honest statement of uncertainty in the actual number - an order-of-magnitude estimate - with derision of this sort?
After all, a hell of a lot of software schedule estimates are no more precise. Mozilla comes to mind...
Molecular biology is where the action is at. Just looking at organisms and trying to classify them isn't really interesting or useful anymore
If taxonomy was just a classification scheme, like the Dewy Decimal System, you'd have a point. But good taxonomy is more than that -- it is a method for uncovering the evolutionary relationships between organisms and that is quite useful -- among other things, it allows virologists to know what virus strains would make good vaccines. And molecular biology has been a part of taxonomy ever since 1965 when Zuckerkandl and Pauling (yes, the two-time Nobelist Pauling) published the landmark paper "Molecules as Documents of Evolutionary History". Taxonomy of microbes and viruses is almost entirely molecular based today.
Yes, extinction has happened without the involvement of humans and it will continue to happen without the involvement of humans. (that sentence has a double-entendre, btw. ;) That is not in dispute.
;)
What is in dispute is the value humans give to diversity.
-There is economic value to diversity in the form useful genes and groups of genes. Also, zoos and nature documentaries are fairly lucrative.
-There is ethical value to diversity. While you may not care much about the wonderful variety of organisms, there are a great many people who do. And that matters.
As for the value of searching out new species --- you can never predict the value of a scientific endeavour. In this case however, you can make an educated guess that discovering new species will provide new insight into evolutionary, ecological, anatomical, physiological, genetic, biochemical, and behavioural processes. That in itself is quite a return on the investment! Imagine what the world would be like if no one had gone out looking for archaebacteria. We wouldn't know about taq polymerase, an enzyme isolated from the archaebacterium Thermophilus aquaticus -- the world wouldn't have the polymerase chain reaction as we know it, and that means genetic research would be hampered to some degree. You just NEVER know what you're gonna find if you go looking. You're bound to be surprised.
Someone already mentioned the dodo... I would add to that by mentioning the Calvaria major tree. Without the dodo to ingest its seeds and prepare them for germination, the tree is doomed in its natural habitat. No C. major trees have sprouted since the dodo went the way of the dodo. I believe there currently is a group that's trying to preserve the species by using turkeys instead to digest the seed coat. Now consider all those other species suffering a similar fate because their ecologies aren't well understood.