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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."
"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.
I'm sure there are dozens of unidentified species living in there...
I hate tracking down bugs.
What do you mean, not those kind of bugs?
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
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 . . . !!!
"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 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...
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.