Only 14 percent of Earth's species have been discovered
news.nationalgeographic.com
Only 14 percent of Earth's species have been discovered
1–10 of 21 posts
Re: Only 14 percent of Earth's species have been discovered
#2Who has counted the remaining 86%?
Re: Only 14 percent of Earth's species have been discovered
#3Who has counted the remaining 86%?
"Worm's team estimated the total number of genera, families, orders, classes, and phyla—a designation above class—in each kingdom. That's a relatively easy task, since the number of new examples in these categories has leveled off in recent decades.
By contrast, the number of newly discovered species continues to rise sharply.
Using complex statistics, Worm and colleagues used the number of genera, families, and so on to predict Earth's number of unknown species, and their calculations gave them a number: 8.7 million."
Re: Only 14 percent of Earth's species have been discovered
#4A thought:
This summer, I gave myself the goal of photographing every kind of wildflower in my area. It turned out to be quite a large project; I ended up with about 6000 images of perhaps 130 species.
When I started, I figured the big question I would be answering would be this:
- Here is a plant; what species is it?
But as I progressed, I found myself confronted with the surprising difficulty of answering a somewhat different question:
- Here are two plants; are they the same species?
This article suggests yet a third question:
- Here is a plant; is it a known species?
It is interesting to think that, for some of my 6000 images, the answer may just be "no".
Re: Only 14 percent of Earth's species have been discovered
#5Just when you think that we have become masters of our own domain something like this comes along. It truly is hard to imagine that with all our technology, all our exploration, we have only just begun to understand our own world.
How many of these unknown species exist in places we cannot yet go? The deep sea, namely.
Re: Only 14 percent of Earth's species have been discovered
#6Who has counted the remaining 86%?
There are also techniques from "metagenomics" where environmental samples are taken from ocean water captured in filters and dna-sequenced en-masse (see "Global Ocean Sampling"). It is then possible to statistically infer the number of distinct species by analyzing the sequence data.
This was first attempted in the Sargasso Sea which had been thought to be relatively sparse in microbial diversity. Instead, it was found to have a shocking number of entirely new microbial species.
The scary thing is not simply that species are going extinct, but that species which we may never know of may go extinct in the near future.
Re: Only 14 percent of Earth's species have been discovered
#7Who has counted the remaining 86%?
There are also techniques from "metagenomics" where environmental samples are taken from ocean water captured in filters and dna-sequenced en-masse (see "Global Ocean Sampling"). It is then possible to statistically infer the number of distinct species by analyzing the sequence data. This was first attempted in the Sargasso Sea which had been thought to be relatively sparse in microbial diversity. Instead, it was fou…
I'm trying to grasp what you mean by scary in this context.
Re: Only 14 percent of Earth's species have been discovered
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are also techniques from "metagenomics" where environmental samples are taken from ocean water captured in filters and dna-sequenced en-masse (see "Global Ocean Sampling"). It is then possible to statistically infer the number of distinct species by analyzing the sequence data. This was first attempted in the Sargasso Sea which had been thought to be relatively sparse in microbial diversity. Instead, it was fou…
I'm trying to grasp what you mean by scary in this context.
We destroy species before we have any knowledge of them. That's my interpretation but I can see why you're asking it.
Re: Only 14 percent of Earth's species have been discovered
#9Just when you think that we have become masters of our own domain something like this comes along. It truly is hard to imagine that with all our technology, all our exploration, we have only just begun to understand our own world. How many of these unknown species exist in places we cannot yet go? The deep sea, namely.
>How many of these unknown species exist in places we cannot yet go? The deep sea, namely.
I've thought the same while seeing The Blue Planet. It's interesting that we seem to be more interested in exploring the galaxy than the deepest depths of our oceans.
Re: Only 14 percent of Earth's species have been discovered
#10Just when you think that we have become masters of our own domain something like this comes along. It truly is hard to imagine that with all our technology, all our exploration, we have only just begun to understand our own world. How many of these unknown species exist in places we cannot yet go? The deep sea, namely.
>How many of these unknown species exist in places we cannot yet go? The deep sea, namely. I've thought the same while seeing The Blue Planet. It's interesting that we seem to be more interested in exploring the galaxy than the deepest depths of our oceans.
I think part of that is that due to the immense pressures and other factors it's almost easier to explore the galaxy.