Ward Appeltans, Shane T Ahyong, Gary Anderson, Martin V Angel, Tom Artois, Nicolas Bailly, Roger Bamber, Anthony Barber, Ilse Bartsch, Annalisa Berta, Magdalena Blazewicz-Paszkowycz, Phil Bock, Geoff Boxshall, Christopher B Boyko, Simone N Brandao, Rod A Bray, Niel L Bruce, Stephen D Cairns, Tin-Yam Chan, Lanna Cheng, Allen G Collins, Thomas Cribb, Marco Curini-Galletti, Farid Dahdouh-Guebas, Peter JF Davie, Michael N Dawson, Olivier De Clerck, Wim Decock, Sammy De Grave, Nicole J de Voogd, Daryl P Domning, Christian C Emig, Christer Erseus, William Eschmeyer, Kristian Fauchald, Daphne G Fautin, Stephen W Feist, Charles HJM Fransen, Hidetaka Furuya, Oscar Garcia-Alvarez, Sarah Gerken, David Gibson, Arjan Gittenberger, Serge Gofas, Liza Gomez-Daglio, Dennis P Gordon, Michael D Guiry, Francisco Hernandez, Bert W Hoeksema, Russell R Hopcroft, Damia Jaume, Paul Kirk, Nico Koedam, Stefan Koenemann, Juergen B Kolb, Reinhardt M Kristensen, Andreas Kroh, Gretchen Lambert, David B Lazarus, Rafael Lemaitre, Matt Longshaw, Jim Lowry, Enrique Macpherson, Laurence P Madin, Christopher Mah, Gill Mapstone, Patsy A McLaughlin, Jan Mees, Kenneth Meland, Charles G Messing, Claudia E Mills, Tina N Molodtsova, Rich Mooi, Birger Neuhaus, Peter KL Ng, Claus Nielsen, Jon Norenburg, Dennis M Opresko, Masayuki Osawa, Gustav Paulay, William Perrin, John F Pilger, Gary CB Poore, Phil Pugh, Geoffrey B Read, James D Reimer, Marc Rius, Rosana M Rocha, Jose I Saiz-Salinas, Victor Scarabino, Bernd Schierwater, Andreas Schmidt-Rhaesa, Kareen E Schnabel, Marilyn Schotte, Peter Schuchert, Enrico Schwabe, Hendrik Segers, Caryn Self-Sullivan, Noa Shenkar, Volker Siegel, Wolfgang Sterrer, Sabine Stohr, Billie Swalla, Mark L Tasker, Erik V Thuesen, Tarmo Timm, M. A Todaro, Xavier Turon, Seth Tyler, Peter Uetz, Jacob van der Land, Bart Vanhoorne, Leen P van Ofwegen, Rob WM van Soest, Jan Vanaverbeke, Genefor Walker-Smith, T. C Walter, Alan Warren, Gary C Williams, Simon P Wilson, and Mark J Costello (2012)
The Magnitude of Global Marine Species Diversity
Current Biology, 22(23):2189-2202.
Background: The question of how many marine species exist is important because it provides a metric for how much we do and do not know about life in the oceans. We have compiled the first register of the marine species of the world and used this baseline to estimate how many more species, partitioned among all major eukaryotic groups, may be discovered. Results: There are similar to 226,000 eukaryotic marine species described. More species were described in the past decade (similar to 20,000) than in any previous one. The number of authors describing new species has been increasing at a faster rate than the number of new species described in the past six decades. We report that there are similar to 170,000 synonyms, that 58,000-72,000 species are collected but not yet described, and that 482,000-741,000 more species have yet to be sampled. Molecular methods may add tens of thousands of cryptic species. Thus, there may be 0.7-1.0 million marine species. Past rates of description of new species indicate there may be 0.5 +/- 0.2 million marine species. On average 37\% (median 31\%) of species in over 100 recent field studies around the world might be new to science. Conclusions: Currently, between one-third and two-thirds of marine species may be undescribed, and previous estimates of there being well over one million marine species appear highly unlikely. More species than ever before are being described annually by an increasing number of authors. If the current trend continues, most species will be discovered this century.
- DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.09.036
- ISSN: 0960-9822
Document Actions
