[Taxacom] New Publication: Numbers of Living Species in Austrakiaand the World

[taxacom3 at achapman.org]

Thanks Chris

I agree with you that it is lopsided, and if someone is able to report numbers to me, I  will try and include in future editions.

I would love to have been able to split the insects, and there is indeed information out there for many parts, but not for all and thus it is very difficult to have all groups with numbers so that a combined total can be summed. If only all groups were as well documented as the Diptera! In contrast, there are estimates for the total which I have been able to report.  It is really up to entomologists to come up with the numbers.  I did approach a few, and in many cases, researchers weren't prepared to make estimates that I could quote.

The paper was done mainly from existing work and if someone out there wants to do the work for all insect orders then I can certainly add the information to any future editions, of which I am sure there will be at least one.

Chris, I hope I can solve some of your concerns by the time a new edition is published.

regards

Arthur
Australian Biodiversity Information Services
Toowoomba, Australia

>From christian thompson <cthompson at sel.barc.usda.gov> on 9 Jan 2007:

> Nice job, Arthur, but ...
> 
> What always upsets me is the lack of resolution for the largest (most
> speciose) taxon, insects. With more than half of all life being insects,
> but no break down to the smaller but distinct groups, like beetles,
> flies, moth & butterflies, etc. For the Arachnida (spiders, scorpions,
> etc) at least gets two pages and a break down. Why not insects?
> 
> Getting good figures for insects isn't difficult any more, just takes a
> little surfing. You can, for example, go to diptera.org and get a very
> accurate count of the flies. See
> http://rd.mailshell.com/www.sel.barc.usda.gov/Diptera/names/Status/bdwdstat.htm
> 
> for a count of 149,199 species of flies as of July last year. That is,
> two and half times as many fly species as all of the vertebrates. We
> also give regional statistics (that is, species by families in various
> biotic regions).
> 
> Insects should not be ignored, simply lumped them into a large number is
> not an answer. If they represent half of the pie, then you should break
> that half down as you do the other half, into smaller, more meaningful
> units. Does it make sense to devote a whole page to group of 23 species
> at the same time devoting only page for some 950,000 species?
> 
> Oh, well ...
> 
> F. Christian Thompson
> Systematic Entomology Lab., USDA
> c/o Smithsonian Institution
> MRC-0169 NHB
> PO Box 37012
> Washington, DC 20013-7012
> (202) 382-1800 voice
> (202) 786-9422 FAX
> cthompso at sel.barc.usda.gov e-mail
> www.diptera.org  web site
> 
> >>> <taxacom3 at achapman.org> 01/05/07 06:18PM >>>
> A publication on the numbers of living species in Australia and the
> World has just been published by the Australian Department of
> Environment and Heritage.
> 
> The numbers of species has been estimated by collating information from
> systematists, taxonomic literature, on-line resources and previous
> compilations.  Estimates for the numbers of published species is given
> for each large taxonomic grouping for both Australia and the World,
> along with estimates of the total numbers of species, and the
> estimated/calculated percentage endemism for Australia.
> 
> The publication is available electronically at
> 
> http://rd.mailshell.com/www.deh.gov.au/biodiversity/abrs/publications/other/species-numbers/index.html
> 
> 
> Bibliographic Information:
> 
> Chapman, A.D. (2006). Numbers of living species in Australia and the
> World. 60pp. Canberra: Australian Biological Resources Study. 
> ISBN (printed): 978 0 642 56849 6l 
> ISBN (online): 978 0 642 56850 2.
> http://rd.mailshell.com/www.deh.gov.au/biodiversity/abrs/publications/other/species-numbers/index.html.
> 
> 
> Arthur D. Chapman
> Toowoomba, Australia
> 
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