[Taxacom] How many species have been reported only once

[Peter B. Phillipson]

We are developing some statistics to answer questions such as these for
vascular plants from Madagascar (i.e. a globally well-known group in a
megadiversity and under-explored part of the world) as part of the
Madagascar Catalogue project (www.efloras.org/madagascar). Our work is based
on an evaluation of existing literature plus a systematic review of the
available specimen base (across the key herbaria), including an estimation
of the numbers of undescribed species present in the collections.

Madagascar has around 11,000 published native species, comprising about 85%
country endemics. We have compiled comprehensive distribution data for about
half of these endemics, and about 20% are only known from a single locality
(12% only the type specimen; 8% from the type and other specimens).
Available estimates for the size of the specimen base for the group are very
crude, but probably we have in the order of 5-600,000 collections of
vascular plant from Madagascar total

Data to answer Paddy's original question is less adequately compiled, but
50-65% of taxa known in print only from their original publications would
seem about right for our group.

Pete Phillipson
Missouri Botanical Garden

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Jim Croft
Sent: 20 March 2010 00:11
To: Chris Freeland
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu; Bob Mesibov
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] How many species have been reported only once

Paddy's question is an interesting one but I would be asking it of the
specimens, not the literature.  How many species/taxa are only known
from their type collection?

I suspect this 22% is a gross underestimation of or lack of knowledge
(double negatives ftw!).  These 'singletons', perhaps even because of
their rarity and curiousity, are nearly always mentioned in subsequent
revisions, floras and faunas with almost by definition, little
increase in knowledge.

If we we were able to account for this 'replication of ignorance' in
the literature, the figure might well end up closer to the 50-65% that
Paddy is trying to run to ground.

jim

On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 8:34 AM, Chris Freeland
<Chris.Freeland at mobot.org> wrote:
> BHL ran a somewhat similar query on March 1, looking for the number of
> names that occurred on a single page.  Short answer: 329,000 out of
> 1,491,000 unique names, or roughly 22%.
>
> Details of the query & data downloads available at http://bit.ly/dpto0e
>
> Chris
> *****************************
> Chris Freeland
> Technical Director
> Biodiversity Heritage Library
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Roderic Page [mailto:r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk]
> Sent: Friday, March 19, 2010 3:59 PM
> To: David Patterson; Chris Freeland
> Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] How many species have been reported only once
>
> Paddy, wouldn't a quick and dirty way to answer this be to use BHL to
> build a  frequency distribution of uBio names over BHL items? If info
> only in original description then name will typically occur in only one
> item. Might have to exclude some items (e.g. compations and indices),
> but it would give you a ball park figure.
>
> Rod
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 19 Mar 2010, at 19:13, David Patterson <dpatterson at eol.org> wrote:
>
>> I have heard suggestions that our understanding of 50% and 65% of all
>> species is limited to the information that was included in the
>> original description.  That is, for very many species, there have not
>> been any further publications that add new information. These are the
>> 'once only' species.  If the proportion is as high as this, it bears
>> upon the reliability and effectiveness of the discovery process, how
>> many species there are, and on asymmetry within our discipline.
>>
>> Does anyone know of analyses that explore this matter, or have any
>> data to confirm the proportion of 'once only' species in their sphere
>> of expertise?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> David Patterson
>>
>> --
>> David J Patterson
>> Senior Taxonomist, EOL
>> CoPI Life Sciences, Data Conservancy
>>
>> Biodiversity Informatics
>> Marine Biological Laboratory
>> Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543, USA.
>>
>> (+) (1) 508 289 7260
>> dpatterson at mbl.edu
>>
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-- 
_________________
Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~
http://www.google.com/profiles/jim.croft
'A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point
of doubtful sanity.'
 - Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)

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