[Taxacom] Taxacom Digest, Vol 65, Issue 24

[Arthur Chapman]

Michael

My paper (Chapman 2009 - ref below) looking in detail at each taxonomic 
group gave a figure of 1.9 million already published names and produced 
an estimate for the total number of species of ~11 million (8.73 million 
eukaryotic species).  I think you must have misinterpreted the Costello 
et al. paper as the figures you give suggest that we know all the species.

It is interesting to me that the new paper by Mora et al. in PLos 
Biology using a completely different approach to mine, have come up with 
a very similar estimate.

Chapman, A.D.(2009). /Numbers of Living Species in Australia and the 
World/ 2^nd edn. 80 pp. Canberra: Australian Biological Resources Study. 
ISBN (printed): 978 0 642 56849 6; ISBN (online): 978 0 642 56850 2. 
http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/abrs/publications/other/species-numbers/2009/pubs/nlsaw-2nd-complete.pdf 



Arthur Chapman
Ballan, Australia

On 25/08/2011 3:00 AM, taxacom-request at mailman.nhm.ku.edu wrote:
> Message: 8
> Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 20:54:06 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Michael Heads<michael.heads at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Biodiversity in the news
> To: Richard Pyle<deepreef at bishopmuseum.org>
> Cc:"taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu"  <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Message-ID:<1314158046.4391.YahooMailNeo at web38304.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> Hi Richard,
> ?
> In the latest Syst Biol (early access) Costello et al. estimated there are?1.8 - 2 million (0.3 million marine) species, not 8.7 million as in the PLoS paper.??Quite a difference.
> ?
> Michael Heads
>
> Wellington, New Zealand.
>
>
> My papers on biogeography are at:http://tiny.cc/RiUE0
>
> From: Richard Pyle<deepreef at bishopmuseum.org>
> To:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu; ICZN Zoological Nomenclature Discussion Group<iczn-list at afriherp.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, 24 August 2011 2:33 PM
> Subject: [Taxacom] Biodiversity in the news
>
> Apologies for the cross-posting, but it seems that a recent publication of
> an estimate for the total number of species on Earth has put biodiversity in
> the spotlight (within the top-three Science&  Technology stories on Google
> news).
>
> See:
> http://news.google.com/news/more?ncl=d5aw5ehpXOkr8SMoJdms_aUYLBQgM
>
> As usual, Carl Zimmer has a particularly well-written piece (in the New Your
> Times):
> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/30/science/30species.html
>
> Whether or not you agree with the recently published estimate, I think it's
> always (well....usually, anyway) good to see biodiversity issues draw such
> high-profile attention.
>
> Aloha,
> Rich
>
> Richard L. Pyle, PhD
> Database Coordinator for Natural Sciences
> Associate Zoologist in Ichthyology
> Dive Safety Officer
> Department of Natural Sciences, Bishop Museum
> 1525 Bernice St., Honolulu, HI 96817
> Ph: (808)848-4115, Fax: (808)847-8252
> email:deepreef at bishopmuseum.org
> http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/staff/pylerichard.html