[Taxacom] Costello-gate

[Thiago da Silva Moreira]

Hello all

Recently Biodiversity estimations was the subject of our weekly discussion
group... Jopa eta al was one of the papers thras... disscussed in that
ocasion

If y can I would like to suggest this other one from Plos Bio from Mora et
al. "How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean?"
(http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127)

Think will contribute a lot to the discussion...

Best

Thiago


2011/10/8 Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>

> Costello, M.J.; Wilson, S.; Houlding, B. (online, 2011): Predicting total
> global species richness using rates of species description and estimates of
> taxonomic effort. Systematic biology, doi: 10.1093/sysbio/syr080
>
> I continue to be astonished by this (and not in a good way!):
>
> [p. 17, quote]The higher rate of species discovery in the oceans suggests
> it has been getting relatively harder to discover new species on
> land[unquote]
>
> [p. 17, quote]However, if our predictions are proven true, it will soon
> become harder to find species new to science except amongst the smaller
> invertebrates in the less explored areas and habitats, and the description
> of most species on Earth would be a feasible goal this century[unquote]
>
> is it just me, or is this missing the MAJOR point that most species on
> Earth are "smaller invertebrates in the less explored areas"??
>
> Most of the debate about global biodiversity is centred on the tropical
> rainforests, and on "smaller invertebrates", and Costello ''et al'', appear
> to have completely glossed over the most crucial gaps in knowledge!
>
> This recent (2010) study is far more plausible:
>
> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19019-global-biodiversity-estimate-revised-down.html
>
> Stephen
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-- 
==============Thiago da Silva  Moreira============
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