[Taxacom] Costello-gate

[Stephen Thorpe]

the problem is not that Costello et al. will be believed by biologists. The problem is that those who would chop down the rainforests will select the lowest "reputable looking" estimate as the one to?go with ...


From: Thiago da Silva Moreira <tmoreira at gwmail.gwu.edu>
To: 
Cc: taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Sunday, 9 October 2011 12:16 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Costello-gate

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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