Nine years ago, a team of Yale ecologists mapped the world’s life, a project that bidiversity patterns in geographical context; basically a heat map of animal life. Now, they went a step further: documenting the most likely sites for unknown species that still exist, hoping the animals could be documented before disappearing.
The team’s research is published today in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. They took more than 32,000 species from four different biological classes (amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds) to make calculations about the kind of life that was probably still discovered. Their findings suggest that an abundance of life remains uncategorized on earth, especially from Southeast Asia and Northwestern South America.
“By using models to identify biological and environmental drivers of recent discoveries, we can make reliable predictions about what part of future discoveries in reasonable large groups of species (e.g. family of amphibians) and regions (e.g. Atlantic forest region of Brazil), ”co-author Walter Jetz, a biologist at Yale University, said in an email. “As we have used these models for the entire world and across the largest terrestrial vertebrate groups, it provides an interesting basis for identifying gaps and opportunities for future discoveries.”
The mapping of the “discovery potential” of these animals encourages research teams to look specifically at areas where animals that have never been recorded before are more likely to encounter them. The mapping product can be seen here.
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“We hope to shift the focus from questions such as ‘How many undiscovered species exist?’there? ‘to more applied people like’ Where and what? ‘ ‘said lead author Mario Moura, a biologist at the University of Paraíba in Brazil, in an email. “It is striking to see the importance of tropical forests as a cradle of discoveries, which reinforces the urgent need to protect tropical forests and stop deforestation rates if we want the chance to truly discover our biodiversity. ”
Moura said that previous estimates for species discoveries had only calculated the number of species per year since 1758, the year when Carl Linnaeus began the binomial designation. However, this approach does not take into account important factors such as species’ habitat or size. (No wonder Madagascar’s nano-chameleon documentation evaded up to this year).
Nonevertheless, the quantification of biodiversity in future geographical terms (knowing that it is worth exploring Madagascar as for example New Zealand) serves as a heuristic for the search for undiscovered species, of which more and more critically endangered are emerging. This is the case with the Popa langur, a monkey species in Myanmar – also a hotspot for biodiversity according to the team’s most recent assessment.
It is unfortunate that human enterprises tend to favor industrial profits which means losses for game. Even in the most remote parts of the planet, humanity is finding a way to make a negative impact.
But that is exactly why this project exists, the authors said: to get an idea of what is there, before any record remains.
“This is a fascinating project that compiles a multitude of data sets on species distribution and enables us to better know biodiversity patterns on the planet,” Moura said. “We hope to motivate civil scientists and biodiversity enthusiasts to highlight the importance of species discovery and the discussions and similarities of those responsible for decision-making and conservation planning.”
And while the team’s estimates are by no means exact, the idea is that such predictions will advance specific approaches to future field discoveries. In other words, they want to work smarter, not harder, to find unknown species that are dangerous.