Based on recent data Robert May, Baron May of Oxford and an SFI Science Board member, thinks the total number of species on Earth is about 8.74 million, and he predicts an acceleration in the amount of time it will take scientists to identify nearly all species.
According to May in a recent PLOS Biology article, approximately 1.5 million species of animals, fungi, plants, protozoa, and chromists have been catalogued by scientists. Field taxonomists are adding newly-discovered species at the rate of some 15,000 a year.
By using new molecular methods called barcode taxonomy, he predicts an acceleration in the amount of time it will take to identify most species, and believes the number will top out at about 8.74 million.
One problem, May says in a BBC broadcast, is that at least 10 percent of all recorded species to date have been given different names by different scientific institutions. New methods that directly compare species’ genetic codes, along with a unified data base, will help identify such discrepancies.
Read the PLOS Biology paper (August 23, 2011)
Listen to the BBC interview (4 minutes, August 24, 2011)
Read the BBC article (August 23, 2011)