Predicting unknown species numbers using discovery curves.
Proc Biol Sci
; 274(1618): 1651-8, 2007 Jul 07.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-17456460
ABSTRACT
A common approach to estimating the total number of extant species in a taxonomic group is to extrapolate from the temporal pattern of known species descriptions. A formal statistical approach to this problem is provided. The approach is applied to a number of global datasets for birds, ants, mosses, lycophytes, monilophytes (ferns and horsetails), gymnosperms and also to New World grasses and UK flowering plants. Overall, our results suggest that unless the inventory of a group is nearly complete, estimating the total number of species is associated with very large margins of error. The strong influence of unpredictable variations in the discovery process on species accumulation curves makes these data unreliable in estimating total species numbers.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Biodiversity
/
Forecasting
/
Models, Theoretical
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Animals
Language:
En
Journal:
Proc Biol Sci
Journal subject:
BIOLOGIA
Year:
2007
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country: