I’m a Scientist is like school science lessons meet the X Factor! School students choose which scientist gets a prize of $1000 to communicate their work.
Scientists and students talk on this website. They both break down barriers, have fun and learn. But only the students get to vote.
This zone is the Boron Zone. It has a range of scientists studying all different topics. Who gets the prize? YOU decide!
I don’t know. I would imagine that there are fewer species that are “actually” discovered compared to those that have been known about but is is only through advance in genetic techniques that they can be called a species. For example the number os freshwater turtle species in Australia is growing – not because we are finding more but because genetic techniques are splitting some species into 2 or more species. I would also imagine that most new species are invertebrates.
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I don’t know how many new species are discovered every year. It would however depend on many factors.
Would tend to agree with Mark in relation to vertebrates species (animals with backbones) as they have been well recorded and described over the last 300 odd years. New species are certainly found, but genetic splitting of species previously recognised to be the same, is expanding current numbers far more. For example there were around 65 species of insectivorous micro-bats recognised in Australia in the 1990s, today the number is 90+. The majority of these species have come from genetically splitting – morphologically (physically) similar animals, previously recognised as the same species.
On the invertebrate side of taxonomy however the rate of new species being found is limited more by the number of scientists working in the field, than a lack of “new” species. Taxonomists suggest we have only identified around 5-10% of the mite species on the planet and possibly 30% of the beetle species. In both of these taxa (groups) estimates have suggested up to 1 million species may be found in each. And they are just two examples, albeit large ones.
So much work to do, but often little time and little funding!
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Not a question for a physicist 🙂
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Not really one for an astronomer! 😉
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