This ‘map of life’ shows where undiscovered species may be hiding

Nine years ago, a team of environmentalists from Yale traced the life of the world, a project that showed bipatterns of diversity in the geographic context; basically a heat map of animal life. Now, they went further: documenting the most likely locations for unknown species, in the hope that these animals could be documented before they became extinct.

The team’s research is published today in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. They took over 32,000 species from four different life classes (amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds) to do calculations on the type of life that probably has not yet been discovered. Their findings suggest that a plethora of life remains uncatalogued on Earth, particularly in Southeast Asia and northwestern South America.

“By using models to identify the biological and environmental factors of recent discoveries, we are able to make fairly reliable predictions as to what portion of future discoveries could occur in reasonably large groups of species (eg, amphibian families) and regions (eg, the Atlantic Forest region of Brazil), ”said co-author Walter Jetz, biologist at Yale University , in an email. “As we have used these models worldwide and across major groups of terrestrial vertebrates, this provides an interesting basis for identifying gaps and opportunities for future discoveries.”

Mapping the “discovery potential” of these animals encourages research teams to look specifically in areas where they are more likely to encounter animals never recorded before, the authors said. Cartographic product can be viewed here.

“We hope to shift attention to questions like ‘How many undiscovered species are there?But over there? to more applied applications such as “Where and what?” “said main author Mario Moura, biologist at the University of Paraíba in Brazil, in an email. “It is Striking to see the importance of tropical forests as cradles of discovery, reinforcing the urgent need to protect tropical forests and halt rates of deforestation if we are to have a chance to truly experience our biodiversity.

Moura said previous estimates for species discoveries simply calculated the number of species per year since 1758, the year Carl Linnaeus pioneered binomial nomenclatures. However, this approach does not take into account important factors such as habitat or species size. (It is no wonder that Madagascar nano-chameleon evaded documentation until this year).

Bornvertheless, quantifying biodiversity in geographic terms of the future (knowing that it is better to investigate Madagascar than New Zealand, for example) to serves as a heuristic for searching for undiscovered species, more and more of which are already found to be critically endangered. Such is the case with Popa langur, a species of monkey in Myanmar – also a biodiversity hotspot according to the team’s most recent assessment.

It is unfortunate that human enterprise has tended to favor industrial gains which translate into losses to wildlife. Even in the most remote parts of the planet, humanity is finding a way to have a negative impact.

But that’s exactly why this project exists, the authors said: to get a feel for what’s out there, before any recordings remain.

“This is a fascinating project, which brings together a multitude of datasets on the distribution of species and allows us to better understand the models of biodiversity on the planet,” said Moura. “We hope to motivate citizen scientists and biodiversity enthusiasts on the importance of species discovery and trigger discussion and agreement on the part of those responsible for decision-making and conservation planning.”

And while the team’s estimates are by no means precise, the idea is that such predictions will advance specific approaches for future discoveries in the field. In other words, they want to work smarter, not harder, to find unknown species that may be at risk.