Number of Species
According to the Global Taxonomy Initiative and the European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy, the total number of species for some phyla may be much higher than what was known in 2010:
- 10–30 million insects; (of some 0.9 million we know today)
- 5–10 million bacteria;
- 1.5 million fungi;(of some 0.075 million we know today)
- 1 million mites
- The number of microbial species is not reliably known, but the Global Ocean Sampling Expedition dramatically increased the estimates of genetic diversity by identifying an enormous number of new genes from near-surface plankton samples at various marine locations, initially over the 2004-2006 period. The findings may eventually cause a significant change in the way science defines species and other taxonomic categories.
Since the rate of extinction has increased, many extant species may become extinct before they are described.
Read more about this topic: Biodiversity
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