Authors
Ward Appeltans, Shane T Ahyong, Gary Anderson, Martin V Angel, Tom Artois, Nicolas Bailly, Roger Bamber, Anthony Barber, Ilse Bartsch, Annalisa Berta, Magdalena Błażewicz-Paszkowycz, Phil Bock, Geoff Boxshall, Christopher B Boyko, Simone Nunes Brandao, Rod A Bray, Niel L Bruce, Stephen D Cairns, Tin-Yam Chan, Lanna Cheng, Allen G Collins, Thomas Cribb, Marco Curini-Galletti, Farid Dahdouh-Guebas, Peter JF Davie, Michael N Dawson, Olivier De Clerck, Wim Decock, Sammy De Grave, Nicole J de Voogd, Daryl P Domning, Christian C Emig, Christer Erséus, William Eschmeyer, Kristian Fauchald, Daphne G Fautin, Stephen W Feist, Charles HJM Fransen, Hidetaka Furuya, Oscar Garcia-Alvarez, Sarah Gerken, David Gibson, Arjan Gittenberger, Serge Gofas, Liza Gómez-Daglio, Dennis P Gordon, Michael D Guiry, Francisco Hernandez, Bert W Hoeksema, Russell R Hopcroft, Damià Jaume, Paul Kirk, Nico Koedam, Stefan Koenemann, Jürgen B Kolb, Reinhardt M Kristensen, Andreas Kroh, Gretchen Lambert, David B Lazarus, Rafael Lemaitre, Matt Longshaw, Jim Lowry, Enrique Macpherson, Laurence P Madin, Christopher Mah, Gill Mapstone, Patsy A McLaughlin, Jan Mees, Kenneth Meland, Charles G Messing, Claudia E Mills, Tina N Molodtsova, Rich Mooi, Birger Neuhaus, Peter KL Ng, Claus Nielsen, Jon Norenburg, Dennis M Opresko, Masayuki Osawa, Gustav Paulay, William Perrin, John F Pilger, Gary CB Poore, Phil Pugh, Geoffrey B Read, James D Reimer, Marc Rius, Rosana M Rocha, José I Saiz-Salinas, Victor Scarabino, Bernd Schierwater, Andreas Schmidt-Rhaesa, Kareen E Schnabel, Marilyn Schotte, Peter Schuchert, Enrico Schwabe, Hendrik Segers, Caryn Self-Sullivan, Noa Shenkar, Volker Siegel, Wolfgang Sterrer, Sabine Stöhr, Billie Swalla, Mark L Tasker, Erik V Thuesen, Tarmo Timm, M Antonio Todaro, Xavier Turon, Seth Tyler, Peter Uetz, Jacob van der Land, Bart Vanhoorne, Leen P van Ofwegen, Rob WM van Soest, Jan Vanaverbeke, Genefor Walker-Smith, T Chad Walter, Alan Warren, Gary C Williams, Simon P Wilson, Mark J Costello
Publication date
2012/12/4
Journal
Current biology
Volume
22
Issue
23
Pages
2189-2202
Publisher
Elsevier
Description
Background
The question of how many marine species exist is important because it provides a metric for how much we do and do not know about life in the oceans. We have compiled the first register of the marine species of the world and used this baseline to estimate how many more species, partitioned among all major eukaryotic groups, may be discovered.
Results
There are ∼226,000 eukaryotic marine species described. More species were described in the past decade (∼20,000) than in any previous one. The number of authors describing new species has been increasing at a faster rate than the number of new species described in the past six decades. We report that there are ∼170,000 synonyms, that 58,000–72,000 species are collected but not yet described, and that 482,000–741,000 more species have yet to be sampled. Molecular methods may add tens of thousands of cryptic species. Thus, there may …
Total citations
Scholar articles
W Appeltans, ST Ahyong, G Anderson, MV Angel… - Current biology, 2012