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Published online 12 November 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/456153a
Marine census nets wealth of unknown ocean life
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Please note this is News in Brief, and so will be a short article.
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I am at the Valencia conference right now. One of the talks reported that if the exploration of biodiversity will continue at the present pace we will know all species in 700 years! What will be accomplished by 2010 will just scratch the surface of our ignorance about marine life. There is a public perception that biodiversity is well known. The Census of Marine Life succeeds hitting the highlights by selling the discovery of new species to the media. New species are being discovered every minute. It is no big deal. By the way, to subscribe this forum I was asked to tick on some of the very many journals you publish. There is nothing like Nature Biodiversity, or Nature Taxonomy, or Nature Ecology. Evidently Nature Genetics is considered as equal to Nature Evolution. Since scientific performances are measured mainly on excellence of the tribunes of own publications, the absence of these journals accounts for the demise of taxonomy from respectable sciences. It is paradoxical that, in the age of biodiversity, taxonomy is in crisis. This is also due to the lack of "respectable" tribunes for it. An article in Nature is solid gold, in terms of career enhancement, a 600 page monograph is worth nothing, since it has no impact factor.