Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Matters Arising
  • Published:

Estimates of the number of undescribed species should account for sampling effort

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 8, pages 637–640 (2024)Cite this article

Subjects

Matters Arising to this article was published on 21 February 2024

The Original Article was published on 22 March 2021

arising from M. R. Moura & W. Jetz Nature Ecology & Evolution https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01411-5 (2021)

Moura and Jetz1 examined the shortfalls and opportunities in terrestrial vertebrate species discovery, notably integrating biological, environmental, sociological and temporal variables. Their study is a novel and stark illustration of the potential for biodiversity to be lost before its discovery2,3, as 5 million to 11 million species are likely to exist4,5 whereas only 2.16 million have been described as of 2022 (www.ourworldindata.org). Moura and Jetz have laid the foundation to develop improved methods to account for sampling bias and the influence of spatio-environmental variables; however, their analyses make the assumption that recently described species should be consistently positively correlated with the number of remaining undescribed species within a given region. As we show below, this assumption has limitations that could affect the interpretation of the study.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Hypothetical example of how time-to-event models could lead to incorrect predictions about undescribed biodiversity.
Fig. 2: Global patterns of amphibian sampling efforts and discovery potential.

References

  1. Moura, M. R. & Jetz, W. Shortfalls and opportunities in terrestrial vertebrate species discovery. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 5, 631–639 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Lees, A. C. & Pimm, S. L. Species, extinct before we know them? Curr. Biol. 25, R177–R180 (2015).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Pimm, S. L. et al. The biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection. Science 344, 1246752 (2014).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Costello, M. J., May, R. M. & Stork, N. E. Can we name Earth’s species before they go extinct? Science 339, 413–416 (2013).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Chapman, A. Numbers of Living Species in Australia and the World. Report for the Australian Biological Resources Study (Australian Biodiversity Information Services, 2009).

  6. Hortal, J. & Lobo, J. M. An ED-based protocol for optimal sampling of biodiversity. Biodivers. Conserv. 14, 2913–2947 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Rodrigues, A. S. et al. A global assessment of amphibian taxonomic effort and expertise. BioScience 60, 798–806 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Costello, M. J., Lane, M., Wilson, S. & Houlding, B. Factors influencing when species are first named and estimating global species richness. Glob. Ecol. Conserv. 4, 243–254 (2015).

    Google Scholar 

  9. Diniz‐Filho, J. A. F. et al. Macroecological correlates and spatial patterns of anuran description dates in the Brazilian Cerrado. Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr. 14, 469–477 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Blackburn, T. M. & Gaston, K. J. What determines the probability of discovering a species?: A study of South American oscine passerine birds. J. Biogeogr. 22, 7–14 (1995).

  11. Miller, R. I. & Wiegert, R. G. Documenting cmpleteness, species‐area relations, and the species‐abundance distribution of a regional flora. Ecology 70, 16–22 (1989).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Soberón, M. J. & Llorente, B. J. The use of species accumulation functions for the prediction of species richness. Conserv. Biol. 7, 480–488 (1993).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Chao, A. et al. Rarefaction and extrapolation with Hill numbers: a framework for sampling and estimation in species diversity studies. Ecol. Monogr. 84, 45–67 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Colwell, R. K. & Coddington, J. A. Estimating terrestrial biodiversity through extrapolation. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 345, 101–118 (1994).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Button, S. & Borzée, A. A new multi-metric approach for quantifying global biodiscovery and conservation priorities reveals overlooked hotspots for amphibians. Preprint at OSF https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/9r7sg (2023).

  16. Ugland, K. I., Gray, J. S. & Ellingsen, K. E. The species–accumulation curve and estimation of species richness. J. Anim. Ecol. 72, 888–897 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Foreign Youth Talent Program (QN2021014013L) from the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China to A.B.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University, Vancouver, WA, USA

    Sky Button

  2. Laboratory of Animal Behaviour and Conservation, College of Life Sciences, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China

    Amaël Borzée

Authors
  1. Sky Button
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Amaël Borzée
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

S.B. identified the need for a correction. S.B. and A.B. significantly contributed to the first draft and subsequent revisions.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Sky Button or Amaël Borzée.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Ecology & Evolution thanks Joaquin Hortal for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Button, S., Borzée, A. Estimates of the number of undescribed species should account for sampling effort. Nat Ecol Evol 8, 637–640 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02312-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02312-5

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing