Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 47405, USA.
Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, 60612, USA.
Biol Direct. 2020 Mar 4;15(1):5. doi: 10.1186/s13062-020-00261-8.
Until recently, our planet was thought to be home to ~ 10 species, largely belonging to plants and animals. Despite being the most abundant organisms on Earth, the contribution of microbial life to global biodiversity has been greatly underestimated and, in some cases, completely overlooked. Using a compilation of data known as the Global Prokaryotic Census (GPC), it was recently claimed that there are ~ 10 extant bacterial and archaeal taxa [1], an estimate that is orders of magnitude lower than predictions for global microbial biodiversity based on the lognormal model of biodiversity and diversity-abundance scaling laws [2]. Here, we resolve this discrepancy by 1) identifying violations of sampling theory, 2) correcting for the misuse of biodiversity theory, and 3) conducting a reanalysis of the GPC. By doing so, we uncovered greater support for diversity-abundance scaling laws and the lognormal model of biodiversity, which together predict that Earth is home to 10 or more microbial taxa. REVIEWERS: This article was reviewed by Alvaro Sanchez and Sean M. Gibbons.
直到最近,我们的星球被认为是大约 10 种物种的家园,这些物种主要属于植物和动物。尽管微生物是地球上最丰富的生物,但它们对全球生物多样性的贡献却被大大低估了,在某些情况下甚至完全被忽视了。最近有人利用被称为全球原核生物普查(GPC)的数据集得出结论,目前大约有 10 种现存的细菌和古菌分类群[1],这一估计比基于生物多样性对数正态模型和多样性-丰度缩放定律的全球微生物生物多样性预测低几个数量级[2]。在这里,我们通过以下方法解决了这一差异:1)确定了对采样理论的违反;2)纠正了对生物多样性理论的误用;3)对 GPC 进行了重新分析。这样做,我们发现多样性-丰度缩放定律和生物多样性的对数正态模型得到了更多的支持,这两个模型共同预测地球拥有 10 种或更多的微生物分类群。审稿人:这篇文章由 Alvaro Sanchez 和 Sean M. Gibbons 进行了评审。