Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
Center for Biodiversity and Global Change, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
Nat Ecol Evol. 2021 May;5(5):631-639. doi: 10.1038/s41559-021-01411-5. Epub 2021 Mar 22.
Much of biodiversity remains undiscovered, causing species and their functions to remain unrealized and potentially lost in ignorance. Here we use extensive species-level data in a time-to-event model framework to identify taxonomic and geographic discovery gaps in terrestrial vertebrates. Biological, environmental and sociological factors all affect discovery probability and together provide strong predictive ability for species discovery. Our model identifies distinct taxonomic and geographic unevenness in future discovery potential, with greatest opportunities for amphibians and reptiles, and for Neotropical and Indo-Malayan forests. Brazil, Indonesia, Madagascar and Colombia emerge as holding greatest discovery opportunities, with a quarter of potential discoveries estimated. These findings highlight the importance of international policy support for basic taxonomic research and the potential of quantitative models to aid species discovery.
大部分生物多样性仍未被发现，导致物种及其功能未被认识，有可能在无知中消失。在这里，我们使用广泛的物种水平数据，在事件时间模型框架中，确定陆地脊椎动物的分类和地理发现差距。生物、环境和社会因素都影响发现的概率，它们共同为物种的发现提供了强有力的预测能力。我们的模型确定了未来发现潜力中的明显的分类和地理不均匀性，两栖动物和爬行动物以及新热带和印度-马来森林的发现机会最大。巴西、印度尼西亚、马达加斯加和哥伦比亚成为拥有最大发现机会的国家，估计有四分之一的潜在发现。这些发现强调了国际政策支持基础分类研究的重要性，以及定量模型在协助物种发现方面的潜力。
