A new study has found that species are being discovered at a faster rate than ever before, with scientists identifying more than 16,000 new species each year.
Researchers led by those at the University of Arizona looked at the classification histories of roughly 2 million species, spanning all groups of living organisms.
Findings published in the journal Science Advances show that between 2015 and 2020 — the most recent period with comprehensive data — an average of more than 16,000 new species each year were documented, including more than 10,000 animals, 2,500 plants and 2,000 fungi.
Discovering new species is important because species cannot be protected until scientifically described, senior author John Wiens, a professor in the University of Arizona’s department of ecology and evolutionary biology, said.
“Documentation is the first step in conservation — we can’t safeguard a species from extinction if we don’t know it exists,” Wiens said.
The author said that scientists have suggested that the pace at which new species are being documented has slowed down, indicating that “we are running out of new species to discover, but our results show the opposite”.
“In fact, we’re finding new species at a faster rate than ever before,” Wiens said.
The researchers added that the trend shows no sign of slowing and predicted that biodiversity among certain groups, such as plants, fungi, arachnids, fish and amphibians is richer than what was originally thought.
For example, the team projected that there might be as many 1,15,000 fish species and 41,000 amphibian species, even though there are only about 42,000 fish and 9,000 amphibian species described now. They also projected that the final number of plant species might be over half a million.
“Across life, we found that the overall number of living, described species continues to increase rapidly, with little sign of slowing in recent decades,” the authors wrote.
“Furthermore, the fastest rates of species description (more than 16,000 species per year) were all since 2015. The maximum rate (17,044 species per year) was in 2020,” they said.
The researchers also predicted that the discovery rate of new living things will continue to increase.
“Right now, most new species are identified by visible traits. But as molecular tools improve, we will uncover even more cryptic species — organisms distinguishable only on a genetic level. This is especially promising for revealing more unique bacteria and fungi,” Wiens said.
