Counting Species One by One How much life is there on Earth? Or rather, how many different kinds of life? Most people outside the world’s natural history museums and botanic gardens seem surprised that such a fundamental question remains unanswered. Generations of taxonomists have described and named thousands of new species each year for a couple of centuries, nevertheless still the best ‘estimates may still be very inaccurate. Why nobody knows is almost as interesting a question as the magnitude of life's diversity. Few biologists have either dared or bothered to pose the question. ‘And those that have considered it unanswerable. And yet the ‘question of how many species of plants and animals with whom we share our planet is not a trivial one. Given the rate at which mankind is destroying and reshaping most of the world’s habitats, it is vital to know more precisely what proportion of the Earth's flora and fauna is in danger of extinction. There is no doubt that species ate disappearing, but it would be immensely valuable to know approximately for how many this is the case. A second reason for wishing to know how many species exist is to assess the achievements of taxonomists and to provide them and other biologists with some idea of just how much (or how little) they know about life on Earth. Much of our understanding of biological processes and patterns is based on the study of surprisingly few species. How much of an impression taxonomists have made on the total has implications both for the direction of future research and for the resources museums and herbaria will need if they are to continue to create and maintain representative collections of species. Is it feasible, for instance, to describe all species in the foreseeable future? And, if 50, where would we put them all? The third incentive to answer the question is the answer itself. This has been the basis on which governments have poured billions of dollars into astronomy and the exploration of space, while ignoring a fundamental aspect of the planet upon which we all depend. Simply knowing how many species there are is also an ‘end in and of itself. The important difference,-as many others have suggested, is that ina hundred years the Solar System wil still be there for scientists to study, whereas a large part of life as we know it may not. Natural historians in the 17th century—and before—recognized the need to be able to label different kinds of plants and animals if they were to communicate effectively about their biology. In Sweden, Linnaeus provided the tool, with his binomial system in the universal Janguage of Latin, More than two centuries have passed since Linnaeus began to describe and classify species and we Still cannot be sure of the number of described species. The estimates of the number of species identified during that time vary from 1 to {8 million. We cannot be sure of the exact number. Some species have more than one name, usually because more than one person has described the species, unaware of anyone else's work on it. Or, a taxonomist might not have recognized that some very different- 5looking individuals actually belonged to the same species. Perhaps the specimens represented populations from the extreme ends of the range for that species. In other cases, several barely distinguishable species may be concealed under one name—the taxonomist concerned being unable to distinguish the subtle differences between them. Naming plant and animal species is still as important to modern biology as it would have been to early humans, because without a: unique and universally applied name, it is impossible to ‘communicate information about an organism. At the same time as naming an organism, a taxonomist is required to describe it formally (to characterize it morphologically) so that others may recognize and distinguish it from the large number of similar organisms. In. well-known groups, such as mammals and birds, it is usually enough to point out the features that separate an animal from its relatives. For groups with large numbers of undescribed or poorly known species, however, the description of a new taxon is generally included as part of a monograph dealing with all the members of a group of organisms in a particular region—the beetles of Costa Rica, for instance. Though lacking in general appeal, these specialist ‘treatises are the foundations upon: which all. popular guides to plants and animals are built. Simply describing vast numbers of organisms would create an unmanageable and largely useless mountain of information. In order to handle such quantities of data, taxonomists must classify species ‘The earliest systems of classification, some of which are still used by forest-dwelling peoples, were simple, utilitarian schemes. Plants may have been classified as edible, medicinal ot poisonous, for example. An early textbook of entomology classified insects as “those bestowed by the Creator as a pestilence upon mankind” and “those bestowed by the Creator for the benefit of mankind”. Such classifications have a critical shortcoming: they tell us nothing ‘more about the organisms than the information that was originally used to classify them. ‘Modem taxonomy is no longer so anthropocentric. Biologists seck instead to classify organisms in a hierarchical manner that reflects their evolutionary relationships. Probably the most profound change in taxonomic practice since the days of Linnaeus has come in the past 20 years, with the development of better techniques for working out: those relationships. Reasoned classifications are not mere filing systems for data, they are highly informative. Animals sharing a recent common ancestor are likely to share many features. Thus, species placed in a single genus on the basis of a few morphological characteristics generally resemble each other in a variety of other ways—for instance, genetically, in their behaviour and their physiology. A classification has two important facets: it allows us to make generalizations about groups of organisms; and it enables us to Predict some of the biological characteristics of a newly- discovered species. 6Counting Species One by One Pre-reading Tasks 1. The title of the article is Counting Species One by One. Predict 10 content words that you think will be in this article. Work alone or with a partner. Compare your list with your classmates, 2. What is a “species”? Is the word used for non-biological items? If so, how does the meaning change? 3. Do you know these terms? If not, discuss them with a classmate or ask the teacher to explain them (or look them up in a dictionary). organism taxonomy classification flora/fauna extinction specimen entomology habitat morphology 4. For class discussion: How many different kinds of living things do you think there are? Do you think it is important to know? Why / Why not? 15 ie ee ee ee ee eeReading Tasks 1A. Read the first two paragraphs of the article in order to find the answer to the question: Why is it important to know how many species there are? As you read look for signals that point you to the answer. Underline the signal words. 1B. When you have found the three reasons, go back and reread each reason separately. Using your own words, write each reason on the line provided. (You may want to think of the reason in Hebrew and then translate it back to English.) a. b. « IC. Reread these two paragraphs ‘a. underline all the words that have a negative prefix, b. find two ways the author expresses the idea “important” in paragraph 1. 2. Read paragraph 3 to answer the question: Why don’t we know exactly how many species there are? a. One reason that there may be more than we think: 'b. One reason that there may be fewer than we think: c. Can you think of a reason that is not mentioned in the text?3A. Read paragraph 4 in order to answer these questions: Why is it important to name species? How are species described? 3B. Find and underline words that mean the same as the word properties. 3C. Find and underline words that are used to talk about differences. 4. Read paragraphs 5 and 6. ‘A. What is the difference between the way modern taxonomy classifies organisms and the way it was done in earlier times? (Hint: You may want to look up the word anthropocentric in the dictionary.) Include both modern times and earlier times in your answer. B, What are two ways a classification system is useful? a. C. Organisms in a single group have certain similarities. Underline all the words in paragraph 6 that relate to similarities.