Afro FM 105.3: Call for biodiversity effort issued

Call for biodiversity effort issued
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Henok  on 04/04/2012 12:54:00
 
The scientists, along with international colleagues, have presented a detailed
plan for the monumental effort in the journal Systematics and Biodiversity.
The authors have proposed "an intensive internationally collaborative mission
aimed at discovering as many plant and animal species on Earth as possible and
mapping their distributions in its biosphere."
They wrote Earth's biosphere has proven to be a vast frontier that, even after
centuries of exploration, remains largely uncharted.
Scientists estimate about 2 million of Earth's species have been discovered and
named, with about 18,000 new plants and animals found each year.
They said at least 10 million species on Earth are yet to be discovered or
accurately classified, whether tiny, large, buried, hidden in collections or in
plain sight.
The researchers said roughly 30 percent of Earth's species will become extinct
this century: "For the first time in human history, the rate of species
extinction may exceed that of species discovery.
Quentin Wheeler, the proposal's lead author and an entomologist and director of
the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University
said without exploring, describing and classifying Earth's species they may miss
many of our best opportunities to learn from natural selection how to solve
countless problems related to our own sustainable survival. (Upi.com)