What is it about?
It is commonly thought that our knowledge on biodiversity is enough so as to model most aspects of ecosystem functioning and the impacts of global change. However, that is not true, for we are far from having a representative knowledge on most, if not all, aspects of biodiversity. Here we review the most important shortfalls in our knowledge on biodiversity, namely how many species exist and how are they, which is their geographic distribution and population dynamics, the evolutionary relationships between them, their ecological traits and their functions, their responses to the environmental and the interactions with other species. Further, we propose a framework to deal with the ignorance in these seven main aspects of biodiversity.
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Why is it important?
We acknowledge the extent of our igorance on biodiviersity in a comprehensive way, and provide the first thorough review of the main aspects of biodiversity that are in need of further research, pointing to the need of an harmonious work in different areas of evology and evolution.
Perspectives
Im ny opinion, this was a much needed review highlighting the actual limitations of our current knowledge on biodiversity. Many initiatives are putting the focus on putting together all former knowledge through databases, and creating models from these data, without acknowleging our degree of ignorance about the whole phenomenon of biodiversity, nor the many biases assocaited with data collection. The recognition and cataloguing of our ignorance made in this paper should be the basis of a well-developed and honest approach to studying and modelling the dynamics of biodiversity
Dr Joaquín Hortal
Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN-CSIC)
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Seven Shortfalls that Beset Large-Scale Knowledge of Biodiversity, Annual Review of Ecology Evolution and Systematics, December 2015, Annual Reviews,
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-112414-054400.
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