Scientists have organized global census of all living things

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Ученые устроили глобальную перепись всего живогоScientists have calculated how many living creatures live on our planet.

The earth is home to about one trillion kinds of organisms of which has been studied only 0,001%. These figures lead biologists from Indiana University in Bloomington.

The study authors emphasize that counting the number of species on Earth is one of the greatest challenges in biology. They also note that in the past when attempting such calculations seriously underestimate the diversity of species of microorganisms. Scientists from Indiana University have tried to correct this omission.

“Until recently we lacked tools to truly estimate the number of microbial species in the environment,” says the study’s lead author Jay Lennon. – The emergence of new technologies for genetic sequencing gave us unprecedented volume of new data.

In their study, American researchers used information from scientific and government databases that contain information about the microscopic and necroscopies the species in the 35,000 places on land and in the oceans except Antarctica.

According to Lennon, is currently cataloged at least 10 million species of microorganisms, of which 10 thousand were able to grow in the laboratory. 100,000 times more microorganisms awaiting discovery. “It seems that the diversity of microbial species is much more than ever expected,” he says.

It should be noted that the calculation necroscopies species is a daunting task. A study published in 2014 in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution, says that in 60 years scientists were unable to name a single number. The figures range from 0.5 to 10 million.

Another study, published in the journal Science in 2013, assumed to describe most species on Earth need to spend from $0.5 to 1 billion annually for 50 years.

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