The diversity of life is one of the most striking aspects of our planet; hence k

Question

The diversity of life is one of the most striking aspects of our planet; hence knowing how many species inhabit Earth is among the most fundamental questions in science. Yet the answer to this question remains enigmatic, as efforts to sample the world's biodiversity to date have been limited and thus have precluded direct quantification of global species richness, and because indirect estimates rely on assumptions that have proven highly controversial. Here we show that the higher taxonomic classification of species (i.e., the assignment of species to phylum, class, order, family, and genus) follows a consistent and predictable pattern from which the total number of species in a taxonomic group can be estimated. This approach was validated against well-known taxa, and when applied to all domains of life, it predicts 8.7 million (±1.3 million SE) eukaryotic species globally, of which 2.2 million (±0.18 million SE) are marine. In spite of 250 years of taxonomic classification and over 1.2 million species already catalogued in a central database, our results suggest that some 86% of existing species on Earth and 91% of species in the ocean still await description. Renewed interest in further exploration and taxonomy is required if this significant gap in our knowledge of life on Earth is to be closed

What are the practical applications of this work, and its broader significance (could the approaches or results of this work be applied to non-conservation areas such as medicine or economics)?

Explanation / Answer

Taxonomy is an area or a field which include the identification, naming and classification of living things based on their common characteristic or their feature . Taxonomy is a discipline for classifying plants and animals. Taxonomy also gives us information about how various organisms are closely related to one another.

Practical applications of thus work are as follows -

1. Agriculture - In agriculture both abiotic and biotic components are there , in which the biotic components involves the animals ,plants , fungi and microorganisms so for better management of plan and it's implementation it requires the accurate information for the identification the organisms. In order to support the action of agro-ecosystem , the study of taxonomy is very important to establish biosecurity for agriculture in a country .

2. Forestry - In forestry the taxonomy is very important for the conservation of threatened species , species richness estimate . For the conservation of species it requires the practical rules to standardize the unit of species which is given in the list .

3. Medicine - taxonomy has a important role in the field of medicines as it provide the information to the physician for medical encounters for the purpose of medical research . It is also used in international statistical classification of diseases. It is also the backbone of CME that is continuing medical education.

4. Economics - The economic importance of taxonomy in economics involves the genome sequencing projects .It aims to determine the complete genome sequence of an organism . It is used by HGP to produce the finished version of organism .

Significance of taxonomy -

1. It classifies the million of organisms into kingdom, phylum, class ,order,family ,genus and species .

2. It also helps in calculation of number of living species on the earth .

3. It is the foundation base for any kind of information system relation to the diversity of organisms.

4. It also helps to understand the components of biodiversity .

5. It help us to make effective decision for the conservation and it's sustainable use.

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