Every species on the planet documented in new Australian report

Sophie Tedmanson, Times Online 29 Sep 09;

Australian scientists have documented the planet’s entire known animal and plant species in a new report backed by Sir David Attenborough.

New discoveries among the 1.9 million species include 48 reptiles, eight frogs, eight mammals, 1,184 flowering plants and 904 insects, mites, spiders and scorpions.

The report, Numbers of Living Species in Australia and the World, found that in the past three years about 18,000 new species have been found globally each year. Of those, 75 per cent were invertebrates, 11 per cent were vascular plants and nearly 7 per cent vertebrates.

Sir David has described the identification and naming of species as “the very foundation of the natural sciences”.

“Unless we can be certain of exactly what organism we are considering, we cannot protect it, still less understand it,” he said.

“Listing species is the beginning of that essential process. So this report will provide a crucial reference point for all those who are acting to protect our planet for future generations.”

Compiled by the Australian Biological Resources Study, the report was described as a “fantastic contribution to the global fight to conserve biodiversity”, by the country’s Environment Minister, Peter Garrett.

"It also gives us new insight into how valuable Australia's plants and animals are, revealing we have even more unique mammals, reptiles and plants than we previously had thought,” he said.

But Mr Garrett conceded that there was still “a long way to go” to help manage the numbers of plant and wildlife species in Australia.

“We have discovered and named only about a quarter of Australia's estimated number of flora and fauna,” he said.

“We need this essential information to do a better job of managing our biodiversity against the threats of invasive species, habitat loss and climate change.”

In Australia it has been revealed that one in five species of mammals are in danger of becoming extinct. Of the 388 species scientists found naturally in Australia, 78 are listed as vulnerable, endangered or extinct in the wild.

In addition nearly 14 per cent of amphibians, 5 per cent of reptiles and 6 per cent of Australia’s birds are at risk.

However there was some good news for the country. In the past three years hundreds of new species have been discovered, while many were confirmed to be unique only to Australia.

World known species rises to 1.9 million, report says
Reuters 29 Sep 09;

CANBERRA (Reuters Life!) - The world's only catalog of known plants and animals has listed 1.9 million species globally, a rise of 114,000 on a study done three years ago, Australian researchers said Tuesday.

The number of currently accepted and described species had jumped 6.3 percent from 1,786,000 last described in 2006, Australia's Environment Minister Peter Garrett said, releasing the Numbers of Living Species in Australia and the World report in Cairns.

"The report shows that the science of species discovery is alive and well," Garrett told reporters.

Australia held one of the most diverse collections, with 87 percent of its mammals and 93 percent of reptiles found nowhere else, including iconic kangaroos and koalas.

The report updated the number of Australian species for the first time in two decades, listing 48 new reptiles, eight frogs, eight mammals, 1,184 flowering plants and 904 new species of spiders, mites and scorpions.

But one in five species were at serious risk of extinction as Australia, the world's driest inhabited continent, experiences what scientists say is an unusually rapid pace of climate warming, Garrett said.

"We need this essential information to do a better job of managing our biodiversity against the threats of invasive species, habitat loss and climate change," he said.

Around 18,000 new species were being described each year by researchers, the study said, with 75 percent of those listed in 2007 being invertebrates, 11 percent plants and 7 percent listed as vertebrate animals.

The report said the job of cataloguing species was nowhere near complete, with the world's total number of species estimated at between 5 million and 50 million.

(Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Miral Fahmy)

Secret life of plants and animals vital in warming struggle
Tom Arup, The Sydney Morning Herald 30 Sep 09;

THE world must invest more in identifying plants and animal species in the wake of climate change, the author of a new audit of global species has warned.

Arthur Chapman, an Australian researcher who has written the only report known to document all of the world's known species, said the extinction threat globally from climate change and other environmental pressures made it more important than ever to know what species existed.

He said a shortage of taxonomists - scientists who identify and classify species - in a number of key fields was slowing the global rate of identifying species.

Mr Chapman's Numbers of Living Species in Australia and the World report was released yesterday by the Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, in Townsville. The report collated existing scientific data and reports from a variety of countries, research bodies and official agencies.

It found that the world now has 1.9 million identified species, while Australia has identified just short of 150,000, just a quarter of all Australian flora and fauna.

It found the best estimates of all plants and animals species are 570,000 in Australia and 11 million worldwide.

Mr Garrett said yesterday that scientific research was alive and well in Australia and that the report showed that over the past three years "we've discovered 48 reptiles, eight frogs, eight mammals, 1184 flowering plants and 904 spiders, mites and scorpions.

"But we have a long way to go - we have discovered and named only about a quarter of Australia's estimated number of flora and fauna. We need this essential information to do a better job of managing our biodiversity against the threats of invasive species, habitat loss and climate change."

Mr Chapman told the Herald that Australia was one of 12 "mega-diverse" countries, and his report showed Australia had a greater rate of endemic species than first thought.

The report found that 90 per cent of mammals and reptiles found in Australia are endemic.

It also found that the 1541 of Australia's species are now listed as threatened with extinction, making up 9 per cent of the all threatened species on the planet. There are 16,956 threatened species globally.

The Greens senator Rachel Siewert said the alarming rates of threatened species in the report highlighted the urgency in protecting "flora and fauna from processes such as land clearing, inappropriate development, disease and feral plants and animals".

Ten percent of world's major species 'at threat'
Yahoo News 29 Sep 09;

SYDNEY (AFP) – The "Number of Living Species in Australia and the World" study found 0.9 percent of the world's 1.9 million classified species were at threat, including 9.2 percent of major vertebrate species.

Australia's government-funded Biological Resources Study, the world's only census of animal and plant life, found 20.8 percent of mammals were endangered, as were 12.2 percent of birds and 29.2 percent of amphibians.

Of reptiles, 4.8 percent were considered threatened, along with 4.1 percent of fish species.

"In Australia and around the world, biodiversity is under huge and growing pressure," said environment department secretary Robyn Kruk.

"The pressures are pervasive and chronic in many places; invasive species, habitat loss and climate change in particular."

Australia was found to be home to 7.8 percent of the world's known species. Environment Minister Peter Garrett said the study had shown its wildlife was highly unique, with 87 percent of mammals and 93 percent of reptiles found nowhere else in the world.

However, the study also showed Australian species accounted for 9.1 percent of the world's threatened flora and fauna, and Garrett said vigilance was essential.

"We have a long way to go, we have discovered and named only about a quarter of Australia's estimated number of flora and fauna," said Garrett.

"We need this essential information to do a better job of managing our biodiversity against the threats of invasive species, habitat-loss and climate change."

According to the report there were likely to be some 11 million species on Earth of which only 1.9 million had been discovered, with millions of invertebrates, fungi and other organisms yet to be found and named.