Over time, biodiversity observations around the world have unveiled a potential universal pattern of how many species are common, very rare or somewhere in-between.
Over time, biodiversity observations around the world have unveiled a potential universal pattern of how many species are common, very rare or somewhere in-between.
More than 100 years of observations in nature have revealed a universal pattern of species abundances: Most species are rare but not very rare, and only a few species are very common. These so-called global species abundance distributions have become fully unveiled for some well-monitored species groups, such as birds. For other species groups, such as insects, however, the veil remains partially unlifted. These are the findings of an international team of researchers led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the University of Florida (UF), published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. The study demonstrates how important biodiversity monitoring is for detecting species abundances on planet Earth and for understanding how they change.
“Who can explain why one species ranges widely and is very numerous, and why another allied species has a narrow range and is rare?” This question was asked by Charles Darwin in his ground-breaking book “The Origin of Species”, published over 150 years ago. A related challenge has been to understand how many species are common (numerous) and how many are rare, the so-called global species abundance distribution (gSAD).
Read more at German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Photo Credit: Kasundg via Wikimedia Commons
