Researchers have gathered all the available data from the Amazon tree species and determined the total amount of species known to date are 11,676 trees. The Amazon rainforest was considered the one with most diversity, but until now a total sum was unknown.
The international team of botanists looked for information about the number of species in more than half a million museum specimens collected in the Amazon between 1707 and 2015. In the end, the team came off with nearly 12,000, according to the paper published Wednesday in the journal Scientific Reports. Back in 2013, researchers in the same area estimated that the total number of tree species was around 16,000.
The results from the latest study showed that the previous estimate was adequate. Since 1900, between fifty and two hundred new trees have been discovered in the Amazon every year, Pitman said. The analysis suggests that researchers will not be done finding new tree species there for three more centuries, he added.
The team analyzed more than 500,000 digitized tree samples taken from fruits, flowers, and leaves to compile what they referred to the first list of every known tree type in the Amazon, as reported by the New York Times. Some of the remaining 4,000 Amazonian species could even exist on paper, but save in some museum in the world undigitized, the team commented.
“Before this paper we did not have a list of Amazonian trees,” Pitman said. “With this list we are answering ‘How many species have been found?’ and ‘What are they?’”
— Rainforest Alliance (@RnfrstAlliance) July 14, 2016
Pitman recognized in his article that his work was not so meticulously put together as those constructed by taxonomists who organize organisms for a living. However, he assured that the disorganization in the finding was the point of the catalog.
Researchers, led by Pitman, aimed to create an index of the species that would serve as the basis of a wiki, so other experts could critique the established information on it and contribute to making it better.
The future project is an effort to put together the 300-year-long research on the region and convert it into a simple tool that anybody can use, Pitman said. The index is the best the team could do for someone who is interested in getting to know the trees discovered in the Amazon.
The team recognized as well that the paper could not have been done without the digitization efforts from all over the world. All the information they needed was in the same place, so they did not have to go through every individual museum in the world, just use data not just from The Field Museum, but from museum collections everywhere, Pitman added.
— ForestPlots (@ForestPlots) July 11, 2016