ADVANCES ON DIPTEROLOGY IN THE 21 ST CENTURY AND EXTINCTION RATES
ABSTRACT At least one million extant insect species have been described on Earth, of which 150,000 belong to the megadiverse order Diptera. We here synthesize data from the last 15 years of taxonomic work in Diptera, mapping the world taxonomic productivity in the order. Our data shows an increasing importance of China and Brazil in taxonomic production, along with other traditional centres such as the USA and Europe. We correlate our database with estimates of extinction rates to determine the amount of basic taxonomic research still necessary to have the description of the fly diversity before extinction. Due to the growing recent extinction rates, it is unlikely that we will be able to entirely describe unknown fly diversity before their demise. Even considering that is still a constant and increasing speed of new species description, raising the number of active dipterists in the world is an urgent priority and the only real solution.
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Digital revista |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo
2017
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| Online Access: | http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0031-10492017003300433 |
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