echemi logo
Product
  • Product
  • Supplier
  • Inquiry
    Home > Biochemistry News > Biotechnology News > There may be 1 trillion species on Earth, and we've found only one in 100,000.

    There may be 1 trillion species on Earth, and we've found only one in 100,000.

    • Last Update: 2020-08-08
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
    Search more information of high quality chemicals, good prices and reliable suppliers, visit www.echemi.com
    "The microbiome is the richest, most widely distributed, and longest-evolved form of life on Earth.
    how much they contribute to global biodiversity? Incorporating microbes into statistics, recent studies have shown that there may be 1 trillion species (10 of 12 times) on Earth.
    If this is true, we have discovered only one hundred thousands of life on Earth for thousands of years.
    ", humans have been working for centuries to discover and describe the diversity of life on Earth.
    scientists and naturalists have classified all continental and marine species, from the depths of the earth's crust to the top of the highest mountain ranges, from the most remote jungles to the most densely populated cities.
    these efforts reveal the forms and behaviors of life evolution, but also lay the foundation for understanding the common origin of life.
    Until recently, our planet was thought to be home to nearly 10 million (10 of the seven) species.
    Although the numbers are already staggering, they are almost all visible to the naked eye.
    so tiny species like bacteria, myobacteria, protozoa and fungi? Overall, these microbiomes are the richest, most widely distributed and longest-evolved life forms on Earth.
    how much they contribute to global biodiversity? Incorporating microbes into statistics, recent studies have shown that there may be 1 trillion species (10 of 12 times) on Earth.
    If this is true, we have discovered only one hundred thousands of life on Earth for thousands of years.
    even in the most common habitats, estimating the diversity of microorganisms faces a unique set of challenges.
    more than 100 years, scientists have identified microbial species by culturethem in petri dishes and then describing their cellular properties, as well as their physiological characteristics, such as thermal tolerance, the substrates they consume, or the enzymes they produce.
    such methods greatly underestimate diversity, not only because of the difficulty of culture the vast majority of microorganisms, but also because unrelated microbial species exhibit similar characteristics and are unlikely to be distinguished by appearance.
    Since the mid-1990s, more and more microbiologists have abandoned culture technology in favor of direct sequencing of nucleic acids (DNA) extracted from seawater, leaf surfaces, wetland sediments and even biofilms inside shower heads to identify organisms.
    these methods have been greatly improved over the past 10 years, allowing millions of individual microbes to be sampled at the same time.
    through this high-throughput approach, we learned that a gram of agricultural soil can usually contain more than 10,000 species.
    , we know that nearly 10 trillion (13 times) bacterial cells make up the human microbiome.
    these microbes not only contribute to the host's digestion and nutrient absorption, but also represent the expansion of its immune system.
    look edghed around the earth, where microbes are found deep in the earth's crust, atmosphere, oceans and ice sheets.
    overall, the estimated number of microbial cells on Earth is about 1 nonillion (30 times above 10), which is more than people think and exceeds the estimated number of stars in the universe.
    nature, this raises the question: How many species exist? There is a long list of species in almost every ecosystem on Earth, and nearly 20,000 new species of plants and animals are discovered each year.
    many of these species happen to be beetles, but reports of rodents, fish, reptiles and even primates are not uncommon.
    , while exciting to biologists and the public, new plant and animal species account for only about 2% of the total number of species each year.
    this sign that we may be approaching a near-complete census of these creatures on Earth.
    contrast, in the microbial world, deep genealogy containing countless species is being rapidly described.
    a few years ago, scientists discovered 35 new bacterial doors in an aquifer in Colorado.
    is a broad group that contains thousands or millions of microbes, even related species.
    the bacterial doors found in this aquifer account for 15 percent of all previously identified bacterial doors on Earth.
    against this backdrop, humans belong to the spinal rope, but there are more than 65,000 other animals with spinal ropes (or bone rods), including mammals, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and cysts.
    these findings suggest that what we have found is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of describing the diversity of the microbial biosphere.
    ideally, if we were to assess global biodiversity, we should agree on the composition of species.
    for plants and animals, a species is usually defined as a group of creatures capable of mating and producing breeding offspring.
    Unfortunately, this definition is not very applicable to classified microbial species because they are asexual.
    microbes can transfer genes between closely related individuals through a process known as "horizontal gene transfer", similar to the recombination of sexually reproduced organisms.
    Despite this, there are still some classification methods based on common ancestors that can be inferred from genetic data.
    most commonly used to describe microbial classification, including ribosome RNA (rRNA) gene sequence comparison.
    this gene is involved in the construction of ribosomes, the molecular mechanisms needed for protein synthesis in all life forms.
    by comparing the similarities between the sequences, scientists do not need to cultivate groups of classes, nor do they need to bother describing their physiology or cellular structure to identify groups.
    of many warnings related to this rRNA-based microbial classification, there is the fact that it may underestimate the true number of species.
    if that's the case, the latest predictions that there could be 100 million species on Earth may still be fairly conservative, albeit surprisingly large.
    understanding the number of microbial species on Earth may be significant in improving our quality of life. the prospect of
    the use of biodiversity could spur the development of alternative fuels to meet growing energy demand, provide new crops for fast-growing populations, and combat emerging infectious disease drugs.
    but there may be a more basic reason why we want to know how many species humans share the earth.
    from the dawn of civilization, human survival depends on the study of plants, animals and microorganisms, and we try to learn from past experiments and mistakes or avoid mistakes.
    our interest in biodiversity also reflects our inherent curiosity about the natural world and the role we play in it.
    whether it's praise, conservation, modification or development, humans are trying to have a comprehensive understanding of the species that live on Earth.
    .
    This article is an English version of an article which is originally in the Chinese language on echemi.com and is provided for information purposes only. This website makes no representation or warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness ownership or reliability of the article or any translations thereof. If you have any concerns or complaints relating to the article, please send an email, providing a detailed description of the concern or complaint, to service@echemi.com. A staff member will contact you within 5 working days. Once verified, infringing content will be removed immediately.

    Contact Us

    The source of this page with content of products and services is from Internet, which doesn't represent ECHEMI's opinion. If you have any queries, please write to service@echemi.com. It will be replied within 5 days.

    Moreover, if you find any instances of plagiarism from the page, please send email to service@echemi.com with relevant evidence.