Two by Two: The Art and Science of Counting Wildlife
The Great Age of Naturalists—up through Charles Darwin himself—was obsessed with searching the globe to find and name new species of plants, mollusks, fish, ferns, butterflies, beetles, birds, and monkeys: every form of life. That noble impulse petered out to some extent during the 20th century, when people lost sight of natural wonders in favor of technology—when people thought there was little of nature left to discover.
Boy, were they wrong. This planet may contain as many as 100 million species of plants and animals, but only a fraction—less than two million—have been identified. So a New Age is underway, with new species turning up every year. But this New Age is devoted not simply to finding and naming, but also to counting. Because of the danger of extinction—because we’re nearing the day when we could run out of everything from polar bears to honeybees—conservationists and biologists are becoming experts in the Art of the Census: counting what’s left. Here’s a round-up of news and links related to counting, identifying, and accurately naming the millions of other species with whom we share the planet, an indispensable tool in rewilding the world.
Science Daily reports that marine biologists are compiling a new “World Registry of Marine Species,” hoping to complete a comprehensive inventory by October, 2010. So far, the names and images of around 112,500 species have been compiled by the Census of Marine Life, around half the expected total. Scientists are not simply creating a new list for this Registry; they are also weeding out many duplicate names for the same species.
“Convincing warnings about declining fish and other marine species must rest on a valid census,” Dr. Mark Costello of the University of Auckland, co-founder of WoRMS and a senior Census of Marine Life official said. “This project will improve information vital to researchers investigating fisheries, invasive species, threatened species and marine ecosystem functioning, as well as to educators.”
The Encyclopedia of Life, launched last year with $12.5 million in funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is an extraordinary effort to create a kind of Wikipedia for Biology. While the Field Museum of Natural History, Harvard University, Marine Biological Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution, and Biodiversity Heritage Library are all contributing to the effort, citizen scientists—that means butterfly lovers, caterpillar collectors, reptile enthusiasts, and all manner of natural historians from all over the globe—can contribute photos and other documentation of the 1.8 million species known to man. It’s too cool for school.
Lepidopterists’ Delight: An astounding effort to search out the secret identities and unknown habits of caterpillars, pupae, butterflies, and moths of the rainforest in the northwest corner of Costa Rica is ongoing at the Area de Conservacion Guanacaste, led by Daniel Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs of the University of Pennsylvania and the ACG’s own gusaneros and gusaneras—caterpillar wranglers & collectors. Jump in online or check out 100 Caterpillars: Portraits from the Tropical Forests of Costa Rica or 100 Butterflies and Moths: Portraits from the Tropical Forests of Costa Rica both by Jeffrey C. Miller, Daniel H. Janzen, and Winifred Hallwachs, both from Harvard’s Belknap Press. Two of the most beautifully illustrated books ever produced.
And the BBC brings us a fascinating story on the perils facing wildlife census-takers. We can send a man to the moon; we can’t figure out how to count whales.
The penguins of South Africa’s Robben Island, on the other hand, make it easy: See video, above; read more here.
[Photograph of starfish by Giuseppe Aniello / Flickr]
