Identify all species undiscovered

The world is much more populated and diverse than we know and have ever imagined. A recent study, conducted by biologists at Indiana University in the US, has estimated that the earth might contain one trillion species of life forms, of which 99.999% are yet to be identified. When the scientists compiled microbial, plant and animal community data from all sources, it came to only 5.6 million species living on land, in the air and the sea. The new research shows that the world is teeming with undiscovered species many multiples of those that have been identified and catalogued. Though thousands of new species are discovered every year, it is for the first time that such an estimate has been made with the use of scaling laws. 

The new estimate gives a very different picture of the earth. Despite all efforts made by human beings to understand the world, it passes understanding. The identification of all the species is a great challenge for biologists. It may even be an impossible task. But the information should again tell human beings of the plenitude of life and the great biodiversity that exists on earth. It is also necessary to attach value to it. It should make us feel much smaller than we consider ourselves to be because our numbers are nothing before the trillions out there. A trillion species would mean many trillions of individual life forms belonging to them. In the order of nature, every form of life is equal and important. It is the balance created by all the interdependent life forms that sustains the world. We have lost the sense of this balance and consider ourselves the lords of all living and non-living things. We think that all others exist for our sake. But it is those trillions, not our millions, that hold up the earth. If nature were a democracy, we wouldn’t rule it. Without compunction and a thought about consequences, we have exterminated thousands of species. Last week’s Biodiversity Day was an occasion to remind ourselves of our responsibility to ensure that other species also have as much right to live on the earth as we have.

Scientists also feel that we do not have enough human, financial and technical resources necessary to identify all undiscovered species in the near future. It is necessary to greatly increase the efforts for that. While we are looking for life forms in faraway planets, we should understand all those that live and lurk under our feet.