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Growth of the European taxonomic inventory.
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posted on 2012-05-23, 01:07 authored by Benoît Fontaine, Kees van Achterberg, Miguel Angel Alonso-Zarazaga, Rafael Araujo, Manfred Asche, Horst Aspöck, Ulrike Aspöck, Paolo Audisio, Berend Aukema, Nicolas Bailly, Maria Balsamo, Ruud A. Bank, Carlo Belfiore, Wieslaw Bogdanowicz, Geoffrey Boxshall, Daniel Burckhardt, Przemysław Chylarecki, Louis Deharveng, Alain Dubois, Henrik Enghoff, Romolo Fochetti, Colin Fontaine, Olivier Gargominy, Maria Soledad Gomez Lopez, Daniel Goujet, Mark S. Harvey, Klaus-Gerhard Heller, Peter van Helsdingen, Hannelore Hoch, Yde De Jong, Ole Karsholt, Wouter Los, Wojciech Magowski, Jos A. Massard, Sandra J. McInnes, Luis F. Mendes, Eberhard Mey, Verner Michelsen, Alessandro Minelli, Juan M. Nieto Nafrıa, Erik J. van Nieukerken, Thomas Pape, Willy De Prins, Marian Ramos, Claudia Ricci, Cees Roselaar, Emilia Rota, Hendrik Segers, Tarmo Timm, Jan van Tol, Philippe BouchetCumulative number of valid species of European terrestrial and freshwater multicellular species since Linnaeus. A: All species. B: Birds, a virtually completely inventoried compartment of European biodiversity. C: Coleoptera, where the number of valid species has steadily increased and shows no sign of levelling. D: Acari, which remained neglected for two centuries, and are now exhibiting a high discovery rate. E: Platyhelminthes, where the impression of a saturated inventory could be due to a current lack of taxonomic workforce. F: Neuropterida orders, for which the rate of description is erratic and reflects bursts of activity by a handful of taxonomists.
