Discovery pattern and species number of scale insects (Hemiptera: Coccoidea)

Autor: Jun Deng, Kunming Li, Cui Chen, Sanan Wu, Xiaolei Huang
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2016
Předmět:
Zdroj: PeerJ, Vol 4, p e2526 (2016)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2167-8359
DOI: 10.7717/peerj.2526
Popis: Few investigations have been made of the species description trend of scale insects. The present study reports the discovery pattern and taxonomic efforts for this group based on global species and a literature dataset. In addition, three asymptotic models (Logistic, Gompertz, and Extreme Value) based on a discovery curve were used to predict the species number of scale insects. Our results showed that the species description rate has been changing over time, with certain peaks and valleys in the past 250 years. The mean number of species described per year was 30, with the highest number of 195 described species in 1985. The increasing number of authors and the almost constant proportion of species described by 10% most prolific authors since the 1900s suggested that taxonomic effort has been increasing over time. The Gompertz model with lowest AIC value suggested that there are about 10,450 species of scale insects on Earth, nearly 30% of which remain to be described. Our study offers insights into the discovery pattern of scale insect diversity.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals