New species discoveries redefine global biodiversity patterns

Yangqing Luo, David B. Lindenmayer, Jens-Christian Svenning, Wenyong Guo, Weiguo Du, Zhijun Ma, Jiajia Liu

Global biodiversity patterns are fundamental to ecology and conservation. However, these patterns are based on incomplete and rapidly growing taxonomic knowledge, and the influence of new species discoveries on our understanding of global biodiversity remains poorly understood. Here we quantified how the discovery of terrestrial vertebrates from 1920 to 2020 has reshaped estimated global diversity patterns and their inferred environmental drivers. New species discoveries were overwhelmingly concentrated in the tropics. For well-studied taxa such as birds, estimated diversity patterns remained largely stable, but reptiles and amphibians showed major reconfiguration: 20.3% and 31.7% of their respective diversity centers (top 5% of range-weighted rarity) shifted to new regions, including parts of Australia and Southeast Asia. These reconfigurations were accompanied by marked changes in inferred environmental drivers, with the apparent influence of temperature on richness declining and precipitation gaining importance. Our findings suggest that estimated global diversity patterns and driver relationships for poorly studied groups may be less reliable than often assumed. Consequently, projections of biodiversity change that rely mainly on temperature risk compromising conservation strategies. Our study calls for “more boots on the ground” to accelerate species discoveries and close critical biodiversity knowledge gaps.