Scientists spent 100 years discovering animals, reshaping where we see Earth’s biodiversity hotspots

Representative Image (AI-generated) For much of the past century, scientists have steadily expanded the catalogue of life on Earth, adding species that were previously unknown to science and refining the ranges of those already documented. But what happens when those discoveries are added back into the maps scientists use to understand global biodiversity? A new study published in Ecology Letters examined how a century of taxonomic discoveries changed estimates of where terrestrial vertebrate diversity is concentrated. The results show that global diversity patterns remained relatively stable for some groups but changed substantially for others, particularly reptiles and amphibians.Looking back a centuryThe researchers examined terrestrial vertebrate discoveries between 1920 and 2020 to determine how accumulating taxonomic knowledge altered estimates of global diversity patterns. Rather than simply counting the number of species known at different points in time, the study investigated how the locations considered important biodiversity centres changed as new species were formally recognised. The researchers also examined whether the environmental factors associated with species di...