Time: 14:30-15:00(Beijing time) 

Date: August 1， 2023 (Tuesday) 

Venue: ZOOM ID 312 430 8960   PWD： 666666 

Dramatic increases in estimates of the number of species on Earth, loss of tropical forests, and estimated extinction rates in the 1980s were key drivers for the ‘biodiversity crisis’. Some suggested there could be 30 million or even 100 million species on Earth and that species loss was 10% per decade. The debate on global species estimates has largely focused on insects. In the last decade, new methods of estimating global species richness have been developed and existing ones improved through the use of more appropriate statistical tools and new data. The mean of most of these new estimates suggest that globally there are 5.5 million species of insects and that previous estimates of 30 million species or more are statistically unlikely. With only 1 million insect species named, this suggests that 80% are undiscovered. Unbiased DNA studies of previously well-studied insect faunas indicate that 1-2% of species may be truly cryptic. Some have suggested we are at the beginning of a sixth mass extinction event. With increasing pressure on insects can we name the remaining undescribed species before they go extinct?

Speaker:

Nigel E Stork Professor Emeritus, Centre for Planetary Health and Food Security, Griffith University, Australia

The Integrative Conservation Webinar Series are monthly events featuring cutting-edge presentations and topical discussions on the theory, practice, and policy of biodiversity conservation. The series is sponsored by Integrative Conservation and the webinars’ content is generally related to work published in the journal. The Integrative Conservation webinars take place the first Tuesday of every month (4:30 to 6 pm, Beijing time), on Zoom (freely accessible to anyone, ID: 312 430 8960, PWD: 666666), and are embedded within the weekly seminar series of the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG), CAS.

We are seeking submissions for an upcoming Special Issue titled ‘Human Wildlife Conflict and Coexistence in the context of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’. Deadline for submission: 15 August 2023.