An ambitious, first-of-its-kind effort to estimate how many different kinds of trees exist on Earth suggests our planet is teeming with thousands of tree species that still haven't been discovered.
The data-pooling project, combining many years' worth of ground-sourced tree cataloguing, compiled a global occurrence dataset of tree species across a grid of over nine thousand 100 × 100-kilometer cells on the planet.
Nonetheless, the analysis delivers important new insights on the distribution and occurrence of trees around the world. "Our estimates at continental scales show that roughly 43 percent of all Earth's tree species occur in South America, followed by Eurasia , Africa , North America , and Oceania ," the researchersThe South American species not yet discovered are thought to constitute about 40 percent of all undiscovered species. South America also contains the highest number of rare species , and the highest percentage of endemic species not found on other continents.
"Beyond the 27,000 known tree species in South America, there might be as many as another 4,000 species yet to be discovered there,""This makes forest conservation of paramount priority in South America, especially considering the current tropical forest crisis from anthropogenic impacts such as deforestation, fires and
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