how many species are currently thought to be on the planet
Last year researchers at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia released the most rigorous estimate yet of how many species live on our planet: 8.7 million, not counting bacteria. Nearly 6.5 million of these species live on land versus 2.2 million in the ocean, according to the analysis. âHumanity has committed itself to saving species from extinction, but until now we have not had a good idea of even how many there are,â says coauthor Boris Worm, a marine ecologist at Dalhousie. Previous estimates have ranged from as few as 3 million species to as many as 100 million. To arrive at a more certain answer, marine ecologist Camilo Mora examined lifeâs diversity at higher levels of taxonomy (genus, family, order, et cetera).