NEETBotanyBiodiversity and its Conservation
What is the estimate made by Robert May about the total number of species on earth?
Options
- A20 to 50 million
- B7 million
- C1.5 million
- D10 million
Correct answer
B. 7 million
Step-by-step solution
Considering that an overwhelmingly large proportion of the species waiting to be discovered are in the tropics, biologists make a statistical comparison of the temperate-tropical species richness of an exhaustively studied group of insects and extrapolate this ratio to other groups of animals and plants to come up with a gross estimate of the total number of species on earth. Some extreme estimates range from 20 to 50 million, but a more conservative and scientifically sound estimate made by Robert May places the g