Study Reveals The Number Of Undiscovered Trees On Earth

When we look at the world around us, we sometimes feel as if we know everything that there is to know about it. We see the animals, the plants, and those that we love and our world feels complete.

What we don’t often consider is the fact that in many parts of the world, we are losing things that we never even had the opportunity to learn were there.

Deforestation is causing that problem and it is more than just about the animals that live in the forest, it’s also about the trees that make up the forest as well.

Something that may come as a surprise to you is the fact that there are more trees in the world than most of us realize. As reported in The Guardian, Jingjing Liang, professor of quantitative forest ecology at Purdue University, took part in a massive project to look into the different tree species found on earth.

Thousands of researchers were used for this international project with 38 million different trees being looked at from 90 countries. Eventually, the information was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to The Guardian, Liang said: “It is a massive effort for the whole world to document our forests. Counting the number of tree species worldwide is like a puzzle with pieces spreading all over the world. We solved it together as a team, each sharing our own piece.”

The findings turned up information that would surprise most people. Out of all of the trees on the earth, 14% of them have not yet been discovered and one out of every three is rare.

In order to determine this information, a code-breaking technique from World War II known as the Good-Turing frequency estimation was used. The device helped to determine the number of rare species of trees that existed.

It is estimated that some 9000 trees have yet to be discovered, and in South America, there are as many as 4000 species. Ecologist Peter Reich spoke with MSN, saying that it is hoped that this will help to conserve forests, especially those that are in South America.

Forests make up a rather unique ecosystem that is much more than the trees. In fact, the living organisms that live within the forests are largely unknown and many plants and wildlife exist in those areas that have yet to be discovered as well.

Although it is sad to lose trees in any part of the world, the Amazon basin is an area where we must focus our efforts to protect them. There are some 2000 different species per acre and they support many more species than any other place on earth.

Liang told MSN: “We need to look at the forest as not just a carbon reservoir, or a resource for extraction; we should look at our forests as a habitat that contains tens of thousands of species of trees, and even a much higher number of flora and fauna – we need to pay attention to this biodiversity.”

It is not too late to discover many of the species of trees that exist in the world. As Liang put it: “Together, we can truly begin to see the forest for the trees.”