How do the United States laws that protect endangered species compare to other countries? Why has the gray wolf been reintroduced in certain areas of the northwestern United States? What level of biodiversity is most commonly equated with the overall concept of biodiversity? read more
About 8.7 million (give or take 1.3 million) is the new, estimated total number of species on Earth -- the most precise calculation ever offered -- with 6.5 million species on land and 2.2 million in oceans. read more
The method led to an estimate of between 100,000,000,000 (that's 100 billion) and 1,000,000,000,000 (that's a trillion) species of microbes on Earth. "Until now, we haven't known whether aspects of biodiversity scale with something as simple as the abundance of organisms," Locey said in a statement. read more