How do you know that 90% of species are undiscovered if they are undiscovered? how do you know they are there if you haven’t discovered them yet?

Question

Everyone keeps saying its like a list, how does that work?? Do you have like a pokedex where the undiscovered species appear in grey or something like that???

In: Biology

Answer 1

Well, one thing I haven’t seen anyone mention is that we have tools such as sound to look at an ecosystem as a whole. We can judge a general picture of health and activity.

Let’s say you listen to the Amazon rainforest. You might not know every insect and bird and animal sound but you could probably get an estimate of biodiversity. The same goes for other tools such as decomposition rates or studying a small area