Billie Swalla
Billie J. Swalla is the Director of Friday Harbor Laboratories in the College of the Environment and also Professor of Biology in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington. She is an expert in Invertebrate Development and Marine Genomics. She moved to the University of Washington from Penn State University in 1999 in order to work on the diversity of marine invertebrates that inhabit Puget Sound and the Salish Sea. Professor Swalla began her career at the University of Iowa, working on cartilage and muscle differentiation and limb patterning in chicken embryos with Professor Michael Solursh for her M.S. and Ph.D. A summer taking Embryology at the Marine Biological Laboratory in 1983 changed her life and she moved to Postdoctoral studies with Professor William R. Jeffery at the University of Texas at Austin and Bodega Marine Lab at the University of California at Davis. During Postdoctoral research made possible grant from the American Association of University Women, Billie became interested in the role that gender, race and cultures play in science and society. The Swalla lab uses transcriptomics and genomics to investigate the evolution of animal body plans by comparing gene expression between different animal embryos. Specific interests are the Evolution and Development of ctenophores, tunicates and hemichordates.
Supervisors: Professor Michael Solursh and Professor William R. Jeffery
Supervisors: Professor Michael Solursh and Professor William R. Jeffery
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Background
The question of how many marine species exist is important because it provides a metric for how much we do and do not know about life in the oceans. We have compiled the first register of the marine species of the world and used this baseline to estimate how many more species, partitioned among all major eukaryotic groups, may be discovered.
Results
There are ∼226,000 eukaryotic marine species described. More species were described in the past decade (∼20,000) than in any previous one. The number of authors describing new species has been increasing at a faster rate than the number of new species described in the past six decades. We report that there are ∼170,000 synonyms, that 58,000–72,000 species are collected but not yet described, and that 482,000–741,000 more species have yet to be sampled. Molecular methods may add tens of thousands of cryptic species. Thus, there may be 0.7–1.0 million marine species. Past rates of description of new species indicate there may be 0.5 ± 0.2 million marine species. On average 37% (median 31%) of species in over 100 recent field studies around the world might be new to science.
Conclusions
Currently, between one-third and two-thirds of marine species may be undescribed, and previous estimates of there being well over one million marine species appear highly unlikely. More species than ever before are being described annually by an increasing number of authors. If the current trend continues, most species will be discovered this century.
Highlights
► ∼226,000 described eukaryotic marine species are accepted and ∼170,000 are not ► Experts and statistics predict that fewer than one million marine species exist ► 70,000 species may already be in specimen collections, waiting to be described ► Most of marine life may be discovered this century
Background
The question of how many marine species exist is important because it provides a metric for how much we do and do not know about life in the oceans. We have compiled the first register of the marine species of the world and used this baseline to estimate how many more species, partitioned among all major eukaryotic groups, may be discovered.
Results
There are ∼226,000 eukaryotic marine species described. More species were described in the past decade (∼20,000) than in any previous one. The number of authors describing new species has been increasing at a faster rate than the number of new species described in the past six decades. We report that there are ∼170,000 synonyms, that 58,000–72,000 species are collected but not yet described, and that 482,000–741,000 more species have yet to be sampled. Molecular methods may add tens of thousands of cryptic species. Thus, there may be 0.7–1.0 million marine species. Past rates of description of new species indicate there may be 0.5 ± 0.2 million marine species. On average 37% (median 31%) of species in over 100 recent field studies around the world might be new to science.
Conclusions
Currently, between one-third and two-thirds of marine species may be undescribed, and previous estimates of there being well over one million marine species appear highly unlikely. More species than ever before are being described annually by an increasing number of authors. If the current trend continues, most species will be discovered this century.
Highlights
► ∼226,000 described eukaryotic marine species are accepted and ∼170,000 are not ► Experts and statistics predict that fewer than one million marine species exist ► 70,000 species may already be in specimen collections, waiting to be described ► Most of marine life may be discovered this century