GBOL III: DARK TAXA

Abstract

urrently, around 1.4 million species of animals are known. For tropical regions, many species are still unknown, with estimates of global biodiversity ranging from five to 30 or even 100 million species. More recent studies suggest that there are about 10 million species on our planet. In contrast to the tropics, the Central European fauna is considered to be very well studied. However, specialists have mostly concentrated on less diverse and easy-to-study organisms, neglecting the species-rich, often taxonomically difficult groups, like many Diptera and Hymenoptera. This led to a mismatch between high species numbers and a small number of researchers, often referred to as the 'taxonomic impediment' . This is most prominent for the megadiverse faunas of tropical regions. Less known is that this also applies, to some extent, for countries with a long history of taxonomic research like Germany, covering 200 or more years. For example, for the compilation of the German checklist of Hymenoptera, 32 specialists were available for 247 species of digger wasps (Crabronidae), while for parasitoid wasps of the family Ichneumonidae one specialist had to deal with 3,332 species.

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