Species 101:How many species are there?

Species are a biological classification of organisms which have the ability to reproduce offspring. There 8.7 million species on earth. Of these 6.5 million are on land and 2.2 million are in the oceans. Species contribute to the ecosystem they exist in- like forests, hills or oceans. They are an important part of the food chain. Many species are classified as endangered and are maintained in records by biological institutions. Understanding species is important to understand the biodiversity around us. It also helps us understand the ecological and evolutionary processes going into the making of our planet. The different parts of a species classification system are genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom and domain.

There are 7.7 million species of animals and 298,000 species of plants. There are 611,000 species of fungi and 36,400 species of protozoa. There are 27,500 species of chromista(brown algae, diatoms, water moulds). New species are usually found in coral reefs, seafloor mud and moist tropical soil. More than 99 percent of all species from a number of five billion species are now extinct. The extinction rate is 0.01 percent per year. About 10,000 species go extinct every year. There have been mass extinctions in the past on our planet, but the extinction rate now is much bigger. And humans are responsible for it. There have been five known extinction crisis in history. This is the sixth extinction crisis.