New species discoveries in the Smokies total 1,000
The Pertusaria superiana is one of five new lichen species recently discovered in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The species were named after park staff. Tripp and Lendemer 2018 photo
The All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory has reached a major milestone with the announcement that it’s added 1,000 new species to science in its 20 years.
The nonprofit Discover Life in America partners with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the inventory project, working to document all the species existing the park’s 522,000 acres.
Since 1998, the project has documented many species in the park for the first time ever, but the 1,000 mark represents the number of species documented that had never been seen on Earth before.
The most recent additions came from the work of lichenologists Erin Tripp of the University of Colorado and James Lendemer of the New York Botanical Garden, who added five more new-to-science species to the tally for the total of 1,000. Over the past 10 years, their research has increased the park’s knowledge of its lichen fauna by more than 130 percent over original diversity estimates.
Overall, the project has more than doubled the number of species known in the park, from about 9,300 historic species records to 19,866 species known today. The work is accomplished through cooperation between scientists from across the world and nation, park staff, students and volunteer citizen scientists.
