Willy De Prins

Bio: Willy De Prins is an academic researcher from Naturalis. The author has contributed to research in topics: Biodiversity & Species richness. The author has an hindex of 5, co-authored 8 publications receiving 1090 citations.

Order Lepidoptera Linnaeus, 1758. In : Zhang, Z.-Q. (Ed.) Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification and survey of taxonomic richness

Abstract: van Nieukerken, Erik J.; Kaila, Lauri; Kitching, Ian J.; Kristensen, Niels Peder; Lees, David C.; Minet, Joël; Mitter, Charles; Mutanen, Marko; Regier, Jerome C.; Simonsen, Thomas J.; Wahlberg, Niklas; Yen, Shen-Horn; Zahiri, Reza; Adamski, David; Baixeras, Joaquin; Bartsch, Daniel; Bengtsson, Bengt Å.; Brown, John W.; Bucheli, Sibyl Rae; Davis, Donald R.; de Prins, Jurate; de Prins, Willy; Epstein, Marc E.; Gentili-Poole, Patricia; Gielis, Caes; Hättenschwiler, Peter; Hausmann, Axel; Holloway, Jeremy D.; Kallies, Axel; Karsholt, Ole; Kawahara, Akito Y.; Koster, Sjaak; Kozlov, Mikhail; Lafontaine, J. Donald; Lamas, Gerardo; Landry, JeanFrançois; Lee, Sangmi; Nuss, Matthias; Park, Kyu-Tek; Penz, Carla; Rota, Jadranka; Schintlmeister, Alexander; Schmidt, B. Christian; Sohn, Jae-Cheon; Solis, M. Alma; Tarmann, Gerhard M.; Warren, Andrew D.; Weller, Susan; Yakovlev, Roman V.; Zolotuhin, Vadim V.; Zwick, Andreas

New Species in the Old World: Europe as a Frontier in Biodiversity Exploration, a Test Bed for 21st Century Taxonomy

Abstract: The number of described species on the planet is about 1.9 million, with ca. 17,000 new species described annually, mostly from the tropics. However, taxonomy is usually described as a science in crisis, lacking manpower and funding, a politically acknowledged problem known as the Taxonomic Impediment. Using data from the Fauna Europaea database and the Zoological Record, we show that contrary to general belief, developed and heavily-studied parts of the world are important reservoirs of unknown species. In Europe, new species of multicellular terrestrial and freshwater animals are being discovered and named at an unprecedented rate: since the 1950s, more than 770 new species are on average described each year from Europe, which add to the 125,000 terrestrial and freshwater multicellular species already known in this region. There is no sign of having reached a plateau that would allow for the assessment of the magnitude of European biodiversity. More remarkably, over 60% of these new species are described by non-professional taxonomists. Amateurs are recognized as an essential part of the workforce in ecology and astronomy, but the magnitude of non-professional taxonomist contributions to alpha-taxonomy has not been fully realized until now. Our results stress the importance of developing a system that better supports and guides this formidable workforce, as we seek to overcome the Taxonomic Impediment and speed up the process of describing the planetary biodiversity before it is too late.

Lepidoptera. Chapter 11

Abstract: We provide a comprehensive overview of those Lepidopteran invasions to Europe that result from increasing globalisation and also review expansion of species within Europe. A total of 97 non-native Lepidoptera species (about 1% of the known fauna), in 20 families and 11 superfamilies have established so far in Europe, of which 30 alone are Pyraloidea. In addition, 88 European species in 25 families have expanded their range within Europe and around 23% of these are of Mediterranean or Balkan origin, invading the north and west. Although a number of these alien species have been in Europe for hundreds of years, 74% have established during the 20th century and arrivals are accelerating, with an average of 1.9 alien Lepidoptera newly established per year between 2000 2007. For 78 aliens with a known area of origin, Asia has contributed 28.9%, Africa (including Macaronesian islands, Canaries, Madeira and Azores) 21.6%, North America 16.5%, Australasia 7.2% and the neotropics just 5.2%. The route for almost all aliens to Europe is via importation of plants or plant products. Most alien Lepidoptera established in Europe are also confined to man-made habitats, with 52.5% occuring in parks and gardens. We highlight four species in particular, Diaphania perspectalis, Cacyreus marshalli, Cameraria ohridella and Paysandisia archon, as the most important current economic threats.

Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification and taxonomic richness

Abstract: The kingdom Animalia is here estimated to have a total of 1,659,420 described species (including 133,692 fossil species) in 40 phyla. Among these, the most successful phylum Arthropoda alone represents 1,302,809 species, or about 78.5% of the total. The second largest phylum, Mollusca (118,061 species), is <10% of Arthropoda in diversity, but it is still much more diverse than other successful invertebrate phyla Platyhelminthes (29,488 species), Nematoda (25,043 species), Echinodermata (20,550 species), Annelida (17,426 species), Cnidaria (16,363 species), Bryozoa (11,474 species) and Porifera (10,876 species). The phylum Craniata, including the vertebrates, represents 85,432 species (including 19,974 fossil species): among these, 35,644 species of "fishes", 7,171 species of amphibians, 15,507 species of reptiles, 11,087 species of birds, and 16,014 species of mammals.

Reference sequence (RefSeq) database at NCBI: current status, taxonomic expansion, and functional annotation

Abstract: The RefSeq project at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) maintains and curates a publicly available database of annotated genomic, transcript, and protein sequence records (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/refseq/). The RefSeq project leverages the data submitted to the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC) against a combination of computation, manual curation, and collaboration to produce a standard set of stable, non-redundant reference sequences. The RefSeq project augments these reference sequences with current knowledge including publications, functional features and informative nomenclature. The database currently represents sequences from more than 55,000 organisms (>4800 viruses, >40,000 prokaryotes and >10,000 eukaryotes; RefSeq release 71), ranging from a single record to complete genomes. This paper summarizes the current status of the viral, prokaryotic, and eukaryotic branches of the RefSeq project, reports on improvements to data access and details efforts to further expand the taxonomic representation of the collection. We also highlight diverse functional curation initiatives that support multiple uses of RefSeq data including taxonomic validation, genome annotation, comparative genomics, and clinical testing. We summarize our approach to utilizing available RNA-Seq and other data types in our manual curation process for vertebrate, plant, and other species, and describe a new direction for prokaryotic genomes and protein name management.

Can We Name Earth's Species Before They Go Extinct?

Abstract: Some people despair that most species will go extinct before they are discovered. However, such worries result from overestimates of how many species may exist, beliefs that the expertise to describe species is decreasing, and alarmist estimates of extinction rates. We argue that the number of species on Earth today is 5 ± 3 million, of which 1.5 million are named. New databases show that there are more taxonomists describing species than ever before, and their number is increasing faster than the rate of species description. Conservation efforts and species survival in secondary habitats are at least delaying extinctions. Extinction rates are, however, poorly quantified, ranging from 0.01 to 1% (at most 5%) per decade. We propose practical actions to improve taxonomic productivity and associated understanding and conservation of biodiversity.

Arthropod diversity in a tropical forest

Abstract: Most eukaryotic organisms are arthropods. Yet, their diversity in rich terrestrial ecosystems is still unknown. Here we produce tangible estimates of the total species richness of arthropods in a tropical rainforest. Using a comprehensive range of structured protocols, we sampled the phylogenetic breadth of arthropod taxa from the soil to the forest canopy in the San Lorenzo forest, Panama. We collected 6144 arthropod species from 0.48 hectare and extrapolated total species richness to larger areas on the basis of competing models. The whole 6000-hectare forest reserve most likely sustains 25,000 arthropod species. Notably, just 1 hectare of rainforest yields >60% of the arthropod biodiversity held in the wider landscape. Models based on plant diversity fitted the accumulated species richness of both herbivore and nonherbivore taxa exceptionally well. This lends credence to global estimates of arthropod biodiversity developed from plant models.

The beetle tree of life reveals that Coleoptera survived end‐Permian mass extinction to diversify during the Cretaceous terrestrial revolution

Abstract: © 2015 The Authors. Systematic Entomology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Entomological Society This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionߚNonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.