| Title |
Santa Rosalia revisited: Why are there so many species of bacteria?
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, January 1998
|
| DOI | 10.1023/a:1000665216662 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Daniel E. Dykhuizen |
| Abstract |
The diversity of bacteria in the world is very poorly known. Usually less than one percent of the bacteria from natural communities can be grown in the laboratory. This has caused us to underestimate bacterial diversity and biased our view of bacterial communities. The tools are now available to estimate the number of bacterial species in a community and to estimate the difference between communities. Using what data are available, I have estimated that thirty grams of forest soil contains over half a million species. The species difference between related communities suggests that the number of species of bacteria may be more than a thousand million. I suppose that the explanation for such a large number of bacterial species is simply that speciation in bacteria is easy and extinction difficult, giving a rate of speciation higher than the rate of extinction, leading to an ever increasing number of species over time. The idea that speciation is easy is justified from the results of recent experimental work in bacterial evolution. |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 303 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 14 | 5% |
| Mexico | 4 | 1% |
| France | 4 | 1% |
| Brazil | 3 | <1% |
| Australia | 2 | <1% |
| Spain | 2 | <1% |
| Austria | 1 | <1% |
| Italy | 1 | <1% |
| Sweden | 1 | <1% |
| Other | 7 | 2% |
| Unknown | 264 | 87% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 78 | 26% |
| Researcher | 69 | 23% |
| Student > Master | 34 | 11% |
| Student > Bachelor | 31 | 10% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 22 | 7% |
| Other | 47 | 16% |
| Unknown | 22 | 7% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 169 | 56% |
| Environmental Science | 39 | 13% |
| Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 20 | 7% |
| Earth and Planetary Sciences | 11 | 4% |
| Immunology and Microbiology | 8 | 3% |
| Other | 24 | 8% |
| Unknown | 32 | 11% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 44. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 22 September 2022.
All research outputs
#949,160
of 25,374,917 outputs
Outputs from Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
#10
of 2,151 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#630
of 94,808 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
#1
of 5 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,374,917 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,151 research outputs from this source. They receive a mean Attention Score of 3.8. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 94,808 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 5 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than all of them