Table 2 Description curve predictors.

From: Taxonomic description curves of major lineages are influenced by biological and societal factors

Group

Current descriptions

Number of authors

Public interest

Body size

Soil-dwelling/endoparasitic

Aquatic

Europe, the USA, Canada, and Russia

Tracheophyta

354,344

285.3

341,495

2

1

1

0.37

Marchantiophyta

7208

5.6

32

0

1

1

0.33

Bryophyta

11,049

11.6

4507

1

1

1

0.40

Chlorophyta

5512

7.6

92

−1

1

5

0.83

Rhodophyta

7197

8.3

122

2

1

5

0.71

Ochrophyta

31,162

24.5

25

−2

1

5

0.70

Oomycota

1670

3.1

0

0

3

2

0.78

Foraminifera

30,026

15.5

0

−1

3

5

0.69

Ciliophora

8582

7.8

4

−1

3

3

0.75

Myzozoa

9014

15.1

1

−2

4

2

0.81

Haptophyta

432

0.8

2

−3

1

5

0.85

Euglenozoa

2521

3.9

0

−2

1

5

0.77

Amoebozoa

2936

5.1

0

−1

3

3

0.89

Chordata

74,981

84.3

434,058

2

1

2

0.39

Platyhelminthes

20,258

22.8

639

0

4

2

0.50

Gastrotricha

831

0.9

0

0

1

5

0.76

Ectoprocta

5870

3.2

1

−1

1

5

0.61

Mollusca

98,947

64.4

8855

1

1

4

0.53

Nemertea

1349

1.3

0

1

4

5

0.58

Annelida

22,326

21.1

1597

1

2

4

0.48

Lepidoptera

148,522

90.3

28,026

1

1

1

0.30

Trichoptera

16,976

7.7

0

1

1

1

0.42

Diptera

219,245

81.2

7816

0

1

1

0.46

Siphonaptera

2621

3.2

1473

0

1

1

0.46

Coleoptera

421,378

135.6

3121

0

1

1

0.42

Neuroptera

6847

4.2

1

1

1

1

0.31

Hymenoptera

172,007

64.1

11,181

0

1

1

0.48

Hemiptera

116,521

57.1

432

1

1

1

0.40

Psocodea

11,612

5.8

201

0

1

1

0.40

Thysanoptera

6826

4.2

15

−1

1

1

0.42

Plecoptera

4140

3.9

1

1

1

5

0.48

Dermaptera

2226

1.4

163

1

1

1

0.25

Dictyoptera

11,168

7.0

504

1

1

1

0.50

Orthoptera

32,041

16.4

14,742

1

1

1

0.26

Ephemeroptera

5056

5.1

37

1

1

5

0.43

Odonata

6869

5.8

1302

1

1

1

0.26

Crustacea

72,451

60.3

3261

1

1

5

0.44

Myriapoda

18,678

7.4

433

1

1

1

0.49

Arachnida

138,514

82.3

7328

1

1

1

0.39

Tardigrada

1215

1.9

5

−1

2

3

0.55

Nematoda

29,527

32.1

28

0

4

3

0.55

Cnidaria

12,785

12.0

620

1

1

5

0.51

Porifera

8724

5.0

2487

1

1

5

0.44

Basidiomycota

48,428

41.3

2203

1

5

1

0.62

Ascomycota

87,760

76.2

3251

1

5

1

0.63

Chytridiomycota

977

1.5

0

−2

4

3

0.78

Microsporidia

1155

2.3

0

−3

5

3

0.77

  1. Current descriptions and the number of authors were obtained from LifeGate. Public interest data was collected from BiL Explorer. Data on body size data, soil-dwelling/endoparasitic species, and aquatic habitat use from different internet sources (see Suppl. Table 1). The fraction of species occurring in Europe, the USA, Canada, and Russia from GBIF. Public interest gives the total number of occurrences of names from the respective group in the literature corpus, body size gives the average body size of the respective group as an exponent of mm to base 10. Soil-dwelling/endoparasitic and aquatic give the fraction of such species in the respective group on a scale from 1–5 (see Methods for details).
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