After All, Only Millions?
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Updated: Mar 18, 2026

Predicting the Effectiveness of Population Replacement Strategy Using Mathematical Modeling
Published on: July 4, 2007
Rudolf Amann1, Ramon Rosselló-Móra2
1Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bremen, Germany ramann@mpi-bremen.de.
Abstract:
An update on the census of species of Archaea and Bacteria published recently in mBio (P. D. Schloss, R. A. Girard, T. Martin, J. Edwards, and J. C. Thrash, mBio 7:e00201-16, 2016, http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00201-16) showed again that, despite ever-increasing sequencing efforts, the PCR-based retrieval of 16S rRNA genes is approaching saturation. On average, 95% of the genes analyzed today are identical to those present in public databases, with rarefaction analysis indicating that about one-third of the bacterial and archaeal diversity has already been covered. Therefore, despite estimates of up to 10(12) microbial species, the option should be considered that the census of Archaea and Bacteria on planet Earth might yield only millions of species after all.
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