More or Less Has a company really discovered a million new species?
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Feb 28, 2026 Rob Finn, research scientist at the European Bioinformatics Institute who manages large biological databases, breaks down what the claim actually counts. He talks about microscopic bacteria rather than animals, how environmental DNA is collected and sequenced, and how genomes are reconstructed and grouped by genetic similarity. He assesses whether a million microbial species is a plausible data-driven figure.
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Million Microbial Species Are Data Reconstructions
- The "million new species" claim refers to microbes reconstructed from environmental DNA rather than visible plants or animals.
- Rob Finn explains Basecamp sequenced DNA soups from 28 countries and computationally reconstructed bacterial genomes to estimate ~1,000,000 species.
How Environmental DNA Is Turned Into Genomes
- Scientists sequence mixed environmental samples then use computational assembly to reconstitute individual genomes from DNA "soup".
- Rob Finn likens fragments to jigsaw puzzle pieces and describes using rules and patterns to digitally reconstruct genomes.
Species Defined By Genome Similarity Thresholds
- Bacterial "species" are defined by genome similarity thresholds rather than breeding or visible traits; ~95% identity is a common rule of thumb.
- Rob Finn notes changing the threshold slightly alters species counts but the million estimate is plausible.