The description of a new species is a key step in cataloguing the World’s flora. However, this is only a preliminary stage in a long process of understanding what that species represents. We investigated how long the species discovery process takes by focusing on three key stages: 1, the collection of the first specimen; 2, the publication of the species name; and 3, the date when a minimum number of 15 accurately named specimens are available. We quantified the time lags associated with these stages for several groups of plants with different numbers of species and from different regions, including the 20 most species-rich Angiosperm families. Our analyses reveal that it takes decades to accumulate a minimum number of specimens to allow subsequent studies of any kind. The time lag between stages 1 and 3 is consistently over 70 years with groups such as the tropical genus Aframomum reflecting an average time lag of over 100 years. In light of our results, we suggest that species discovery is most accurately characterized as a lengthy process of knowledge accumulation, often spanning decades, rather than a one-off event.

中文翻译：

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发现一个物种需要多长时间？

对新物种的描述是对世界植物群进行编目的关键步骤。然而，这只是了解该物种代表什么的长期过程中的初步阶段。我们通过关注三个关键阶段来研究物种发现过程需要多长时间：1，第一个标本的收集；2、品种名称的公布；和 3，至少有 15 个准确命名的样本可用的日期。我们量化了与来自不同地区的不同物种数量的几组植物的这些阶段相关的时间滞后，包括 20 个物种最丰富的被子植物科。我们的分析表明，积累最少数量的标本以进行任何类型的后续研究需要数十年的时间。第 1 阶段和第 3 阶段之间的时间滞后始终超过 70 年，热带属 Aframomum 等群体的平均时间滞后超过 100 年。根据我们的结果，我们认为物种发现被最准确地描述为一个漫长的知识积累过程，通常跨越几十年，而不是一次性事件。