Open Questions

Open Flying Fox

Why It Is Open The genus Pteropus contains at least 60 species across South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, East Africa and Indian and Pacific island groups; single roosts of up to 100,000 individuals are recorded for some species, but no survey aggregates a total population across the whole genus.

What Would Settle It A coordinated genus-wide census combining the separate national and island surveys already conducted for individual Pteropus species.

Expertise Needed Chiropterology and conservation biology

Question posed in Pteropus (Wikipedia).

Open Spider Monkey

Why It Is Open All seven Ateles species are assessed as threatened, but published figures cover only individual species and local populations; no total wild population figure spanning the whole genus has been assembled.

What Would Settle It Range-wide population surveys for each of the seven Ateles species, combined into a single genus total.

Expertise Needed Primatology and conservation biology

Question posed in Spider Monkey (Wikipedia).

Open Capuchin Monkey

Why It Is Open Capuchin monkey taxonomy across Cebus and Sapajus remains disputed, and most population data are local abundance studies rather than range-wide counts, so no reliable total population figure exists for the group.

What Would Settle It A settled species-level taxonomy for Cebinae paired with range-wide surveys for each recognized species.

Expertise Needed Primatology and conservation biology

Question posed in Capuchin Monkey (Wikipedia).

Open Termite

Why It Is Open Termite abundance is usually measured as a share of insect biomass rather than a raw individual count, and biomass estimates vary sharply by region, so no reliable global population figure exists across the nearly 3,000 described species.

What Would Settle It Standardized biomass and colony-density surveys across representative habitats worldwide, converted to a defensible global population estimate.

Expertise Needed Entomology and ecology

Question posed in Termite (Wikipedia).

Open Moray Eel

Why It Is Open Moray eels are cryptic reef and crevice dwellers across roughly 200 species, and most population data are local reef-survey counts rather than range-wide totals, so no global population figure exists for the family.

What Would Settle It Systematic reef and habitat surveys across the family full range, aggregated by species.

Expertise Needed Ichthyology and marine ecology

Question posed in Moray Eel (Wikipedia).

Open Poison Dart Frog

Why It Is Open Population studies exist for individual Dendrobatidae species at specific field sites, but chytrid fungus disease and habitat loss are changing numbers unevenly across roughly 200 species, so no reliable total population figure has been assembled for the family.

What Would Settle It Coordinated field surveys across the family range tracking chytrid impact and habitat loss by species.

Expertise Needed Herpetology and conservation biology

Question posed in Poison Dart Frog (Wikipedia).

Open Aardwolf

Why It Is Open The cited Wikipedia source gives only a maximum density figure (no more than one individual per square kilometer where food is abundant), not a total population count or range-wide estimate.

What Would Settle It A range-wide population survey or IUCN Red List assessment stating a total number or a defensible estimate range for wild aardwolf numbers.

Expertise Needed Wildlife population ecology

Question posed in Aardwolf (Wikipedia), Conservation section.

Open Agile Gibbon

Why It Is Open The cited Wikipedia source states the species is endangered due to habitat loss and the pet trade but gives no population count or estimate range anywhere in the article.

What Would Settle It An IUCN Red List assessment or field census stating a total or estimated range-wide population figure for the agile gibbon.

Expertise Needed Primatology / wildlife population ecology

Question posed in Agile Gibbon (Wikipedia), Lead section.

Open Muskrat

Why It Is Open Wikipedia states the muskrat population has declined by at least one-half in 34 US states but gives no total global count or range anywhere in the article, only this regional decline figure.

What Would Settle It A coordinated global or continent-wide muskrat census or standing estimate from a wildlife authority such as IUCN or a national fish and wildlife agency.

Expertise Needed wildlife population ecology

Question posed in Muskrat (Wikipedia), Range and conservation status section.

Open Sun Bear

Why It Is Open Wikipedia states the global sun bear population has declined by an estimated 35 percent since the 1990s but gives no absolute total count or range anywhere in the article, only this percentage decline and local density figures.

What Would Settle It A coordinated range-wide sun bear population estimate from the IUCN Bear Specialist Group or a national wildlife authority across its Southeast Asian range.

Expertise Needed wildlife population ecology

Question posed in Sun Bear (Wikipedia), Conservation status section, population decline estimate.

Open Kelp Forests

Why It Is Open Kelp beds grow along narrow, scattered stretches of cold, rocky coastline worldwide, many of them remote or difficult to survey by boat, so no single comprehensive census exists; published global-extent estimates vary by more than an order of magnitude depending on the survey method (aerial, boat-based or satellite) and the definition of kelp forest used.

What Would Settle It A standardized, repeated satellite remote-sensing survey of the world coastline, cross-validated against in-water surveys, of the kind marine ecologists have begun assembling only in the last few years for select regions.

Expertise Needed Marine ecology and remote sensing

Question posed in National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Open Mesopotamian Marshes

Why It Is Open The marshes were reduced to a small fraction of their pre-1990s extent by deliberate drainage, and reflooding has been underway since 2003, but published figures for the currently restored area diverge significantly by source and by year, and many describe the recovery only in relative terms (a share of the historic maximum) rather than a settled square-kilometer figure. Water flow from the Tigris and Euphrates, itself affected by upstream damming in Turkey, Syria and Iran and by regional drought, keeps changing the extent year to year rather than letting it settle.

What Would Settle It A current, dated satellite-derived wetland-extent survey, ideally repeated over consecutive years by the same methodology, published by a body such as UN Environment, the Iraqi government's own marshland restoration program, or a peer-reviewed remote-sensing study, would give a figure that can be cited with real confidence rather than the mixed and dated estimates currently circulating.

Expertise Needed Wetland ecology and remote sensing

Question posed in UNESCO World Heritage Centre.

Open Gobi Desert

Why It Is Open The Gobi Desert's own Wikipedia entry states that some geographers and ecologists treat its western area as a separate desert, the Taklamakan, rather than as part of the Gobi itself.

What Would Settle It A geomorphological and ecological survey establishing where the Taklamakan's dune sea and dry climate genuinely diverge from the Gobi's cold steppe-desert character, agreed on by the physical geography community.

Expertise Needed Physical geography

Question posed in Gobi Desert (Wikipedia).

Open Sonoran Desert

Why It Is Open The Sonoran Desert's own Wikipedia entry asserts, with an acknowledged caveat, that it may be the joint hottest desert on Earth, while noting possible contrary evidence exists.

What Would Settle It A standardized comparative temperature survey across the world's hot deserts using one consistent measurement method and time period.

Expertise Needed Climatology

Question posed in Sonoran Desert (Wikipedia).

Open Canadian Boreal Forest

Why It Is Open The Canadian boreal forest's own Wikipedia entry states that increasing temperatures and disturbance rates will make the forest a net carbon source for more than a hundred years, and that this will have global impacts researchers are still uncertain about.

What Would Settle It Long-term carbon-flux monitoring across the boreal forest's major disturbance regimes, combined with climate modeling of the resulting global feedback.

Expertise Needed Forest ecology

Question posed in Boreal Forest of Canada (Wikipedia).

Open Patagonian Steppe

Why It Is Open A cited further-reading source on the Patagonian Desert Wikipedia article poses whether dust raised from the Patagonian Steppe reaches the sub-Antarctic Atlantic Ocean as an open research question.

What Would Settle It Atmospheric dust-transport modeling or sediment-core sampling in the sub-Antarctic Atlantic tracing mineral signatures back to Patagonian sources.

Expertise Needed Atmospheric science

Question posed in Patagonian Desert (Wikipedia).

Open Great Plains

Why It Is Open Fossil dental-wear evidence has revived a dispute over why grazing mammals on the Great Plains evolved such abrasion-resistant teeth: the traditional account credits grass itself, while a competing hypothesis points to windblown grit and dust instead.

What Would Settle It Comparative dental microwear and phytolith analysis distinguishing tooth wear caused by grass silica from wear caused by ingested mineral grit.

Expertise Needed Paleontology

Question posed in Great Plains (Wikipedia).

Open Kruger National Park

Why It Is Open Kruger National Park's own recorded insect inventory is incomplete; its Wikipedia entry states the total number of Lepidoptera species in the park is unknown but could be in the order of 7,000.

What Would Settle It A systematic lepidopteran survey of the park's full range of habitats and seasons.

Expertise Needed Entomology

Question posed in Kruger National Park (Wikipedia).

Open Antarctic Peninsula

Why It Is Open The Antarctic Peninsula's own Wikipedia entry states that the IPCC has been unable to determine the greatest potential effect on sea level rise that glaciers in the region may cause.

What Would Settle It Long-term glaciological monitoring and ice-sheet modeling of the peninsula's glacier mass balance under different warming scenarios.

Expertise Needed Glaciology

Question posed in Antarctic Peninsula (Wikipedia).

Open Deep Sea

Why It Is Open Published figures for the total area of the deep ocean floor vary by more than 10 percent depending on the depth-contour definition used (commonly 200m) and the underlying bathymetric data set, ranging from roughly 300 to 335 million square kilometers in different sources; NOAA itself states the extent only as a share of the ocean (over 90 percent of the ocean is deep ocean) rather than a single agreed area figure, and less than 0.001 percent of the deep seafloor has ever been directly observed, which is part of why no more precise consensus figure exists.

What Would Settle It A single, standardized global bathymetric survey below the 200m contour, using one consistent methodology, of the kind not yet completed as of this writing (Seabed 2030 and similar mapping initiatives are working toward this but are not yet complete).

Expertise Needed Oceanography and bathymetric mapping

Question posed in How Much of the Ocean Has Been Explored? (NOAA Ocean Exploration), Ocean fact: How much of the ocean has been explored?.