Stop the biodiversity sampling arms race | Science

Global biodiversity is in crisis, with wild vertebrate populations declining by 69% since 1970 (1). At the same time, advances in high-throughput genetic sequencing and an increase in international collaborations have shifted biodiversity research toward data-intensive paradigms, in which single studies may now involve thousands of specimens and large quantities of species-level data (2). But must biodiversity breakthroughs depend on substantial biological sampling? In our opinion, the answer is no. Instead, we believe that study sample size should be determined on the basis of scientific justifications.