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The biomass distribution on Earth.

Yinon M Bar-On1, Rob Phillips2,3, Ron Milo4

  • 1Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel.

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Earth's biomass is dominated by plants, with animals concentrated in marine environments. This study quantifies global biomass, revealing significant human impact and surprising marine ecosystem structures.

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biomassbiosphereecologyquantitative biology

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Area of Science:

  • Ecology
  • Biogeochemistry
  • Environmental Science

Background:

  • Understanding Earth's biosphere structure and dynamics requires a biomass census.
  • A comprehensive global quantitative comparison of biomass across taxa is currently lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To establish a global census of biomass composition across all kingdoms of life.
  • To quantitatively compare biomass distribution and identify key ecological patterns.

Main Methods:

  • Assembled data to create a census of approximately 550 gigatons of carbon (Gt C) of biomass.
  • Analyzed the distribution of biomass among terrestrial, marine, and subsurface environments.
  • Quantified biomass for plants, animals, bacteria, and archaea.

Main Results:

  • Plants constitute the dominant kingdom (≈450 Gt C), primarily terrestrial.
  • Marine animals (≈2 Gt C) and subsurface bacteria (≈70 Gt C) and archaea (≈7 Gt C) have distinct global distributions.
  • Terrestrial biomass is significantly higher than marine biomass; marine biota estimated at ≈6 Gt C, doubling previous estimates.
  • Marine food webs exhibit more consumers than producers, indicating inverse biomass pyramids.
  • Human biomass is an order of magnitude greater than that of all wild mammals combined.

Conclusions:

  • This census provides a quantitative framework for biosphere structure and dynamics.
  • Humanity has had a substantial historical impact on global biomass of mammals, fish, and plants.
  • The findings necessitate a re-evaluation of marine ecosystem structure and the scale of human influence on global ecosystems.