Mastodawn

Pinky Jones Feb 5, 2023

Sheril Kirshenbaum

A look at Earth’s biomass distributed between taxa.

Plants dominate accounting for >82% of biomass, followed by bacteria at 13%. The entire animal kingdom only makes up 0.4% & humans alone are just 0.01%. https://ourworldindata.org/life-on-earth #science #nature

Credit: Our World in Data using research by Bar-On et al. (2018). Biomass is measured in tonnes of carbon.

Humans make up just 0.01% of Earth's life — what's the rest?

How is life on Earth distributed across the taxonomic kingdoms? Humans make up just 0.01% of life: but we've had much larger impacts on shaping the animal kingdom. Livestock now outweighs wild mammals and birds ten-fold.

Our World in Data

Dagnabbit, Pascaline! 💥Feb 5, 2023

I love this, @Sheril.

Steven Molnar Feb 5, 2023

@Sheril Why are Canadians separate from Humans? Oh, wait, it does make sense.

J Mills Feb 5, 2023

@Sheril Would be interesting to see a taxonomic breakdown for Plants. Biomass of major crops like maize, soybean, wheat, rice, etc.

Alskicav Feb 5, 2023

@Sheril the 0.01% always seem to cause all the problems

myrmepropagandist Feb 5, 2023

*pumping fist in the air*

Arth! Ro! Pods!
Arth! Ro! Pods!

Let's go exo-legs!
*clap*
*clap*
*clap**clap**clap*

Let's go exo-legs!
*clap*
*clap*
*clap**clap**clap*

I mean... plants are cool too. But, most of the little minds are probably ant minds.

myrmepropagandist Feb 5, 2023

my husband: I don't think it's a competition
me: Ants win! the ants win!

Harry Turtledove Feb 6, 2023

@futurebird @Sheril

Most of the little minds are Republicans. The rest may be ants.

Southern Leftist Feb 5, 2023

@Sheril
Our World in Data is manipulated by millionaires such as Bill Gates and his cronies.

Still, nature is pulchritudinous.

Michael Gemar Feb 6, 2023

@Sheril As I recall, there’s been some findings of bacteria/archaea deep within the Earth’s crust, with the suggestion that the total biomass of these “hidden” organisms might be quite significant, rivaling that of “surface” life.

David Feb 6, 2023

@Sheril The terrifying part is the share of wild (non-fish, non-livestock, non-human) vertebrate animals.

Isaac Rabinovitch Feb 6, 2023

@Sheril So humans make 20% of all animal biomass? Oh dear.

AT-AT Assault 🏳️‍⚧️Feb 6, 2023

@Sheril Birds seem to be in danger of climate change extinction. I didn't realize there were so few of them.

Alaric Feb 6, 2023

@Sheril I wonder how they weighed all those nematodes without them squirming off?

Sanjay Thakur Feb 6, 2023

@Sheril Lowest has colonised the Earth and constantly destroyed the natural ecosystem .Intrigued at this puzzle of intelligence and can we claim to be most intelligent among all or others are just too evolved and their consciousness evolved at a level beyond our understanding.Who should be legitimate ruler if we go by the statistics displayed here ? Darwinian evolution from fish to monkey to human so far since advent of civilisation but why no more evolution beyond human .

BigD Feb 6, 2023

@sanjaythakur @Sheril
We have influenced so much of a change in how almost every species now lives.
I don't think we really have the time to evolve. Into what. A machine?
Plant life survives and strives far better than humans. Under and above water.
To me, they are the superior species anyway. We think we are because we are mobile.

New flyer D40LF Feb 6, 2023

@Sheril Wow. Waaaay more nematodes than I would’ve guessed. Those lil ground eels are everywhere aren’t they?

Knud Jahnke Feb 6, 2023

And we're still surprised that the bacteria are so upset we're using antibiotics?

BigD Feb 6, 2023

@Sheril Sobering.

llewelly Feb 6, 2023

@Sheril
Are they including algae and other autotrophs in plants? It seems so, but I can't tell.

@Sheril We should strive to increase biomass of all taxa. Especially plants and fish.