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Published (Version of record)CC BY-NC-ND V4.0, Open Access
Published (Version of record)CC BY-NC-ND V4.0, Open Access
Journal article
The biomass distribution on Earth
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, Vol.115(25), pp.6506-6511
19/Jun/2018
PMCID: PMC6016768
PMID: 29784790
Abstract
A census of the biomass on Earth is key for understanding the structure and dynamics of the biosphere. However, a global, quantitative view of how the biomass of different taxa compare with one another is still lacking. Here, we assemble the overall biomass composition of the biosphere, establishing a census of the ≈550 gigatons of carbon (Gt C) of biomass distributed among all of the kingdoms of life. We find that the kingdoms of life concentrate at different locations on the planet; plants (≈450 Gt C, the dominant kingdom) are primarily terrestrial, whereas animals (≈2 Gt C) are mainly marine, and bacteria (≈70 Gt C) and archaea (≈7 Gt C) are predominantly located in deep subsurface environments. We show that terrestrial biomass is about two orders of magnitude higher than marine biomass and estimate a total of ≈6 Gt C of marine biota, doubling the previous estimated quantity. Our analysis reveals that the global marine biomass pyramid contains more consumers than producers, thus increasing the scope of previous observations on inverse food pyramids. Finally, we highlight that the mass of humans is an order of magnitude higher than that of all wild mammals combined and report the historical impact of humanity on the global biomass of prominent taxa, including mammals, fish, and plants.
Details
- Title
- The biomass distribution on Earth
- Creators
- Yinon M Bar-On - 972WIS_INST___110Rob Phillips - California Institute of TechnologyRon Milo (Corresponding Author) - 972WIS_INST___110
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, Vol.115(25), pp.6506-6511; 19/Jun/2018
- Publisher
- United States
- Language
- English
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1711842115
- PMID
- 29784790
- PMCID
- PMC6016768
- Grant note
- We thank Shai Meiri for help with estimating the biomass of wild mammals, birds, and reptiles and Arren Bar-Even, Oded Beja, Jorg Bernhardt, Tristan Biard, Chris Bowler, Nuno Carvalhais, Otto Coredero, Gidon Eshel, Ofer Feinerman, Noah Fierer, Daniel Fisher, Avi Flamholtz, Assaf Gal, José Grünzweig, Marcel van der Heijden, Dina Hochhauser, Julie Huber, Qusheng Jin, Bo Barker Jørgensen, Jens Kallmeyer, Tamir Klein, Christian Koerner, Daniel Madar, Fabrice Not, Katherine O’Donnell, Gal Ofir, Victoria Orphan, Noam Prywes, John Raven, Dave Savage, Einat Segev, Maya Shamir, Izak Smit, Rotem Sorek, Ofer Steinitz, Miri Tsalyuk, Assaf Vardi, Colomban de Vargas, Joshua Weitz, Yossi Yovel, Yonatan Zegman, and two anonymous reviewers for productive feedback on this manuscript. This research was supported by the European Research Council (project NOVCARBFIX 646827), the Israel Science Foundation (Grant 740/16), the ISF-NRF Singapore Joint Research Program (Grant 7662712), the Beck Canadian Center for Alternative Energy Research, Dana and Yossie Hollander, the Ullmann Family Foundation, the Helmsley Charitable Foundation, the Larson Charitable Foundation, the Wolfson Family Charitable Trust, Charles Rothschild, and Selmo Nussenbaum. This study was also supported by the NIH through Grant 1R35 GM118043-01 (MIRA). R.M. is the Charles and Louise Gartner Professional Chair. Author contributions: Y.M.B.-O., R.P., and R.M. designed research; Y.M.B.-O. and R.M. performed research; Y.M.B.-O. and R.M. analyzed data; and Y.M.B.-O., R.P., and R.M. wrote the paper.
- Record Identifier
- 993199719803596
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