—
We looked at how global biomass is distributed between taxonomic kingdoms here. How is it distributed between environments?
The visualization below provides a snapshot of how life spans across the planet’s environments. This summary is based on the findings of research by Bar-On, Phillips & Milo published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).1
There are three high-level habitat environments: land, marine, and deep subsurface environments. Deep subsurface environments can be terrestrial or below the ocean floor, but represent habitats deep below the surface – extending from around 50 metres to thousands of metres below the surface.2 The visualization on the left shows a global summary by biomass. The bar charts on the right show the breakdown by taxonomic kingdom.
Most of life exists on land — 86% of biomass. This is because almost all plant life – mostly trees – is terrestrial. The authors estimate that marine plants, for example seaweed, make up less than 1 billion tonnes of carbon. This is less than 0.2% of total plant biomass.3 Most bacteria and archaea exists in the deep subsurface, meaning 13 percent of global biomass thrives in this environment.
Despite dominating our planet in terms of area and volume – taking up more than 70% of global surface area – the oceans are home to just 1% of biomass. But they do dominate the animal kingdom: 78% of animal biomass lives in the marine environment.
With lifeforms ranging in size from the microscopic cellular level to large lifeforms that span tens of hectares,4 it is impossible to contextualize life on Earth through experience or intuition alone. Looking at the big numbers allows us to understand our planet and our place in it.
Footnotes
Bar-On, Y. M., Phillips, R., & Milo, R. (2018). The biomass distribution on Earth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201711842. Available at: http://www.pnas.org/content/115/25/6506.
Parnell, J., & McMahon, S. (2016). Physical and chemical controls on habitats for life in the deep subsurface beneath continents and ice. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 374(2059), 20140293.
Total plant biomass is 450 billion tonnes of carbon, so in a maximum case: (1 billion tonnes / 450 billion tonnes) * 100 = 0.02 percent.
Pando (a tree), also known as the ‘Trembling Giant’ is a colony of aspen in Utah and named the world’s largest organism. It is determined to be a single living organism based on identical genetic markers and a single underground root system.
—
This post was previously published on Our World in Data and is republished here with a Creative Commons license.
—
???
Have you read the original anthology that was the catalyst for The Good Men Project? Buy here: The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood
???
Talk to you soon.
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want to join our calls on a regular basis, please join us as a Premium Member, today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: istockphoto