Helping me wander about left field, my Facebook correspondent responds:
By “recover from damage” I meant in such a way that mankind could continue to live comfortably and sustainably on this planet. We’re wrecking it for ourselves, and for millions of species we have and are exterminating. But life will go on, on this planet, with or without us. Many species will adapt. So it’s just self interest. I’d like to not have to worry if my grandkids are going to be wiped out by pestilence or war or hunger or thirst simply because current day peoples are too stupid and short-sighted. We are a part of nature, sure. But we’ve got more influence over our natural world than all the rest of the species put together.
Yes, I suppose so, although I can’t help but note the AntBlog, back in 2010, has made some notes concerning total biomasses:
Worldwide biomass estimates for individual species are very difficult to come by. The most rigorous estimates are for humans and domesticated animals. There are probably a little more than 6.7 billion humans alive right now, and together, we might weigh as much as 335,000,000,000 kg (or 737,000,000,000 lbs.) This figure is based on an average human weight of more than 100lbs, though (50kg, to be exact). I don’t know how accurate this estimate is, especially considering that about 1/3 of us are children. There are supposedly around 1.3 billion cattle in the world, and, put together, they may weigh almost twice as much as our species.
The only non-domestic, super-abundant species for which serious attempts have been made at estimating biomass is a type of shrimp that lives in the cold waters around Antarctica: the Antarctic krill, Euphausia superba,. They are the primary food for many fish and baleen whales (suborder Mysticeti). In a really interesting study (click here for more) Atkinson and colleagues (2009) calculated the world biomass of krill to be between 117 and 379,000,000,000 kg (note that the upper estimate is slightly above what people have suggested for the total human biomass). Truly, these organisms are successful. They might be the only wild species that could compete with Homo sapiens for the title of “species with the most biomass.”
However, we can’t forget that as much animal biomass as there is, there is even more plant and bacterial biomass. Probably at least ten times as much as the biomass of all animals put together. Scientists still argue about which has more biomass on earth: bacteria or plants. Worldwide, they both probably have about the same amount of Carbon, but Bacteria probably contain about 10 times more Nitrogen and Phosphorus (read more here ) Like ants, though, there are many many species of bacteria and plants, and I don’t know of any studies that attempt to estimate world-wide biomass for a single species of either.
But I’ll agree with you ahead of time, it’s not really relevant – just very interesting. What are all those bacteria up to, anyways?
