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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAll life on Earth, in one staggering chart
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/29/17386112/all-life-on-earth-chart-weight-plants-animals-pnasScientists estimated the mass of all life.
If everyone on the planet were to step on one side of a giant balance scale, and all the bacteria on Earth were to be placed on the other side, wed shoot violently upward. Thats because all the bacteria on Earth combined are about 1,166 times more massive than all the humans.
Comparisons to other categories of life similarly demonstrate how very, very small we are. As a sweeping new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds, in a census sorting all the life on Earth by weight (measured in gigatons of carbon, the signature element of life on Earth), we make up less than 1 percent of life.
There are an estimated 550 gigatons of carbon of life in the world. A gigaton is equal to a billion metric tons. A metric ton is 1,000 kilograms, or about 2,200 pounds.
All life on Earth, in one chart
What youll see below is a kind of tower of life. Each large block of this tower represents a gigaton of life, and the blocks are grouped into broad kingdoms. There are the protists (think microscopic life like amoebae), archaea (single-celled organisms somewhat similar to bacteria), fungi (mushrooms and other types of fungus), bacteria (youre familiar with these, right?), plants, and animals.
..check it out..
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All life on Earth, in one staggering chart (Original Post)
G_j
May 2018
OP
That's right, though bacteria are far smaller than eukaryotic cells like ours
muriel_volestrangler
May 2018
#9
dameatball
(7,380 posts)1. i love posts like this. Illuminating. Thanks.
Humbling!
Thanks!
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)4. Very cool!
Thanks for posting!
RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)5. I also read that the typical human being has
more bacteria in his or her body than human body cells.
We couldn't survive without bacteria. Bacteria have even been discovered at the bottom of the ocean, at a volcanic vent.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,154 posts)9. That's right, though bacteria are far smaller than eukaryotic cells like ours
so by weight, they're still a distinct minority. (Eukaryotic = plants, fungi, animals, protists)
Duppers
(28,094 posts)6. The small amount of wild mammals 😖
"Animals are going extinct 1,000 to 10,000 faster than youd expect if no humans lived on Earth...
The authors of the PNAS article estimate that the mass of wild land mammals is seven times lower than it was before humans arrived..."
We're killing them off. Pick up your guns, boys; let's go huntin'.
G_j
(40,366 posts)7. Earth's sixth mass extinction event under way, scientists warn
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/10/earths-sixth-mass-extinction-event-already-underway-scientists-warn
Earth's sixth mass extinction event under way, scientists warn
Researchers talk of biological annihilation as study reveals billions of populations of animals have been lost in recent decades
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
Wounded Bear
(58,440 posts)8. Thanks for the link...nt
Orsino
(37,428 posts)10. If you could pile all the world's bacteria on one end of a seesaw...
...it would make a better president than Trump.