6 ms·

I don't think this is true.

• pavel_lishin 10y ago
  Based on what?
• notJim 10y ago
  https://xkcd.com/1717/ https://xkcd.com/1717/
• CydeWeys 10y ago
  It's important to realize that this is consumption per year, not biomass at any one time. At any given instant, the vast majority of the terrestrial biomass is made up of humans, our pets, and our livestock (estimates go as high as 98%). Most of that is cattle. However, it takes awhile to rear a cow, whereas insect lifetimes can be in the spans of days. So there's much more turn-over in the insect realm, which is how the accumulated number across the entire year grows so large, while still being much smaller than the total human & livestock biomass at any given time.
  • hellbanner 10y ago
    What estimates? I've only heard this estimate of ants (15-25%) http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29281253 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29281253
    • CydeWeys 10y ago
      That estimate is different -- it's referring to ant biomass versus human biomass. The statistic I'm talking about is about biomass attributable to humans, which includes all domesticated and tame animals. The vast majority of that figure is not human biomass itself, but our animals. You can see a bunch of the discussions on this claim online, and then probably track it back to a source: https://www.google.com/webhp?ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=human+biomass+98%25&* https://www.google.com/webhp?ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=human+b...
      • awinter-py 10y ago
        wait, your statement is that 98% of biomass attributable to humans is humans + livestock + pets? What about tree farms & edible crops? If cows are 70% water I imagine the other 30% is made out of corn. What about landfills?
        • CydeWeys 10y ago
          It's not my statement, it's someone else's. And, to clarify, it's not all biomass, it's terrestrial animal biomass. So crops and such don't matter, there aren't many living animals in landfills (not enough to matter anyway), and it doesn't matter what the cow ate, it's still a cow.
          • awinter-py 10y ago
            If it's just animals, this number should be 100%. Are they ruling out service animals? Also, I think this 'terrestrial animal mass attributable to humans' figure has no bearing on the spider stat. Unless we're saying spiders are attributable to humans because of our effect on the fly population.
            • CydeWeys 10y ago
              Why would it be 100%? There are plenty of wild animals out there. That you mention service animals leads me to believe that you're misunderstanding the statistic; service animals are a negligibly small portion of all total terrestrial animals. And it's important to compare multiple different stats that sort of deal with the same thing as a way of helping to evaluate a new claim, to see if it's internally consistent.
  • dredmorbius 10y ago
    My understanding is that humans + livestock are 98% of terrestrial vertebrate biomass. I've seen this from both Daniel Dennett and Paul Chefurka. Hrm, xkcd, now that I think of it. I've not run across a good number for invertebrate biomass, though your point of total annual cycle vs. instantaneous is worth considering. OK, I've just tracked down a Wikipedia page which gives ants + termites biomass as less than that of humans + cattle combined, roughly 850 GT vs. 750 GT, taking high-range estimates. Beatles are another highly-abundant insect phyle which might ... tip the scales. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)
    • CydeWeys 10y ago
      Thanks for the clarification. If invertebrate terrestrial biomass is of roughly the same order of magnitude as vertebrate terrestrial biomass, then the linked article starts making a lot more sense.