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> Also, “biomass” is a strange term. Is that literally an estimate of mass? It is indeed. The idea being that individuals vary greatly (it doesn't make sense t
by nicoburns 4y ago
> Also, “biomass” is a strange term. Is that literally an estimate of mass?
It is indeed. The idea being that individuals vary greatly (it doesn't make sense to compare individual counts of humans with individual counts of ants for example), and that mass at least roughly accounts for the size of individuals.
- club_tropical 4y agoBut, especially in mammals, it is the individual animal that is the fundamental unit. A cheetah and an elephant are unique individuated specimens; it doesn’t make sense to compare their mass. In ants/bees it’s maybe something like “number of colonies/hives” that is the meaningful unit. Why would anyone compare across species by mass- that is a reductive number, you can’t infer anything meaningful out of it. Also, certainly not by percentage - have to look at absolute numbers of meaningful units over time.
- pvaldes 4y ago> it is the individual animal that is the fundamental unit. Not. This is a very common mistake among people that does not understand ecology.
- club_tropical 4y agoYou can call me a heretic for questioning His Majesty The Ecologist, but the emperor wears no clothes and percentage of aggregate biomass is the most meaningless metric I've ever heard to study mammals.
- pvaldes 4y agoYour opinion about monarchs and underpants has been carefully registered by our royal lackey penguins