Global Carbon Content of Groups of Organisms

[BillTre]

This article describes how total carbon in organisms is distributed among different groups.
Science news article here.
Original PNAS article here.
Plants win, not surprisingly (primary producers).
Bacteria are next (Archaea which are similar to bacteria in many ways have much less carbon).
Insects win among animals, but fish are pretty close.
Livestock out numbers wild mammals and birds combined, indicating the power of humans to affect the environment on a large scale.

 

[jim mcnamara]

A major point of the article is that humans have had huge impacts on the environment. The data is reported using carbon biomass, meaning how many tons of carbon are in all mammals combined, or humans as well.

For example there are more chickens than any other species of bird, ~19 billion chickens by an FAO estimate in 2002.
Popular Science article:
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/how-many-chickens-are-there-in-the-world.html