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not *quite* the future yet
Jun. 23rd, 2004 11:39 pmAt least, I still can't make a natural-language world-almanac type query in a search engine ("computer, what are the...") and get a quick answer.
The question in question: what is the global distribution of biomass between various taxa? Do cyanobacteria outweigh nematodes? How does grass compare to hardwoods? There should totally be a Life Catalog where you can look up these things. The closest thing I found is the Baseline Report of the Census of Marine Life which reports that prokaryotes make up 82% of marine biomass, protists the remaining 18%, with zooplankton, swimmers, and megafauna coming in at 0.3%, 0.07%, and 0.01% respectively. But heck knows how that compares to land distributions... the ocean, frex, isn't real strong on vascular plants. And while presumably the biomass in the oceans outweighs land biomass (for a given surface area, life-containing volume in the 10s of meters on land and 1000s of meters in the sea), what's the actual distribution?
The question in question: what is the global distribution of biomass between various taxa? Do cyanobacteria outweigh nematodes? How does grass compare to hardwoods? There should totally be a Life Catalog where you can look up these things. The closest thing I found is the Baseline Report of the Census of Marine Life which reports that prokaryotes make up 82% of marine biomass, protists the remaining 18%, with zooplankton, swimmers, and megafauna coming in at 0.3%, 0.07%, and 0.01% respectively. But heck knows how that compares to land distributions... the ocean, frex, isn't real strong on vascular plants. And while presumably the biomass in the oceans outweighs land biomass (for a given surface area, life-containing volume in the 10s of meters on land and 1000s of meters in the sea), what's the actual distribution?
