Talk:Biomass (ecology)

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Might want to link in Fibrominn. --Borisborf 03:40, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] "40 to 60%" sounds exaggerated.

The statement "Humans, domesticated animals and crops comprise somewhere between 40 to 60% of the Earth's biomass." that appears second paragraph, second sentence; it strikes me as an error or exaggeration, but I'm no expert on the details. Is there a biologist or other specialist that could cite the research, or offer a more thorough explanation about humans and human husbandry could even approach 50% of the earth total biomass? I did a crude calculation of the volume of “human biomass” and it works out to be only 0.325 cubic km for 325 million metric tones of humans (assuming an average mass of 50 kg per individual). When I consider the vast expanses of forest and marine habitat, I’m dubious about the “40 to 60%” range given.

I agree. -Willmcw 21:52, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
It looks like someone's fixed it. There are figures for humans, domesticated animals and crops, making up about 4% altogether. No reference, though. --Random wikipedia user.

[edit] Breakdown of Earths Biomass

I think it may be useful to include a breadown of the Earths biomass. I've been hunting for some kind of info about what percentage of the Earth's biomass is made up of plants and have found absolutely nothing on the rest of the interweb. This page is the only one that mentions percentages in any kind of meaningful way. The information is incomplete. Humans make up 0.33%, what about the rest? Where's the piechart?

No piechart, but I've inserted a Table
Regards John D. Croft 13:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ants & Biomass Percentages

The following "Mad Scientist" post (http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/dec99/945142818.Zo.r.html) discusses (unfortunately without citation) scientific estimates that ants comprise 30% of the biomass of the Amazon basin and perhaps 10% of global biomass.

[edit] Agreed, we need more data

It is my understanding that generally speaking, the smaller the organism, the greater its total biomass. Certainly this would give ants, krill, fungus and perhaps even bacteria much greater mass than we imagine. I too was searching for a "Pie chart" breakdown but perhaps the definition is at issue as well since I am not immediately interested in the sum total of all organic weight wether dead or alive as I now know biomass defines. I would rather prefer a breakdown of living organisms as defined by biosphere. Any further specification would be helpful.

[edit] Estimate of total biomass is incorrect.

The page defines biomass as:

"Biomass is organic non-fossil material, collectively. In other words, 'biomass' describes the mass of all biological organisms, dead or alive..."

and then goes on to state:

"The entire earth contains about 75 billion tons of biomass."

Assuming 1 billion is 10^9, this estimate is too low to be consistent with the definition.

To give an example, in its "Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000", the FAO estimates that the "global total above-ground woody biomass was 422 billion tonnes"

(http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/DOCREP/004/Y1997E/y1997e01.htm).

David Wardle.

--David Wardle 04:24, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I tagged it for cleanup

This subject deserves a better article. --Smithfarm 11:33, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I would like to know how to tag this for needing much more in-depth information. It's a stub entry. I'm in touch with people at Nottingham's biomass plant which supplies local heat and electricity to the city centre area in the uk - there must be experts around who wouldn't mind sharing... July 06 Shomon

[edit] Prokaryotic Diversity anyone?

I don't understand how an article can be written about biomass, and have none, zero, zip mention of prokaryotic life. The most diverse, and basal elements of the ecological ladder get shafted so some joker can make off hand remarks about Krill.

I fart in the general direction of anyone associated with this article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.181.181.36 (talk • contribs) .

Good point. Rather than farting you could add some information about it. --Salix alba (talk) 12:02, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I came to this article looking for good information about where the biomass is. I was looking to confirm data on pg 393 of A History of Knowledge by Charls Van Doren ISBN 0-345-37316-2.

[edit] Biomass Fuel

Quoting from the biomass for biofuels article, "bioethanol, biobutanol and biodiesel; these two last ones are direct biofuels." I'm curious what a direct biofuel is compared to an indirect biofuel. Also, the article barely mentions biomass being burnt and used as a cooking/heating fuel when this is the dominant use. User:Mrshaba

[edit] Ocean Biomass

I am surprised that this article says that the oceans biomass is so small (~4 billion tonnes) compared to the land (~1870 billion tonnes). I find it hard to believe, it needs to be checked. Nicolharper 18:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

The table is of biomass production for human use. Perhaps a more appropriate table could be found. —Pengo talk · contribs 03:44, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Pengo. Thanks for checking it. Nicolharper 18:10, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] definition

For what it's worth, here is the definition of biomass from a standard published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineers and cross adopted by the American National Standards Institute. ike9898 16:27, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Biomass: Organic materials that are plant or animal based,including but not limited to dedicated energy crops, agricultural crops andtrees, food, feed and fiber crop residues, aquatic plants, forestry and wood residues, agricultural wastes, biobased segments of industrial andmunicipal wastes, processing by-products and other non-fossil organic materials.
ANSI/ASABE S593 MAY2006
Terminology and Definitions for Biomass Production, Harvesting and Collection, Storage, Processing, Conversion and Utilization


[edit] "Biomass production" table

I think the columns of the "Biomass production" table need to be explained. What is "world biomass" for instance? The article says that the total biomass in the world is 75 billion tons, but the entries in this column are much larger. A5 17:25, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biomass (ecology) - reference for prokaryotes

This reference (from Wiki page on bacteria) estimates that the carbon content of all prokaryotes is 350-550 Pg. (1 Pg = 10^15 g = 1 billion tons). The dry weight would be about double this, 700-1100 billion tones.

^ Whitman W, Coleman D, Wiebe W (1998). "Prokaryotes: the unseen majority". Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 95 (12): 6578 – 83. PMID 9618454.

Graham853 20:53, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mass vs. Biomass

I just tossed in the percentage of how much of the Earth's mass is biomass. 75 trillion kg is 0.00000000126% of 6e24 kg. Even if the 7.5e13 kg is an estimate, it still provides a general sense of how much of the Earth is actually organic in nature. samwaltz 07:00, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arithmetic is fun

Humans comprise about 250 million tons (0.33%) of the Earth's biomass

Which leads to an interesting figure of the average human weighing 34 kilograms, or 75 lbs. Now, even given that not every human being in the world is a fully-grown fully-nourished adult, this seems suspiciously low. --76.224.78.226 11:56, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it's only dry biomass, water excluded. Thus it is only 30% of the total weight of people (the rest is water). Now it seems a bit high, though - 120 kg per person? Dan Gluck 09:41, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Google Answers thread may provide relevant references

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=567966

estimates about 1 trillion tons biomass total —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ciphergoth (talk • contribs) 11:36, 6 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Units/tons English/US measurement?

Are the units (e.g. "tons") in this article English/US units? (Ton) -- Writtenonsand (talk) 12:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Krill vs Humans 500 to 100 is more than twice

it says "Antarctic krill...probably over 500 million tons, roughly twice the total biomass of humans." then later says "Humans comprise about 100 million tons (0.13%) of the Earth's biomass" so either 500, 100, or "twice" is wrong. Which is it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrrealtime (talk • contribs) 03:08, 17 March 2008 (UTC)