ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2018
The biomass distribution on Earth.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 857 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
857 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
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- Protist-mediated microbiome governance: Integrating trophic ecology, rhizosphere biology, and biotechnological potential.World journal of microbiology & biotechnology · 2026Review
- Carbon-to-ATP ratios across the kingdoms of life.iScience · 2026Article
- AcceleratingProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Groundwater microbial communities across the terrestrial subsurface.Nature microbiology · 2026Review
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- Strigolactone-mediated architecture regulation and stress resilience: Insights and innovations for crop breeding.Journal of integrative plant biology · 2026Review
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- The cost of construction noise: A case study on acoustic environment alteration and survival in pupfish (Cyprinodon variegatus).Journal of fish biology · 2026Article
- Article
797 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
A census of the biomass on Earth is key for understanding the structure and dynamics of the biosphere. However, a global, quantitative view of how the biomass of different taxa compare with one another is still lacking. Here, we assemble the overall biomass composition of the biosphere, establishing a census of the ≈550 gigatons of carbon (Gt C) of biomass distributed among all of the kingdoms of life. We find that the kingdoms of life concentrate at different locations on the planet; plants (≈450 Gt C, the dominant kingdom) are primarily terrestrial, whereas animals (≈2 Gt C) are mainly marine, and bacteria (≈70 Gt C) and archaea (≈7 Gt C) are predominantly located in deep subsurface environments. We show that terrestrial biomass is about two orders of magnitude higher than marine biomass and estimate a total of ≈6 Gt C of marine biota, doubling the previous estimated quantity. Our analysis reveals that the global marine biomass pyramid contains more consumers than producers, thus increasing the scope of previous observations on inverse food pyramids. Finally, we highlight that the mass of humans is an order of magnitude higher than that of all wild mammals combined and report the historical impact of humanity on the global biomass of prominent taxa, including mammals, fish, and plants.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.