ArticleNature communications2025
The global biomass of mammals since 1850.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
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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.
The trial behind it
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
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- [Environmental changes and the emergence of zoonoses].Medecine tropicale et sante internationale · 2026Review
- Scientists' Warning to Humanity: Unnecessary Bureaucracy Is a Global Impediment to Productivity, Advancement of Human and Planetary Wellbeing, Science and Sustainability.Microbial biotechnology · 2026Article
- A systematic review and meta-analysis ofOne health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2026Review
- Nine changes needed to deliver a radical transformation in biodiversity measurement.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Gammaretrovirus Infections in Humans in the Past, Present, and Future: Have We Defeated the Pathogen?Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Article
- Human biomass movement exceeds the biomass movement of all land animals combined.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Mammals are of central interest in ecology and conservation science. Here, we estimate the trajectory of mammal biomass globally over time - including humans, domesticated and wild mammals. According to our estimates, in the 1850s, the combined biomass of wild mammals was ≈200 Mt (million tonnes), roughly equal to that of humanity and its domesticated mammals at that time. Since then, human and domesticated mammal populations have grown rapidly, reaching their current combined biomass of ≈1100 Mt. During the same period, the total biomass of wild mammals decreased by more than 2-fold. We estimate that, despite a moderate increase in the recent decades, the global biomass of wild marine mammals has declined by ≈70% since the 1850s. This provides a broader perspective to observed species extinctions, with ≈2% of marine mammal species recorded as extinct during the same period. While historical wild mammal biomass estimates rely on limited data and have various uncertainties, they provide a complementary perspective to species extinctions and other metrics in tracking the status of wildlife. This work additionally provides a quantitative view on the rapid human-induced shift in the composition of mammalian biomass over the past two centuries.
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Registered trials
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.