[ExI] the big picture

[Stuart LaForge]

Here is an interesting article about the big picture of life in the  
biosphere. It breaks the biosphere down by the carbon mass of  
different taxa across different environments. There are some surprises  
to be found. Like how on land, plant life outweighs animal life, while  
in the oceans, animal life outweighs plant life by a large margin.

https://www.pnas.org/content/115/25/6506

The big takeaway is that this era in our natural history really does  
deserve to be called the Anthropocene. We contain 3% of the carbon  
contained in all animal life on Earth. We are but a single species but  
we outweigh all species of wild land vertebrates combined. If we count  
our livestock, our share of carbon biomass starts to rival some phyla  
of invertebrates. All this is before we even start talking about  
fossil fuel usage.

This is fascinating stuff. Also, I think it's cool that professional  
scientists are starting to data mine Wikipedia like I do.

Stuart LaForge