Lists of organisms by population

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A swarm of common starlings. Numbering over 310 million, this species contains at least as many individuals as the United States does humans. Storni 1000128.JPG
A swarm of common starlings. Numbering over 310 million, this species contains at least as many individuals as the United States does humans.

This is a collection of lists of organisms by their population. While most of the numbers are estimates, they have been made by the experts in their fields. Species population is a science falling under the purview of population ecology and biogeography. Individuals are counted by census, as carried out for the piping plover; [3] [4] using the transect method, as done for the mountain plover; [5] and beginning in 2012 by satellite, with the emperor penguin being first subject counted in this manner. [6]

Contents

Number of species

More than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species, [7] that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct. [8] [9] Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14 million, [10] of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. [11] According to another study, the number of described species has been estimated at 1,899,587. [12] 2000–2009 saw approximately 17,000 species described per year. [12] The total number of undescribed organisms is unknown, but marine microbial species alone could number 20,000,000. [12] For this reason, the number of quantified species will always lag behind the number of described species, and species contained in these lists tend to be on the K side of the r/K selection continuum. More recently, in May 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described. [13] The total number of related DNA base pairs on Earth is estimated at 5.0 x 1037 and weighs 50 billion tonnes. [14] In comparison, the total mass of the biosphere has been estimated to be as much as 4 TtC (trillion [million million] tonnes of carbon). [15] In July 2016, scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the Last universal common ancestor (LUCA) of all organisms living on Earth. [16]

By domain

The domain of eukaryotes represent a small minority of the number of organisms; [17] however, due to their generally much larger size, their collective global biomass is estimated to be about equal to that of prokaryotes. [17] Prokaryotes number about 4–6 × 1030 cells and 350–550 Pg of C. [18]

Microbes

It is estimated that the most numerous bacteria are of a species of the Pelagibacterales (or SAR11) clade, perhaps Pelagibacter ubique , and the most numerous viruses are bacteriophages infecting these species. [19] It is estimated that the oceans contain about 2.4 × 1028 (24 octillion) SAR11 cells. [20] The Deep Carbon Observatory has been exploring living forms in the interior of the Earth. "Life in deep Earth totals 15 to 23 billion tons of carbon". [21]

Animalia

Relative terrestrial biomasses of vertebrates versus arthropods Terrestrial biomass.svg
     Relative terrestrial biomasses
of vertebrates versus arthropods

Vertebrates

Mammals (Mammalia)

The development of the world's landbased fauna over the millennia measured in biomass Decline-of-the-worlds-wild-mammals.png
The development of the world's landbased fauna over the millennia measured in biomass

Birds (Aves)

Reptiles (Reptilia)

AnimalPopulationNotes
Chinese alligator 100–200 [24] Only in the wild. Chinese alligators are quite prolific in captivity, with estimates of the total captive population at over 10,000 animals, mostly in the Anhui Research Centre of Chinese Alligator Reproduction and the Madras Crocodile Bank.
Komodo dragon 4,000–5,000Their populations are restricted to the islands of Gili Motang (100), Gili Dasami (100), Rinca (1,300), Komodo (1,700), and Flores (perhaps 2,000). [25] However, there are concerns that there may presently be only 350 breeding females. [26]

Hexapoda

Insects (Insecta)

Recent figures indicate that there are more than 1.4 billion insects for each human on the planet, [27] or roughly 1019 (10 quintillion) individual living insects on the earth at any given time. [28] An article in The New York Times claimed that the world holds 300 pounds of insects for every pound of humans. [28] Ants have colonised almost every landmass on Earth. Their population is estimated as between 1016–1017 (10-100 quadrillion). [29] With an estimated 20 quadrillion ants their biomass comes to 12 megatons of dry carbon, which is more than all wild birds and non-human mammals combined. [30] [31] [32]

Plantae

Trees

According to NASA in 2005, there were over 400 billion trees on our globe. [33] However, more recently, in 2015, using better methods, the global tree count has been estimated at 3 trillion. [34] Other studies show that the Amazonian forest alone yields approximately 430 billion trees. [35] Extrapolations from data compiled over a period of 10 years suggest that greater Amazonia, which includes the Amazon Basin and the Guiana Shield, harbors around 390 billion individual trees. [36]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biosphere</span> Global sum of all ecosystems on Earth

The biosphere, also called the ecosphere, is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems. It can also be termed the zone of life on Earth. The biosphere is virtually a closed system with regard to matter, with minimal inputs and outputs. Regarding energy, it is an open system, with photosynthesis capturing solar energy at a rate of around 100 terawatts. By the most general biophysiological definition, the biosphere is the global ecological system integrating all living beings and their relationships, including their interaction with the elements of the lithosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. The biosphere is postulated to have evolved, beginning with a process of biopoiesis or biogenesis, at least some 3.5 billion years ago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Forest</span> Dense collection of trees covering a relatively large area

A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines a forest as, "Land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ. It does not include land that is predominantly under agricultural or urban use." Using this definition, Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020 found that forests covered 4.06 billion hectares, or approximately 31 percent of the world's land area in 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Life</span> Matter with biological processes

Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from matter that does not. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, organisation, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli, and reproduction. All life over time eventually reaches a state of death, and none is immortal. Many philosophical definitions of living systems have been proposed, such as self-organizing systems. Viruses in particular make definition difficult as they replicate only in host cells. Life exists all over the Earth in air, water, and soil, with many ecosystems forming the biosphere. Some of these are harsh environments occupied only by extremophiles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microorganism</span> Microscopic living organism

A microorganism, or microbe, is an organism of microscopic size, which may exist in its single-celled form or as a colony of cells.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biomass (ecology)</span> Total mass of living organisms in a given area (all species or selected species)

Biomass is the mass of living biological organisms in a given area or ecosystem at a given time. Biomass can refer to species biomass, which is the mass of one or more species, or to community biomass, which is the mass of all species in the community. It can include microorganisms, plants or animals. The mass can be expressed as the average mass per unit area, or as the total mass in the community.

This list contains selected positive numbers in increasing order, including counts of things, dimensionless quantities and probabilities. Each number is given a name in the short scale, which is used in English-speaking countries, as well as a name in the long scale, which is used in some of the countries that do not have English as their national language.

Ecological yield is the harvestable population growth of an ecosystem. It is most commonly measured in forestry: sustainable forestry is defined as that which does not harvest more wood in a year than has grown in that year, within a given patch of forest.

The mesopelagiczone, also known as the middle pelagic or twilight zone, is the part of the pelagic zone that lies between the photic epipelagic and the aphotic bathypelagic zones. It is defined by light, and begins at the depth where only 1% of incident light reaches and ends where there is no light; the depths of this zone are between approximately 200 to 1,000 meters below the ocean surface.

<i>Candidatus Pelagibacter communis</i> Species of bacterium

"Candidatus Pelagibacter", with the single species "Ca. P. communis", was isolated in 2002 and given a specific name, although it has not yet been described as required by the bacteriological code. It is an abundant member of the SAR11 clade in the phylum Alphaproteobacteria. SAR11 members are highly dominant organisms found in both salt and fresh water worldwide and were originally known only from their rRNA genes, first identified in the Sargasso Sea in 1990 by Stephen Giovannoni's laboratory at Oregon State University and later found in oceans worldwide. "Ca. P. communis" and its relatives may be the most abundant organisms in the ocean, and quite possibly the most abundant bacteria in the entire world. It can make up about 25% of all microbial plankton cells, and in the summer they may account for approximately half the cells present in temperate ocean surface water. The total abundance of "Ca. P. communis" and relatives is estimated to be about 2 × 1028 microbes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marine life</span> Organisms that live in salt water

Marine life, sea life or ocean life is the collective ecological communities that encompass all aquatic animals, plants, algae, fungi, protists, single-celled microorganisms and associated viruses living in the saline water of marine habitats, either the sea water of marginal seas and oceans, or the brackish water of coastal wetlands, lagoons, estuaries and inland seas. As of 2023, more than 242,000 marine species have been documented, and perhaps two million marine species are yet to be documented. An average of 2,332 new species per year are being described. Marine life is studied scientifically in both marine biology and in biological oceanography.

Bacteriophages (phages), potentially the most numerous "organisms" on Earth, are the viruses of bacteria. Phage ecology is the study of the interaction of bacteriophages with their environments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biology</span> Science that studies life

Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of at least one cell that processes hereditary information encoded in genes, which can be transmitted to future generations. Another major theme is evolution, which explains the unity and diversity of life. Energy processing is also important to life as it allows organisms to move, grow, and reproduce. Finally, all organisms are able to regulate their own internal environments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tree allometry</span> Quantitative relations between some key characteristic dimensions of trees

Tree allometry establishes quantitative relations between some key characteristic dimensions of trees and other properties. To the extent these statistical relations, established on the basis of detailed measurements on a small sample of typical trees, hold for other individuals, they permit extrapolations and estimations of a host of dendrometric quantities on the basis of a single measurements.

Astroecology concerns the interactions of biota with space environments. It studies resources for life on planets, asteroids and comets, around various stars, in galaxies, and in the universe. The results allow estimating the future prospects for life, from planetary to galactic and cosmological scales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eukaryote</span> Domain of life whose cells have nuclei

The eukaryotes constitute the domain of Eukaryota or Eukarya, organisms whose cells have a membrane-bound nucleus. All animals, plants, fungi, seaweeds, and many unicellular organisms are eukaryotes. They constitute a major group of life forms alongside the two groups of prokaryotes: the Bacteria and the Archaea. Eukaryotes represent a small minority of the number of organisms, but given their generally much larger size, their collective global biomass is much larger than that of prokaryotes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marine microorganisms</span> Any life form too small for the naked human eye to see that lives in a marine environment

Marine microorganisms are defined by their habitat as microorganisms living in a marine environment, that is, in the saltwater of a sea or ocean or the brackish water of a coastal estuary. A microorganism is any microscopic living organism or virus, which is invisibly small to the unaided human eye without magnification. Microorganisms are very diverse. They can be single-celled or multicellular and include bacteria, archaea, viruses, and most protozoa, as well as some fungi, algae, and animals, such as rotifers and copepods. Many macroscopic animals and plants have microscopic juvenile stages. Some microbiologists also classify viruses as microorganisms, but others consider these as non-living.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Crowther (ecologist)</span> British ecologist (born 1986)

Thomas Ward Crowther is a British ecologist. He is a former professor of ecology at ETH Zürich and a founding co-chair of the Advisory Board for the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. At ETH Zürich, he started Crowther Lab, an interdisciplinary group of scientists exploring the role of biodiversity in regulating the Earth's climate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evolution of bacteria</span> Development of bacteria throughout time

The evolution of bacteria has progressed over billions of years since the Precambrian time with their first major divergence from the archaeal/eukaryotic lineage roughly 3.2-3.5 billion years ago. This was discovered through gene sequencing of bacterial nucleoids to reconstruct their phylogeny. Furthermore, evidence of permineralized microfossils of early prokaryotes was also discovered in the Australian Apex Chert rocks, dating back roughly 3.5 billion years ago during the time period known as the Precambrian time. This suggests that an organism in of the phylum Thermotogota was the most recent common ancestor of modern bacteria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marine food web</span> Marine consumer-resource system

A marine food web is a food web of marine life. At the base of the ocean food web are single-celled algae and other plant-like organisms known as phytoplankton. The second trophic level is occupied by zooplankton which feed off the phytoplankton. Higher order consumers complete the web. There has been increasing recognition in recent years that marine microorganisms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marine prokaryotes</span> Marine bacteria and marine archaea

Marine prokaryotes are marine bacteria and marine archaea. They are defined by their habitat as prokaryotes that live in marine environments, that is, in the saltwater of seas or oceans or the brackish water of coastal estuaries. All cellular life forms can be divided into prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Eukaryotes are organisms whose cells have a nucleus enclosed within membranes, whereas prokaryotes are the organisms that do not have a nucleus enclosed within a membrane. The three-domain system of classifying life adds another division: the prokaryotes are divided into two domains of life, the microscopic bacteria and the microscopic archaea, while everything else, the eukaryotes, become the third domain.

References

  1. ↑ BirdLife International (2012). "Sturnus vulgaris". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.2. IUCN . Retrieved 2012-12-22.
  2. ↑ "U.S. POPClock Projection". U.S. Census Bureau.
  3. ↑ Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center. "2011 International Piping Plover Census: Study Description". United States Geological Survey . Retrieved 2012-12-24.
  4. ↑ "Positive Piping Plover Count". Government of Saskatchewan. 6 Nov 2006. Archived from the original on 2013-05-06. Retrieved 2012-12-24.
  5. ↑ "Mountain plover survey guidelines — Wyoming" (PDF). United States Fish and Wildlife Service. March 2002. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-06-02. Retrieved 2012-12-24.
  6. ↑ Dell'Amore, Christine (13 April 2012). "Emperor Penguins Counted From Space—A First". National Geographic News. National Geographic. Archived from the original on April 15, 2012. Retrieved 2012-12-22.
  7. ↑ Kunin, W.E.; Gaston, Kevin, eds. (31 December 1996). The Biology of Rarity: Causes and consequences of rare—common differences. Springer. ISBN   978-0412633805 . Retrieved 26 May 2015.
  8. ↑ Stearns, Beverly Peterson; Stearns, S. C.; Stearns, Stephen C. (2000). Watching, from the Edge of Extinction. Yale University Press. p. preface x. ISBN   978-0-300-08469-6 . Retrieved 30 May 2017.
  9. ↑ Novacek, Michael J. (8 November 2014). "Prehistory's Brilliant Future". New York Times . Retrieved 2014-12-25.
  10. ↑ G. Miller; Scott Spoolman (2012). Environmental Science - Biodiversity Is a Crucial Part of the Earth's Natural Capital. Cengage Learning. p. 62. ISBN   978-1-133-70787-5 . Retrieved 2014-12-27.
  11. ↑ Mora, C.; Tittensor, D.P.; Adl, S.; Simpson, A.G.; Worm, B. (23 August 2011). "How many species are there on Earth and in the ocean?". PLOS Biology . 9 (8): e1001127. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127 . PMC   3160336 . PMID   21886479.
  12. 1 2 3 Pennak, Sara; et al. (18 January 2012). "State of observed species: A decade of species discovery in review" (PDF). International Institute for Species Exploration; Arizona State University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 October 2012. Retrieved 2013-01-02.
  13. ↑ Staff (2 May 2016). "Researchers find that Earth may be home to 1 trillion species". National Science Foundation . Retrieved 6 May 2016.
  14. ↑ Nuwer, Rachel (18 July 2015). "Counting All the DNA on Earth". The New York Times. New York. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2015-07-18.
  15. ↑ "The Biosphere: Diversity of Life". Aspen Global Change Institute. Basalt, CO. Archived from the original on 2014-11-10. Retrieved 2015-07-19.
  16. ↑ Wade, Nicholas (25 July 2016). "Meet Luca, the Ancestor of All Living Things". New York Times . Retrieved 25 July 2016.
  17. 1 2 Whitman WB, Coleman DC, Wiebe WJ (June 1998). "Prokaryotes: the unseen majority" (PDF). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 95 (12): 6578–6583. Bibcode:1998PNAS...95.6578W. doi: 10.1073/pnas.95.12.6578 . PMC   33863 . PMID   9618454. Archived (PDF) from the original on 20 August 2008. Retrieved 16 September 2011.
  18. ↑ Whitman, William B.; Coleman, David C.; Wiebe, William J. (1998-06-09). "Prokaryotes: The unseen majority". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 95 (12): 6578–6583. Bibcode:1998PNAS...95.6578W. doi: 10.1073/pnas.95.12.6578 . ISSN   0027-8424. PMC   33863 . PMID   9618454.
  19. ↑ Erin M. Eggleston; Ian Hewson (2016). "Abundance of Two Pelagibacter ubique Bacteriophage Genotypes along a Latitudinal Transect in the North and South Atlantic Oceans". Frontiers in Microbiology. 7: 1534. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2016.01534 . PMC   5039313 . PMID   27733846.
  20. ↑ Merry Youle & Gemma Reguera (February 22, 2015). "The Most Abundant Small Things Considered".
  21. ↑ "Life in deep Earth totals 15 to 23 billion tons of carbon—hundreds of times more than humans". phys.org. Retrieved 2018-12-30.
  22. ↑ "Number of chickens worldwide from 1990 to 2018". Statista. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
  23. ↑ UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (July 2011). "Global Livestock Counts". The Economist . Archived from the original on July 15, 2016. Retrieved July 13, 2017.
  24. ↑ Alligators, River Dolphins, Giant Salamanders In China - China | Facts And Details Archived 2010-11-23 at the Wayback Machine
  25. ↑ Trooper Walsh; Murphy, James Jerome; Claudio Ciofi; Colomba De LA Panouse (2002). Komodo Dragons: Biology and Conservation (Zoo and Aquarium Biology and Conservation Series). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books. ISBN   1-58834-073-2.
  26. ↑ "Ora (Komodo Island Monitor or Komodo Dragon)". American Museum of Natural History. Archived from the original on March 7, 2010. Retrieved 2007-01-15.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  27. ↑ Worrall, Simon (6 August 2017). "Without Bugs, We Might All Be Dead". National Geographic Society . Archived from the original on August 6, 2017. Retrieved 27 May 2018.
  28. 1 2 ""Numbers of Insects - Species and individuals"". Smithsonian Institution . Retrieved 23 Nov 2022.
  29. ↑ Embery, Joan and Lucaire, Ed (1983) Collection of Amazing Animal Facts.
  30. ↑ "How many ants are on Earth? 20 quadrillion, study says". France 24. September 19, 2022. Retrieved September 19, 2022.
  31. ↑ Grandoni, Dino (September 19, 2022). "How many ants are crawling the Earth? Nearly 20 quadrillion, scientists say". Washington Post. Retrieved September 19, 2022.
  32. ↑ Schultheiss P, Nooten SS, Wang R, Wong MKL, Brassard F, Guénard B (2022). "The abundance, biomass, and distribution of ants on Earth". Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 119 (40): e2201550119. Bibcode:2022PNAS..11901550S. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2201550119 . PMC   9546634 . PMID   36122199.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  33. ↑ "Going Out On A Limb With A Tree-Person Ratio : Krulwich Wonders... : NPR".[ permanent dead link ]
  34. ↑ Ehrenberg, Rachel (2 September 2015). "Global count reaches 3 trillion trees - Approach combines ground-based surveys with satellite imaging to find higher density than anticipated". Nature . doi:10.1038/nature.2015.18287. S2CID   189415504 . Retrieved 28 November 2015.
  35. ↑ "How many tree species are there in the Amazon and how many of them will go extinct?". Archived from the original on 26 March 2012.
  36. ↑ "Field Museum scientists estimate 16,000 tree species in the Amazon". EurekAlert!.
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