How many living organisms have populated the Earth?
- Thread starter John99
- Start date
What possible research could that be?
The question is completely unanswerable - there are untold giga-trillions of microscopic lifeforms present at any given moment. And a single collection of millions of them can reproduce many times over in just a few hours.
You're chasing a ghost number with this.
You mean all organisms that ever lived added up ?
No matter how you look at it - current or grand total of all time - the question is rather senseless. Besides, it changes every single second of every minute. There's no way to even make a guess at such a thing, let alone provide any sort of meaningful number.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Yeah, I wonder how someone can even get it in his head to ask such a question.. .:scratchin:
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
The current biomass of earth is something like 75 billion tons.
If we assume that biomass had a roughly constant growth from the day life first appeared (which it didn't) then we get something like 138.75 billion billion tons of biomass (37.5 billion tons * 3.7 billion years).
We have to know the inclination and when it roughly stopped and got to be a more or less horizontal line. We also have to do with with something like great extinctions along the way..
For a more accurate estimation we will have to know the biomass of the earth at a huge number of points in history. Then if we actually would know the average biomass per creature at each of those points, we could make a rough estimation of how many creatures ever lived.
Needless to say, this can't be done.
If we assume that biomass had a roughly constant growth from the day life first appeared (which it didn't) then we get something like 138.75 billion billion tons of biomass (37.5 billion tons * 3.7 billion years).
We have to know the inclination and when it roughly stopped and got to be a more or less horizontal line. We also have to do with with something like great extinctions along the way..
For a more accurate estimation we will have to know the biomass of the earth at a huge number of points in history. Then if we actually would know the average biomass per creature at each of those points, we could make a rough estimation of how many creatures ever lived.
Needless to say, this can't be done.
ditto ditto ditto
Aarrg! I didn't even bother to see who posted it - I just read the question and made a response.:shrug:
OK, that settles it, I'm done here.
What a bunch of googlebots.
To be clear i am interested in know how many different species have been identified. This should encompass all facets of life. Land and sea creatures, plants and animals and simple life forms included.
Occurring naturally of course, not hybridisation:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5080298.stm
For example-
Here is 24:
http://cdserver2.ru.ac.za/cd/011120_1/Aqua/Ichthyology/Ichthyology/fish_i1.jpg
And:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomacentridae
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dascyllus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clownfish
Pomacentridae number over 350 species.
As it is now clearly stated, where can i find this number?
The grey area is some species readily inter-mate while others do not. Be that as it may one Japanese human and one African human will count as two since we only have to look at them to tell them apart. No philosophy involved or personal opinion is necessary.
To be clear i am interested in know how many different species have been identified. This should encompass all facets of life. Land and sea creatures, plants and animals and simple life forms included.
Occurring naturally of course, not hybridisation:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5080298.stm
For example-
Here is 24:
http://cdserver2.ru.ac.za/cd/011120_1/Aqua/Ichthyology/Ichthyology/fish_i1.jpg
And:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomacentridae
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dascyllus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clownfish
Pomacentridae number over 350 species.
As it is now clearly stated, where can i find this number?
The grey area is some species readily inter-mate while others do not. Be that as it may one Japanese human and one African human will count as two since we only have to look at them to tell them apart. No philosophy involved or personal opinion is necessary.
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I think if you look really hard you'll find that they're actually the same species.
It was just a few years ago we found the things living near the midocean vents.
Meanwhile, no one has ever made a complete census of the species living in a cubic meter of meadow soil anywhere on the planet.
Let alone classified all the color variants as different "organisms".
Somehow I get the feeling this is going to come round to some kind of Biblical "scholarship". I'm going to wait until it does, and I'll will have a better idea of how to answer it.
Meanwhile, no one has ever made a complete census of the species living in a cubic meter of meadow soil anywhere on the planet.
Let alone classified all the color variants as different "organisms".
Somehow I get the feeling this is going to come round to some kind of Biblical "scholarship". I'm going to wait until it does, and I'll will have a better idea of how to answer it.
Hipparchia
Registered Senior Member
Thank you for making this clear. Your initial question definitely asked for number of living organisms, that is the number of individuals, so I was a bit confused.
Your clarified question is also, I think, rather meaningless. I'm not being critical - I mean meaningless to me. Often the distinction between species is a bit arbitrary. If we look at a lineage over time the point where we distinguish between one species and another is definitely arbitrary. You could produce two answers to your question that were both fully justifiable and correct, yet were completely different in magnitude. That's what I mean by saying it is meaningless.
Could I ask what is the nature of your research? That might make it easier to give a meaningful answer.
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