On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 10:01:11AM -0600, Steve Smith wrote: > > FWIW, Daniel Dennett recently claimed that 10,000 years ago humans > and their domesticated animals comprised less than 1% of the mass of > animal (not including invertebrates or ocean dwellers) of the earth > but today we, along with our livestock and pets comprise 98%... I > can't even image what the relative mass of automobiles (or just > their tires?) or buildings might be (or smartphones or LEGO blocks). > >
I'm highly sceptical of that claim. In the soils below our house, live city-sized populations of ant, earthworms, and probably even more nematodes. These all count as animal. And I live in one of the most densely (human) populated parts of Australia (and the world, for that matter, if you think of the vaste expanses of desert, savannah, farmland etc). Schultz (PNAS, vol 97, 14028--14029), for example, estimates that ants alone monopolise 15-25% of terrestrial biomass, far more than the vertebrates. Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
