[HN Gopher] The abundance, biomass, and distribution of ants on ...
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The abundance, biomass, and distribution of ants on Earth
Author : Vaslo
Score : 132 points
Date : 2022-09-21 14:48 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pnas.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pnas.org)
| sdeframond wrote:
| > This exceeds the combined biomass of wild birds and mammals and
| equals 20% of human biomass.
|
| So humans are not mammals anymore?
| janef0421 wrote:
| I think it's "wild (birds and mammals)", not "(wild birds) and
| mammals".
| mongol wrote:
| It is completely crazy that human biomass is so big in
| comparison.
| x32n23nr wrote:
| You could fit all of them in a cube with edge length 400 meters
| (1312 feet)
| snickerbockers wrote:
| but how would you get them to stay still?
| fblp wrote:
| For once i want to say that this article needs an in infographic
| to visualize the numbers
| Joeri wrote:
| There's a summary news article here that has the infographic.
| The total mass of ants is one fifth of humanity.
|
| https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2022/09/20/de-aarde-telt-minste...
| doodlebugging wrote:
| I just want to know how many Olympic sized swimming pools we
| could fill with all these ants.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Crushed or live?
| exitb wrote:
| I wonder if it's even possible to fill an Olympic-sized pool
| with ants without crushing the ones near the bottom.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| A column of ants 2M high would be about 1000 ants (assuming
| 2mm height for an ant). According to [1], ants range from
| 1mg to 150mg(!) but most commonly 5-10mg - call it 8mg as
| an average and your bottom ant would be supporting about 8
| grams over an area of (I assumed in another comment) 9x4mm
| or 36mm^2 to give about (if I'm operating [2] correctly)
| about 0.3psi. [3] suggests that ants can lift about 5000x
| their own weight which should mean the bottom ant would not
| only be fine but could probably carry the 2M column around
| without any trouble...
|
| [1] https://whatthingsweigh.com/how-much-does-an-ant-weigh/
| [2] https://www.sensorsone.com/force-and-area-to-pressure-
| calcul... [3] https://entomologytoday.org/2014/02/11/ants-
| can-lift-up-to-5...
| jp57 wrote:
| Assume a spherical ant...
| m3kw9 wrote:
| According to this link and size of the pool is 2500m3. It comes
| out to around 54,000 pools to fit roughly 40 quadrillion 3mm
| sized ants.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/4mohnd/requ...
| zimpenfish wrote:
| If you say 9x4x3mm for an ant's volume (wild guesstimate based
| off carpenter ants) (which is way off for most species since
| they range in size from 0.75 to 52mm[1]) and an Olympic
| swimming pool as 50x25x2m[2], you get the pool as
| 2500000000000mm^2 and the ant as 108mm^2 giving an approximate
| count of 23150000000 or twenty three billion, one hundred and
| fifty million ants. Which means you'd need about 863931 pools
| to hold them all at that carpenter size - round up and call it
| 1.25M pools to hold all the world's population?
|
| [1] https://pestsamurai.com/ant-size-chart-and-comparison/ [2]
| https://phinizycenter.org/olympic-swimming-pools/
| googlryas wrote:
| And for reference, 863,931 olympic pools if built in a square
| would be about 50km long by 25km wide
| wonderwonder wrote:
| If I had to do it all over again I would study social insects.
| Fascinating topic
| netrus wrote:
| The Agent-based modelling community has some accessible, fun
| overlap of biology and CS.
| enviclash wrote:
| Indeed the Ants model comes by default in the netlogo
| library, very instructive and motivating for kids.
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| What do you find fascinating about social insects? :)
| wonderwonder wrote:
| That they are essentially little machines controlled by the
| crowd.
| lordnacho wrote:
| I guess they are on ipv6
| raydiatian wrote:
| The question I'm interested in is the mass comparison of "all
| humans" to "all ants". I mean the back-of-my-eyelids math
| calculates that Human-tron vs Ant-tron is in ants favor.
| kilovoltaire wrote:
| The abstract answers this, I believe. Human-tron is 5x as
| massive!
|
| > ...a biomass of ~12 megatons of dry carbon... equivalent to
| ~20% of human biomass
|
| Honestly the unfathomable biomass of humans creeps me out more
| than the biomass of ants...
| retzkek wrote:
| This sounds even more terrifying than Popolac vs. Podujevo
| from "In the Hills, the Cities" by Clive Barker.
|
| (spoilers) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_of_Blood#%22In
| _the_Hills...
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| Ants are tiny. 100 grams of seeds is enough to feed a small
| ant family for a whole year.
| netrus wrote:
| This picture put it into perspective for me [0].
|
| We use most of the Earth's dry surface to feed ... What ever
| that picture shows.
|
| Disclaimer: I did not check their math, but it is in the
| right ball park.
|
| [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/p0qws3/s
| elf...
| happyopossum wrote:
| > We use most of the Earth's dry surface to feed
|
| We don't even come close to using 10% of the earth's dry
| surface for food production, let alone most of it.
| TSiege wrote:
| This is wrong, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture
| Organization, we currently use ~38% of the earths surface
| for agriculture.[1] Most of that is used for pastor
| lands. But crops alone are 10%. Now imagine how much of
| the earth's surface is actually suitable for agriculture
| and livestock. We use most of the earths surface for
| ourselves. In fact it's estimated that only 23% of the
| land on earth, excluding Antartica, is devoted to
| wildlife.[2]
|
| [1] https://www.fao.org/sustainability/news/detail/en/c/1
| 274219/ [2] https://theconversation.com/five-maps-that-
| reveal-the-worlds...
| noselasd wrote:
| And about 1/3 of earths surface is deserts. (While
| they're not devoid of life or agriculture, they provide
| _very_ little support for flora and fauna compared to
| most non-desert areas).
|
| We'll be squeezing out pretty much all remaining wildlife
| in a few hundred years,
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| I'm very surprised ants biomass is not more than human biomass,
| we are definitely too many, livestocks biomass is also incredibly
| huge, much much more than wild mammals
| https://www.ecowatch.com/biomass-humans-animals-2571413930.h...
| happyopossum wrote:
| > we are definitely too many
|
| Err, ok? What's the 'correct' number of humans on this planet,
| and who decides who gets to live and reproduce?
| Xeoncross wrote:
| According to Google, the size of Dallas / Fort-worth
| metroplex area is 9,286 square miles. That is 28,764,444,444
| yards / 7 billion people = each person gets 4 square yards.
|
| So while a 6'x6' space isn't a lot, you could fit the whole
| population of the earth in just one area with plenty of room
| around each person.
|
| I think politics and greed are a bigger cause of starvation
| and pollution than population size.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| exactly, if the average CO2 footprint in rich countries
| were 2T/year instead of 10T/year, it would be sustainable,
| but currently it's not
| black_knight wrote:
| This reminded me of this classic: https://what-
| if.xkcd.com/8/
| slibhb wrote:
| > I think politics and greed are a bigger cause of
| starvation and pollution than population size.
|
| Interesting model. What does it tell you that starvation
| has been trending downward for decades?
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| The question suggests that you expect the answer wouldn't
| simply be that there are counter-forces to politics and
| greed that are at least strong enough to make a
| difference. That doesn't mean that said forces don't need
| to overcome politics and greed in order to make
| starvation less common.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| The maximim number is a multiplication of the number of human
| by their average CO2 impact, and currently it's too high. The
| average carbon footprint per person is 7 tonnes CO2e per
| year. 2T might be sustainable, and achievable (with smaller
| vehicles and less consumerist behaviors)
|
| No one decides about it for now, like we do for other
| invasive species, but we should probably start considering
| regulating ourselves
| shagmin wrote:
| Even though the article is about biomass and not consumption
| per se, I take it like a reminder the global human population
| (in our current state) is currently throwing the atmosphere's
| equilibrium off into a negative feedback loop that may render
| the planet uninhabitable for many - human activity has to
| change, otherwise it will inevitably cost (more) human lives.
| smm11 wrote:
| If ants took us on one-by-one, they could rule the world.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Jack Handey:
|
| > "I'm not afraid of insects taking over the world, and you
| know why? It would take about a billion ants just to AIM a gun
| at me, let alone fire it. And you know what I'm doing while
| they're aiming it at me? I just sort of slip off to the side,
| and then suddenly run up and kick the gun out of their hands."
|
| Never fear, friend.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| Mixing the two greatest philosophers of the 20th century,
| Jack Handey and Mitch Hedburg: Ants are great when you're
| angry and want to kill 2000 of something
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| They can poison your food, destroy your things, bring down
| your home. In the chaos, civilization would collapse. Ants
| don't have to kill us one-on-one; they just let us kill each
| other.
| reidjs wrote:
| Jack Handey was a ficticious humorous philosopher from
| Saturday Night Live. But you're also right.
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| I believe he is actually a real person!
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Handey
| andrewf wrote:
| So we can give them each their own /64 is what I'm hearing
| anderspitman wrote:
| I was hiking on Kauai recently. For 11 miles of trail, nearly
| every surface was covered with small, fast moving ants each
| separated by about 15-20cm. It was quite unnerving until we were
| sure they didn't bite. Having them crawl on you while sleeping
| wasn't my favorite though. Mind boggling to extrapolate that
| number to the entire forest/world.
| layer8 wrote:
| > This exceeds the combined biomass of wild birds and mammals and
| equals 20% of human biomass.
|
| They don't count humans as mammals?
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| humans and livestock are at least 96% of all mammals
| https://www.ecowatch.com/biomass-humans-animals-2571413930.h...
| so more interesting to not count them
|
| I guess pets as well were excluded
| boltzmann-brain wrote:
| I suggest anyone who is impressed by these findings reads
| Clifford Simak's "City". It is a very short novel. I won't
| spoil it for you. I'll just say that it's one of the best and
| most beautiful sci fi stories I've ever come across.
| gwill wrote:
| maybe 'wild' is applicable to mammals in that sentence and they
| don't consider humans to be 'wild mammals'?
| layer8 wrote:
| Makes sense.
| [deleted]
| BirAdam wrote:
| Go to Walmart on Black Friday and see if you can still
| reliably make a claim that humans are not wild mammals.
| ck2 wrote:
| Yay finally a good use for this website:
|
| https://www.themeasureofthings.com/results.php?comp=weight&u...
|
| trying to find a favorite, how about
|
| "It's about 150,000 times as heavy as The Space Shuttle"
| agentultra wrote:
| I love ants. Ant farming is an interesting hobby if you like ants
| too. They're so essential to many biomes that it's hard to
| imagine how we'll survive if the mass extinction takes them.
|
| That's a lot of biomass!
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| How come you love ants so much?
| agentultra wrote:
| I enjoy their shape and simplicity.
|
| I find awe in the way they interact and accomplish tasks as a
| whole colony that would be impossible for any single
| individual. And how some species have developed complex,
| specialized behaviours from the various Acromyrmex species
| that farm fungi or the genus of Solenopsis that build bridges
| over water. And they're fascinating to watch!
|
| The idea that a single individual may not have the
| neurological framework to manage these complex behaviours
| that enable colonies to remember and optimize paths to
| sources of food over time is fascinating.
|
| Formica Rufus! They have a caste system of workers. They farm
| aphids and plants, they have hunters, and they have builders.
| They build huge mounts out of deciduous and coniferous plant
| material around fallen trees. And yet rigid seeming as they
| are there have been observations where individuals within a
| caste that prefer certain kinds of tasks over others.
|
| I really like spiders too but ants were my first fascination
| and I still really enjoy them. My kids and I love to catch
| and identify queens of various species in our area during
| nuptial flights. It's a lot of fun... sort of like real-like
| Pokemon.
| lelo_tp wrote:
| Sooo, it seems they're living in Asimov's Foundation?
| filoeleven wrote:
| > The latter corresponds to a biomass of ~12 megatons of dry
| carbon. This exceeds the combined biomass of wild birds and
| mammals...
|
| This is a nice "wow" statistic, until you look at how few wild
| animals are left.
|
| https://xkcd.com/1338/
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Also how that statistic has changed over the past 12,000 years
| or so (by Paul Chefurka, with data from Vaclav Smil):
|
| <http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2016/01/Terrestr...>
|
| Details:
|
| <http://peakoilbarrel.com/confessions-of-a-doomer/>
|
| <https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/17788/how-
| muc...>
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Yes I've heard it summarized that land animals are ~50% our
| livestock and ~46% humans themselves. Leaving 4% wild animals.
|
| Puts thoughts of living off the land, surviving a collapse of
| our food chain, obsoleting animal husbandry etc out the window.
| spuz wrote:
| So roughly 2.5 million per human.
| Vaslo wrote:
| I wrote this in the title of the original post here but I guess
| the admins edited the title
| [deleted]
| layer8 wrote:
| And still only 20% of the human biomass. You'd need 12.5
| million ants on average to balance out a single human.
| nixgeek wrote:
| "How many ants are there in the world?" -Google Interviewer
|
| I think Google has now mostly stopped with the brain teaser
| questions but I could absolutely imagine this being one back in
| 2010 or so!
| onionisafruit wrote:
| Somewhere there is a pissed off engineer who said 4 quadrillion
| in their interview only to be told their answer is implausible.
| tboyd47 wrote:
| Just link it to climate change and you can get free money to
| solve it now.
| jmyeet wrote:
| I never saw any evidence that Google ever did this, at least at
| scale.
|
| This was, I believe, a Microsoft interview practice. Questions
| such as "how many golf balls can you fit in a bus?" and "how
| many piano tuners are in Chicago?"
|
| Google engineering interviewing doesn't work this way and I
| don't think it ever did.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Yeah that was Microsoft.
|
| Also Edison, General Electric early on (like lightbulb era),
| had (according to one source, but it makes sense) like a
| prototype of an IQ test, tested memory and general knowledge.
| Basically how much you had read. By that point America had
| ample libraries thanks to Carnegie, so it was fair, before
| that there was no way.
|
| Makes sense since Edison and Gates dropped out. And back then
| college dropouts were too educated, so for instance JP Morgan
| did a year in college, traveled a bit and that completed his
| education. I dropped out recently (technically an impasse,
| glitch meant I couldn't enroll again) and with that my
| education is complete. But back then? Dude nobody finished
| high school, Ford didn't, Wright Brothers said eh, like back
| then if you went to college you were badly overeducated.
|
| So the "how many piano tuners are there in Chicago" question
| is a sanitized version of "how many kilotons of TNT did this
| nuclear bomb yield?". Fermi problem, I think it's called, and
| Fermi was great at it, got it to within a factor of 2. Wright
| Brothers also nailed it very well, like got 1% margins on
| admittedly easier math than the bomb, but with their other
| invention, the wind tunnel, and very very low resources
| initially. So the piano tuners sounds like a stupid question,
| otherwise it would require that special nuke clearance, get
| real. And it's the same thought process.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| These useless riddles were intended to show problem solving.
| Even if you didn't know obscure trivia about piano tuning,
| New York, or buses, you could pass if you answered good
| enough.
|
| And that's how the Windows Update team was selected /s
| raldi wrote:
| Yeah, it's the same reasoning as, "How much disk space
| would we need to make a Gmail clone with 100 million
| users?"
| drivers99 wrote:
| Sounds like what they are looking for is if one knows about
| Fermi estimation. Here's a (somewhat annoying) short video
| about it using an example, with a timestamp to skip the
| intro. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YzvupOX8Is&t=89s
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| Precisely. I believe some departments would benefit from
| being proficient at this, but every developer? Most are
| not system architects.
|
| BTW, the "See also" section in Wikipedia is funny, it
| even includes the spherical cow concept:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem#See_also
| googlryas wrote:
| That's when I interviewed and it wasn't anything like that.
| Just straight up algos and data structures.
|
| I believe those came out of microsoft interview questions from
| the 90s? Or at least that's how they were referred to, maybe it
| was just a meme.
| TradingPlaces wrote:
| Pretty sure half of them are in my yard.
| soniman wrote:
| I estimated 1 million ants per person which gets to 8 quadrillion
| which isn't a bad guess. Kind of suprised there aren't more ants.
| subroutine wrote:
| boltzmann-brain wrote:
| Please don't post "ear-r*pe" videos ...
| Invictus0 wrote:
| I recall some factoid circulating a while back that stated that
| ants outweighed humans 8:1; this is saying that humans outweigh
| ants 5:1.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| As measured by "dry carbon", whatever that it is.
| [deleted]
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Here's an article indicating ants have more mass:
| https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/11/03/141946751...
| jmyeet wrote:
| For anyone who was curious, I too had to look this up but the
| "dry biomass" is the mass minus moisture. I see different
| estimates of this. This estimate [1] estimates humanity's biomass
| at 60 megatons, which differs widely from this paper's estimate
| (which seems to be 10 megatons).
|
| Here's a fun fact. The desnity of humans is roughly that of water
| (1000kg/m^3). Humans are 18% carbon so humanity's mass is 333
| megatons. If we squished everyone into a sphere is would only be
| 860 meters across.
|
| [1]: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/humans-
| make-110000...
| EngCanMan wrote:
| If I just killed 3, how would I update their census?
| googlryas wrote:
| That reminds me of a joke...
|
| A family is getting a tour around a museum. The tour guide
| points to a T-rex fossil and said "That dinosaur is 75 million
| and 4 years old". The guest says "Wow, so precise!", and the
| guide says "Yes, it was 75 million years old when I started,
| and I've been here for 4 years".
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I love it.
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