22 April 2010

A shed load of microbes!

I have reported before on the ongoing Census of Marine Life which has turned up many strange and wonderful denizens of our oceans

One thing that is surprising, even if it should not be so, is the amount of microbial life in the seas.

According to an item on Phenomenica the census estimated there are somewhere in the order of a "nonillion" — or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 — individual microbial cells in the oceans, weighing as much as 240 billion African elephants.

Wow! I suppose that is a hell of a lot of tuskers.....

8 comments:

Claude said...

Great link, Jams. Amazing what we still haven't catalogued on our planet. This magazine Phenomica also had an interesting article saying that, with technology, the Oceans could feed the human race when we get short of cultivable(?)lands. I'm really not crazy about sea products. But I guess, when we're hungry, we eat what's on the table.

jams o donnell said...

It;ll be a long time before we do, especially the deep oceans. If the oceans can feed us without overfishing then that can only be a good things.

Steve Hayes said...

For which value of "billion"?

jams o donnell said...

THe US billion, I'm sure. I doubt a scientist would use the British billion

susan said...

I think as far as total biomass humans rate far less than 1% but look what trouble we cause for all the rest.

jams o donnell said...

THe earth would be far better off without us Susan!

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Wow. Imagine every microbe having a tiny bite out of you... grrr...

jams o donnell said...

Ah so we must stay out of the sea Snoops!