Oni Science
  • Home
  • Environment
  • Humans
  • Nature
  • Physics
  • Space
  • Tech
  • Video
  • Contact Us
    • About us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Amazon Disclaimer
    • DMCA / Copyrights Disclaimer
Skip to content
Oni Science
Your Daily Science News
  • Environment
  • Humans
  • Nature
  • Physics
  • Space
  • Tech
  • Video
  • Contact Us
    • About us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Amazon Disclaimer
    • DMCA / Copyrights Disclaimer
Nature

How Many Ants Live on Earth? Scientists Came Up With an Answer

September 20, 2022 by admin 0 Comments

Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on Pinterest
Share on LinkedIn

Have you ever wondered exactly how many ants live on Earth? Possibly not, but it’s certainly a question we’ve asked ourselves.

Our research published today provides an approximate answer. We conservatively estimate our planet harbors about 20 quadrillion ants. That’s 20 thousand million millions, or in numerical form, 20,000,000,000,000,000 (20 with 15 zeroes).

We further estimate the world’s ants collectively constitute about 12 million tons of dry carbon. This exceeds the mass of all the world’s wild birds and wild mammals combined. It’s also equal to about one-fifth of the total weight of humans.

Eminent biologist Edward O. Wilson once said insects and other invertebrates are “the little things that run the world” – and he was right.

Ants, in particular, are a crucial part of nature. Among other roles, ants aerate the soil, disperse seeds, break down organic material, create habitat for other animals and form an important part of the food chain.

Estimating ant numbers and mass provides an important baseline from which to monitor ant populations amid worrying environmental changes.

Counting the world’s ants

There are more than 15,700 named species and subspecies of ants, and many others not yet named by science. Ants’ high degree of social organization has enabled them to colonize nearly all ecosystems and regions around the globe.

The astounding ubiquity of ants has prompted many naturalists to contemplate their exact number on Earth.

But these were basically educated guesses. Systematic, evidence-based estimates have been lacking.

Our research involved an analysis of 489 studies of ant populations conducted by fellow ant scientists from around the world. This included non-English literature, in languages such as Spanish, French, German, Russian, Mandarin, and Portuguese.

The research spanned all continents and major habitats including forests, deserts, grasslands, and cities. They used standardized methods for collecting and counting ants such as pitfall traps and leaf litter samples. As you can imagine, this is often tedious work.

From all this, we estimate there are approximately 20 quadrillion ants on Earth. This figure, though conservative, is between two and 20 times higher than previous estimates.

The previous figures employed a “top-down” approach by assuming ants comprise about 1 percent of the world’s estimated insect population.

In contrast, our “bottom-up” estimate is more reliable because it uses data on ants observed directly in the field and makes fewer assumptions.

Our next step was to work out how much all these ants weigh. The mass of organisms is typically measured in terms of their carbon makeup.

We estimated that 20 quadrillion average-sized ants correspond to a dry weight or “biomass” of approximately 12 million tons of carbon.

This is more than the combined biomass of wild birds and mammals – and about 20 percent of total human biomass.

Carbon makes up about half the dry weight of an ant. If the weight of other bodily elements was included, the total mass of the world’s ants would be higher still.

We also found ants are distributed unevenly on Earth’s surface. They vary sixfold between habitats and generally peak in the tropics. This underscores the importance of tropical regions in maintaining healthy ant populations.

Ants were also particularly abundant in forests, and surprisingly, in arid regions. But they become less common in human-made habitats.

Our findings come with a few caveats. For example, the sampling locations in our dataset are unevenly distributed across geographic regions.

And the vast majority of samples were collected from the ground layer, meaning we have very little information about ant numbers in trees or underground. This means our findings are somewhat incomplete.

Two ants carrying a seed.
Many ant species are important seed dispersers. Here, two worker Meranoplus ants carry a seed back to their nest. (Francois Brassard)

We all need ants

Ants also provide vital “ecosystem services” for humans. For instance, a recent study found ants can be more effective than pesticides at helping farmers produce food.

Ants have also developed tight interactions with other organisms – and some species cannot survive without them.

For example, some birds rely on ants to flush out their prey. And thousands of plant species either feed or house ants in exchange for protection, or dispersal of their seeds. And many ants are predators, helping to keep populations of other insects in check.

Alarmingly, global insect numbers are declining due to threats such as habitat destruction and fragmentation, chemical use, invasive species, and climate change.

But data on insect biodiversity is alarmingly scarce. We hope our study provides a baseline for further research to help fill this gap.

It’s in humanity’s interest to monitor ant populations. Counting ants is not difficult, and citizen scientists from all over the world could help investigate how these important animals are faring at a time of great environmental change.The Conversation

Mark Wong, Forrest Fellow, The University of Western Australia; Benoit Guénard, Associate professor, University of Hong Kong; François Brassard, PhD candidate, Charles Darwin University; Patrick Schultheiss, Temporary Principal Investigator, Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg; Runxi Wang, PhD candidate, University of Hong Kong, and Sabine Nooten, Temporary Principal Investigator, Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This article was originally published by Sciencealert.com. Read the original article here.

Articles You May Like

Lightning Strikes Create a Strange Form of Crystal Rarely Seen in Nature
Wildfire Destruction in The Western US Has Doubled in Just 10 Years
Incredible Footage Shows Planets Circling a Star Light-Years Away
‘Polluted Realism’: How Monet’s Art Mirrors The Evolution of Smog
The Mysterious Asymmetry of Jupiter’s Asteroids May Finally Be Explained

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Articles

  • A Hidden Food Web Exists in The Desert, And It Thrives on Death
  • It’s Possible Neanderthals Evolved So They Wouldn’t Smell Their Own Stink, Study Finds
  • We Can Now Hear The ‘Sound’ of One of The Most Beautiful Stars
  • Astronomers Studied More Than 5,000 Black Holes to Figure Out Why They Twinkle
  • Astronomers Find What May Be a Habitable World 31 Light-Years Away
  • Bar Graphs Induce a Hidden Bias in Interpretation, Experiment Shows
  • This Small Australian Marsupial Is Quite Literally Dying For Sex
  • ‘Polluted Realism’: How Monet’s Art Mirrors The Evolution of Smog
  • The First Stars May Have Been Heavier Than 100,000 Suns
  • An Incredible Thing Happens When Dolphins And Humans Team Up

Space

  • We Can Now Hear The ‘Sound’ of One of The Most Beautiful Stars
  • Astronomers Studied More Than 5,000 Black Holes to Figure Out Why They Twinkle
  • Astronomers Find What May Be a Habitable World 31 Light-Years Away
  • The First Stars May Have Been Heavier Than 100,000 Suns
  • Stunning Green Comet Will Be Closest to Earth Today, at Peak Brightness

Physics

  • A Lost Interview With The ‘Father of The Big Bang’ Was Just Discovered
  • This Physicist Says Electrons Spin in Quantum Physics After All. Here’s Why
  • Physicists Break Record Firing a Laser Down Their University Corridor
  • Scientists Have Built a Macroscopic Tractor Beam Using Laser Light
  • Firing a Laser Into The Sky Can Divert Lightning, Experiment Shows

Archives

  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • March 2017
  • November 2016

Categories

  • Environment
  • Humans
  • Nature
  • Physics
  • Space
  • Tech
  • Video

Useful Links

  • Contact Us
  • About us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Amazon Disclaimer
  • DMCA / Copyrights Disclaimer

Recent Posts

  • A Hidden Food Web Exists in The Desert, And It Thrives on Death
  • It’s Possible Neanderthals Evolved So They Wouldn’t Smell Their Own Stink, Study Finds
  • We Can Now Hear The ‘Sound’ of One of The Most Beautiful Stars
  • Astronomers Studied More Than 5,000 Black Holes to Figure Out Why They Twinkle
  • Astronomers Find What May Be a Habitable World 31 Light-Years Away

Copyright © 2023 by Oni Science. All rights reserved. All articles, images, product names, logos, and brands are property of their respective owners. All company, product and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. Use of these names, logos, and brands does not imply endorsement unless specified. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Powered by WordPress using DisruptPress Theme.