Global biomass distribution by weight

Published by
Bruna Alves,
Feb 16, 2023
This statistic displays the weight of life on Earth, distributed by classification of various life forms. Plants make up, by far, the largest biomass on Earth, totaling 450 gigatons of carbon. Comparatively, humans account for just 0.06 gigatons of carbon. This estimate of biomass may be deeply underestimated, as there is still a lot of uncertainty.

Weight of life on Earth (in gigatons of carbon)*

CharacteristicWeight in gigatons of carbon
Plants 450
Bacteria 70
Fungi 12
Archaea 7
Protists 4
All animals 2
Animals - arthropods 1
Animals - fish 0.7
Animals - mollusks 0.2
Animals - annelids 0.2
Animals - livestock 0.1
Animals - humans 0.06
Animals - nematodes 0.02
Showing entries 1 to 13 (15 entries in total)

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Release date

August 2018

Region

Worldwide

Survey time period

2018

Supplementary notes

* Gigaton is equivalent to 1 billion metric tons.
* Weight of wild mammals is about 0.007 gigatons, while the weight of wild birds is 0.002 gigatons.

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