The weight of the ant is insignificant. Even if we don’t have dozens of them to even notice. But, How many ants are there in the world and how much do they weigh together? Science has answered this question.
as collected New studyOn Earth, there are approximately 20 quadrillion ants, i.e. 20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of insects
“The ants of the world form collectively 12 million tons of dry carbon. This exceeds the mass of all birds and land mammals in the world combined. It is also equal to about one-fifth of the total weight of humans.”
To reach these conclusions, the researchers conducted “surveys of ant abundance in many environments to make estimates of tree and ground ants present in nearly all environments.” Important terrestrial ecosystems.
Although we tend to imagine ants on the ground, it is not their main habitat. ants it They live in trees They outnumber those living on Earth by about six to one.
Furthermore, taking into account the diversity of ant weights, the researchers concluded that the dry carbon in those quadrillions increases About 12 megatons.
“It is estimated that ants Digging up to 13 tons of soil per hectare annually And they increase the local availability of nutrients by an order of magnitude, but the fact is that ants make up only 1.2% of wild species, and they represent at least 6% of the biomass,” they conclude.
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