Microbes (e.g. bacteria, archaea & viruses shown in colour) are smaller and much more diverse than Protozoa shown in this Science.org featured image modified from https://vermecology.wordpress.com/2022/08/04/different-f3/.
My Biotic SOC paper https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202212.0258/v2 or https://veop.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/veop-6.pdf in Table 2 has a summary of about 4 x 1030 Cells and ca. 360 Gt Carbon for total global Prokaryote microbes. Comparably, Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_organisms_by_population says – “Prokaryotes number about 4–6 × 1030 cells and 350–550 Gt of C“. So my values are modest – within the lower range of their estimate. However, values for each biotic domain or Realm have radically changed and they give no guestimate of microbial biodiversity. Now, as I cogently explain: “Soil soars, ocean flounders” with progressive updates:-
https://veop.wordpress.com/2023/04/14/volume-6/ ; www.preprints.org/manuscript/202212.0258/v2; https://veop.files.wordpress.com/2023/04/veop-6.pdf.
https://veop.wordpress.com/2022/09/10/volume-5/; https://veop.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/new-addendum-file.pdf – that is especially relevant with my newly revised data summary.
https://vermecology.wordpress.com/2023/06/02/tetc/ ; https://vermecology.wordpress.com/2022/08/04/different-f3/ ; https://vermecology.wordpress.com/2022/03/29/eco-taxo-bio/ ; https://vermecology.wordpress.com/2021/06/20/tol/.
The original source from 25 years ago, before gene sequencing developed, is by Whitman et al. (1998).
These authors also said the Earth’s prokaryotes contain 85–130 Gt of N and 9–14 Gt of P, or about 10-fold more of these nutrients than do plants, and represent the largest pool of these nutrients in living organisms. Note that I modestly allow only about 48 Gt N but that is only in Bacteria. For 360 Gt C with (C : N = 1 : 0.24) the total microbial N would be ca. 86 Gt N which is again at their lower end range.
As I noted, earthworm biomass raised to ~2.3–3.6 Gt C (Blakemore 2022/2023) with ratio C:N 1:0.24 (from Whitman et al. ratio) gives just 0.54 Gt N or more that is, nevertheless, five times greater than synthetic Nitrogen added to farmlands per year(!).
My total global biodiversity, mainly for Bacteria & Archaea, are about 2.1 x 1024 taxa in 3.8 x 1030 cells suggesting that a unique species or OTU exists for nearly every 106 cells, or a unique taxon for each million cells. This is mainly in the Soil Realm scenario and may be not wholly unreasonable. Anyways, my publications are out there now and open for refinement or kind review, unless you have a better analysis.
Figure 1. Micro Monde: new data (Blakemore 2022, 2023: tab. 1) after Larsen et al. (2017: fig. 1, tab. 1):
Figure 2. Larsen et al. (2017: tab. 1); note how Scenario 3 already has Bacteria with 91% of total biota!
Table 1. New global biota totals (for Figure1 above) with most of these groups most abundant in soils!
Indeed, Bickel & Or (2020) said: “Soil hosts unparalleled bacterial diversity, ranking highest among all other compartments of the biosphere1,2,3. The number of bacterial phylotypes ranges between 102 and 106 per gram of soil1,2,4, with high values similar to the diversity in all of earths environments3. This immense richness is often attributed to soil’s intrinsically heterogeneous physical and chemical micro-environments5,6,7,8,9. The complex structure of soil pores offers numerous refugia for hosting diverse bacterial species9. This wide range of microhabitats is particularly important for maintaining the rare components of the soil microbiome.” Median microbial biodiversity is then ca. 104 taxonomic units per g of dry soil. A single gram of soil may harbour “up to 1010 bacterial cells and an estimated species diversity of between 4×103 [1] to 5×104 species [2]” also “for all diversity levels, when bacterial density is 109 cells g−1 or less [Fisher diversity index] α = 1107.53 corresponds to a species richness of 15000 species for 109 cells whereas α = 264.79 corresponds to a species richness of 4010 species for the same number of cells.” (Ref.). Or 4,000-15,000 species per billion cells and, as I estimated, with roughly 4-15 species per million cells this is to the lower end within their magnitude but range above my one bacterial species per million cells. Q.E.D.
This conclusion conforms to, or does not deviate from, the Power Law of Species-Area Relationship:
Figure 3. S-AR Curves from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species%E2%80%93area_relationship.
A recent study by David Thaler (2021) presciently noted: “Darwin’s “tangled bank” of interdependent organisms may be composed mostly of other microbes. There is the likelihood that as some classes of microbes become extinct, others evolve and diversify.” And: “Lack of insight into the dynamics of evolution of microbial biodiversity is arguably the single most profound and consequential unknown with regard to human knowledge of the biosphere“. His fig. 2 (below) shows an interesting juxtaposition correlation:
Figure 4. From Thaler (2021: fig. 2) of (A) Darwin’s “Tree of Life” diagram from his Origin of Species (Darwin 1860) juxtaposed with (B) a time-lapse study of bacterial growth across a step-wise concentration gradient of antibiotic (Baym et al. 2016). A video of this marvelous experiment may be accessed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plVk4NVIUh8. Chemists know nothing of such evolution.
Seems Global Soil Biologists also know little of biodiversity (allowing Marine Biologists to lie profusely):
A preliminary study last month has, nevertheless, finally conceded that, rather than a paltry 25% as claimed by paid soil “experts”, soils now hold 60% or up to 75% global biodiversity (see summaries in www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/07/more-than-half-of-earths-species-live-in-the-soil-study-finds-aoe ; www.sciencetimes.com/articles/45466/20230817/more-50-earths-organisms-live-beneath-soil-making-biodiverse-habitat.htm ; https://phys.org/news/2023-08-two-thirds-world-biodiversity-soil.html). One quote is: “Before this study, scientists did not know what the most species-rich habitat was, says the lead researcher, Dr Mark Anthony, an ecologist at the Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research. “In my research circle, many suspected it should be soil but there was no evidence.”” That is surprising as, in addition to those cited above, my papers (Blakemore 2022/2023) were already published before theirs!… And my CoSI paper (Blakemore 2012) is already >10 years old – https://vermecology.wordpress.com/2017/04/30/census-of-soil-invertebrated-cosi/.
As my 2022 paper stated: “Based on topographic field data, an argument is advanced that Soil houses ~2.1 x 1024 taxa and supports >99.9% of global species biodiversity, mostly Bacteria or other microbes. Contradictory claims that Soil is home to only a quarter of biota while Ocean harbours 80–99% of Life on Earth are both dismissed.” My conclusion and soil thesis (+ ocean antithesis?!) now seems vindicated.
Having written to both key authors, I await a copy of their paper, or an acknowledgment, or just a reply…
[November, 2023 – over two months later – still awaiting the basic courtesy of a reply… just as expected].
Anthony M.A., Bender S.F., van der Heijden M.G.A. (2023). Enumerating soil biodiversity. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Aug 15;120(33):e2304663120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2304663120. Epub 2023 Aug 7. PMID: 37549278. Online: https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/236224/1/pnas.2304663120.pdf ; their Appendix data – https://www.pnas.org/doi/suppl/10.1073/pnas.2304663120/suppl_file/pnas.2304663120.sapp.pdf .
Anthon et al. (2023: fig. 1) PART 1 for Earth Biodiversity with my lines for Total added for clarity.
Anthon et al. (2023: fig. 1) PART 2 for Soil Biodiversity with my lines for Total added for clarity.
Sorry, I just don’t get it: How can a Soil Total of 1.04 x 1010 species be anything other than just about 10% of an Earth Total of 1.01 x 1011 species? Where do they get their 59% soil total from? Imagination!?
They may be also interested to know of another prior study by Román-Palacios et al. (2022) on “The origins of global biodiversity on land, sea and freshwater” in Ecology letters (25(6), 1376-1386. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13999) from 25th March, 2022 with better graphical summary below:
And perhaps all these latecomers may care to learn of my prior and earlier studies, e.g. https://vermecology.wordpress.com/2020/05/27/realms-of-the-soil/ fig. 2 or https://veop.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/new-addendum-file.pdf fig. 4, summarized here:
Preliminary scan of the Anthony et al. (2023) data makes it difficult to find their actual species totals but their Table 1 (that you need to look at carfully to realize it is in two parts) suggests a Central value of about ten billion, almost all “Phages” that I think means “viruses”, with just less than half a billion Bacteria. Yet they seem to ascribe biodiversity more to the intensity of survey (e.g. mainly in oceans and freshwater aquatics or human hosts) than to rational context. Then they are confused, not seeming to realize that Enchytraeidae are a part of Oligochaeta which is mainly composed of proper, true, terrestrial earthworms for which they falsely claim only “63 ± 4.2% of species live in soil“!! Where do their other 37% earthworms live? That is very amateurish or touristic. Their Bacteria data alone appear false: as noted above, Bickel & Or (2020) found: “bacterial phylotypes ranges between 102 and 106 per gram of soil with high values similar to the diversity in all of Earth’s environments” (= 108–1012 Bacteria spp/tonne soil, or a median 10 billion spp per tonne of soil compared to their mere 4.3 x 108 or less than half a billion for total Global soil Bacterial species). See too my data summary that shows their total to be abysmally low underestimation.
The authors took a brave – or foolhardy – route of including viruses in their biodiversity analysis. I did not. Although I updated viral survey data while noting how listing viruses would require redefinition of Life and may open doors to inclusion of unique mitochondria or other endosymbiotic organelles, etc., etc…
Seemingly they also missed other studies that I report such as by Williamson et al. (2017) who found: “Soils represent the greatest reservoir of biodiversity on the planet; prokaryotic diversity in soils is estimated to be three orders of magnitude greater than in all other ecosystems combined… Soils remain the most poorly understood ecosystems on Earth. At the same time, viruses represent the largest pool of untapped genetic diversity and unexplored sequence space on the planet. In this regard, the soil virome comprises an unknown quantity within an unexplored territory: a vast new frontier, ripe with opportunities for discovery.”
As if to almost sabotage their own work, the authors of Anthony et al. (2023) also define their boundary as: “Species in soil include taxa that live in, on, or which complete part of their life cycle in soil.” Surely all land taxa live “on” soil? When they die don’t most all land plants and animals decompose in or on soils?
My summary (Blakemore 2022) is much more concise: “Albeit taxa migrate variously between the six main Realms-of-Life, as shown by Zhao et al. (2022), the main habitat distinction maybe defined according to Grosberg et al. (2012) along the lines of where species breed or spend the majority of time (living, dormant, or deceased?). Condensing to Super-realms, we may broadly refer to those species that breed in or on soils (the “Soliota”?) to the relatively fewer mainly aquatic species (“Aquaota”?). [Ronin et al., 1975 use a term “Aquatoria” for aquatic biota but this term has other meanings].” My Soliota encompasses the above-ground taxa as well as true, soil-dwelling species, the prime exemplar of which is the humble earthworm. See too my less academic summary – https://vermecology.wordpress.com/2022/07/04/ip-bees/ .
However, I do separate into broadly above- and below-ground while further noting: “Soil biodiversity from divers sources (as in Blakemore 2012: tab. 1, 2016a: tab. 3, 2022: tab. 5) had about 315,500 prospective soil species listed with biomass of ~1,500 Gt C (part in SOC). Arguably, this should include any plants that root or seed in soils as a factual component, thereby adding an extra ~500,000 taxa (Corlett 2016). This 815,500 species total was revised (Blakemore 2022) to update microbial biodiversity with latest genomic or other “Omics” estimations of taxa showing soil houses ~2.1 x 1024 taxa representing >99.99% of global biodiversity, mostly Bacteria or other soil microbes.” Including plants in soil biota is a minor addition as soil microbes – especially Bacteria – are the major influence, albeit we know little of their Biodiversity/Ecology.
Perhaps I should be more generous to the efforts by these Swiss authors as I could not write in any of the four languages in their country. However, as a plausible biodiversity review I give it an “F” mark for Fail and question why the Editor allowed such obvious mistakes and confusion to be published as it is??
Despite our utter ignorance and tiny baby steps in yet understanding the very basics of diversity, biology and broader ecology of soil microbes that clearly reign on Earth, some arrogant, irresponsible, chemical idiots are still trying to make a quick buck by again messing with Nature and modifying these mysteriouis microbes. They should be stopped and all held accountable, their agrichemical predecessors too… https://foe.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/GE_Microbes_Report_Final.pdf.
Despite our hardly knowing anything of diversity & ecology of soil microbiome, false hope molecular meddling in our vital global resource (e.g. N-fixation, penicillin, streptomycin, ivermectin, plus many other beneficials and a relatively few pathogens) put at risk by laboratory biochemists just for a few $$s. Idiocy!
See also – https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/genetically-modified-soil-microbes/. This article notes: “In marketing microbes, the companies are appropriating the “regenerative agriculture” label, claiming to be leaders in the movement.” Yet again the depraved depth of their regen-ag sham scam is being revealed… E.g. https://www.syngentagroup.com/en/regenerative-agriculture.
Agrichem industry captures & corrupts novel terms for Agroecology; after over a century of crushing true “organic” farming as the biggest threat to their $$ profits, they cannot stop themselves.
Bad agriculture is the major cause of the loss of biota globally. Blakemore (2023) extrapolated that 23 species are extincted each second on average, mainly microbial. This is tenuously supported by a recent paper (Ref.) that found: “From these results, we can see that 20 years ago, when analyzing soil samples from the same agricultural fields, colonies of culturable bacteria and fungi were grown and up to 1–5 × 106 CFU of organotrophic bacteria were counted, up to 1–2 × 107 nitrifying bacteria. In 2022, we counted up to 1–4 × 105 CFU during culturable bacterial colony counts, which is quite different than 20 years ago. Of course, this was influenced by the methods of land cultivation, pre-sowing, etc., although here, we compared the control results of the variants of the agricultural experiments. This indicates that the number of active microorganisms in the soil is gradually decreasing. The most likely determining factor, especially for bacteria, is humidity, which is determined by rainfall. The 2003–2005 period in Lithuania was quite warm and humid compared to the 2022 season. The number of cultivable fungi in the samples of 2022 was lower by even more times compared to the data of 2003–2005 [50].” Their microbial decline in agricultural (chemical!) soils is by more than ten to a hundred times in a couple of decades. Or up to -10,000%…
There are other options for preserving Nature and restoration of lost biota, some better options are obviously a return to 100% modern organic husbandry. Harnessing and transfusions of the natural soil microbiome have been rationally advocated (e.g. Pexioto et al. 2022 – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-022-01173-1 or Coban et al. 2022 – https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe0725). Conversely, some other developments appear more irresponsible risk than benefit (e.g. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13199-023-00903-1).
What most microbiologists, by definition reductionist, miss is that if the earthworm population of a soil is healthy then so to is its microbiome; doctor worms being true expert monitors & mediators of soil health.
We each must choose who to believe (check funding and independent data sources), to support (“chews” wisely) or to follow during these times of rapid & reckless manipulation… and aim for honest soil restoration.
REFERENCES
Blakemore, R.J. (2012). Call for a Census of Soil Invertebrates (CoSI). Zoology in the Middle East. 58: sup4, 171-176. DOI: 10.1080/09397140.2012.10648999. Published 1st Jan., 2012; online 28th Feb., 2013 –https://vermecology.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/blakemore-2012-census-of-soil-invertebrates-cosi.pdf.
Blakemore, R.J. (2022). New Global Species Biodiversity: Soil soars, Ocean flounders. Veop. 5:
1–9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7735752. Date: 10th Sept., 2022 – https://veop.wordpress.com/2022/09/10/volume-5/.
Blakemore, R.J. (2023). Biotic SOC Stock: What We Had & What We Lost. Veop. 6: 1-59.
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7825446. Date 14th April, 2023 – https://veop.wordpress.com/2023/04/14/volume-6/.
Larsen, B.B. et al. (2017). Inordinate Fondness Multiplied and Redistributed: the Number of Species on Earth and the New Pie of Life. The Quarterly Review of Biology). 92:3. DOI: 10.1086/693564 –http://www.wienslab.com/Publications_files/Larsen_et_al_QRB_2017.pdf.
Román-Palacios, C., Moraga-López, D., & Wiens, J. J. (2022). The origins of global biodiversity on land, sea and freshwater. Ecology letters, 25(6), 1376-1386. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13999. 25th March, 2022.
Whitman, W.B., Coleman, D.C. and Wiebe, W.J. (1998) Prokaryotes: The Unseen Majority. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 95, 6578-6583. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.95.12.6578 – https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.95.12.6578.
Email send to the two Anthony et al (2023) paper corresponding co-authors:
| Robert Blakemore <rob.blakemore@gmail.com> | Sun, 3 Sept, 10:35 (4 days ago) |  | |
| to manthony5955, marcel.vanderheijden | |||
Hello,
Congratulations on your recent soil survey summary as promoted here –
https://phys.org/news/2023-08-two-thirds-world-biodiversity-soil.html.
Please can you send me a pdf copy of your PNAS paper.
You may also be interested in my studies summarized here –
https://veop.wordpress.com/2023/04/14/volume-6/ ;
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202212.0258/v2.
Especially – https://veop.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/new-addendum-file.pdf.
Clearly the prior claims that soil supports just 25% biota were bogus.
Regards,
Rob Blakemore”
Awaiting their reply… If they do reply it is likely to be some minimalist and insulting platitude with a rote note about being busy. Yeah well I’m super busy too: doing my own work as well as theirs that they get paid to do. Am I right or am I right?
UN’s FA.. Uh-Oh. Their stupid SDGs barely mention soil nor microbial biodiversity so are flawed.
UN’s SDGs need Ground Zero as basic foundation for all other (albeit false) goals. As it is they almost totally ignore soil, mentioning it just twice in parsing rather then it being key. Image source – https://vermecology.wordpress.com/2021/03/09/triage-time/.
FOOTNOTE
Yet again I must rip on Rothamsted as their data clearly show that chemical farming kills microbes by at least 50% but, yet again, they downplay this and misconstrue it as an “increase” in organic FYM plots… “The microbial biomass of the FYM plots is approximately twice that of the plots given either NPK or no fertilisers” (Ref.: page 14)#. NO – this is untrue! How a reasonable person would interpret the situation is to obviously conclude that introduction of synthetic, artificial, chemical NPK depletes or devastates microbes whereas organic FYM preserves, or protects, the soil microbiome. Q.E.D.
# Stiffed again by Rothamsted as their link no longer works. Here it is on WayBackMachine – https://web.archive.org/web/20210909081747/https://www.rothamsted.ac.uk/sites/default/files/RRes_LTE%20Guidebook_2018_%20web%20AW.pdf :
“The microbiology of Broadbalk
The various treatments on Broadbalk (including the Wilderness) provide an opportunity to examine the effects of contrasting agricultural management practices on soil microbial populations and the processes mediated by the soil microbial biomass. The microbial biomass of the FYM plots is approximately twice that of the plots given either NPK or no fertilisers (Jenkinson & Powlson, 1976). Estimates of the total numbers of microbial cells in soil vary depending on the methods used; directly by microscopy (around 109 cells g-1 soil), indirectly by quantitative PCR (around 1010 cells g-1 soil) (Clark et al., 2012) or by culturing bacteria (around 105 – 106 cells g-1 soil; Clark et al., 2008). All methods however show a similar trend of increasing microbial abundance with increased biomass. Approximatively 1% of bulk soil bacteria are currently culturable.”
This 2018 Report also noted: “The microbiology of Park Grass
The international TerraGenome consortium (Vogel et al., 2009) produced the first soil metagenome from the Park Grass untreated control plot (3d) in 2009 to examine the microbial diversity and genetic potential of the total soil microbiota. Key aims of this work were to establish the effects of different sampling approaches (spatial, temporal, depth) on variability in the soil metagenome and the application of different DNA extraction methods. The DNA extracted revealed that 89% of the DNA that could be assigned belonged to Bacteria, 1.4% to the Archaea and 1.0 % to Eukarya.” The Eukarya includes fungi and they say this is unexpected as most soils are claimed to have a large fungal component, although is seems most of this is dead hyphae. Anyways, my claim that bacteria dominate the soil (and hence global) biota seems vindicated. For some reason this ten year TerraGenome project folded or is now microscopic. Why? Perhaps they were onto the Truth that most life is in the soil and that chemicals are killing it and us… This Report went on to say: “Park Grass plots with different N and P fertilisation regimes and controls showed that soil pH correlated most strongly with microbial diversity (H’) and that the soil C/N ratio and concentration of ammonia-N also played a significant role (Zhalnina et al., 2015).” NPK acidifies soil…
VermEcology 
2 thoughts on “Not Unreasonable: A New Global Biotic Total”