Small, medium or large? In nature, it’s all about comparisons, of course, but animal and plant life can be ranked on a scale that ranges from the smallest known microbe, nanoarchaeum equitans – which weighs a hundredth of a millionth of a nanogram – to the largest organism alive, the giant sequoia which can reach 2,000 tons. It has long been thought that in terms of biomass – the combined weight of a species or category of species – insects would be among the largest. Error, just demonstrated an original study published in the magazine “Plos One”, which shows that nature seems to favor the extremes on the scale of weight, with some surprises… of size.
“Life comes in many shapes and sizes, but some are better known than others. » The quote does not come from a fashion manual, but from research carried out by a team of Canadian scientists. “Current theories predict that biomass should be evenly distributed across all sizes,” recognizes Eden Tekawa, from the Department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia (Canada). His team set out to measure the size – or more precisely, the mass – of all organisms living on our planet, whether on Earth, in the seas or in the underworld. A scientific first in the matter, they claim.
From the size of a dot to that of the Panama Canal
These results are in fact in contrast
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