So why, among the many kinds of invertebrates, are insects being singled out as so extraordinarily numerous? Has that really been established? Based on what little I've observed, watching Bill Leonard as he collects new families, genera, and species of millipedes and terrestrial molluscs, we really don't have a good idea how many "species" (hahr) there are among the many invertebrate groups.

Kelly McAllister


-----Original Message-----
From: tweeters-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu [mailto:tweeters-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Kelly Cassidy
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2011 7:15 PM
To: 'Gary Bletsch'; 'tweeters'
Subject: RE: [Tweeters] biodiversity question

Among the 3 multi-celled kingdoms (Plant, animal, and fungi), on land, insects surely lead in number of species in most places; probably all. In terms of biomass, plants lead. Lots of different insect species specializing in eating different plant products, plus all the different decay products, but ultimately, all energy comes from plants.

The eukaryotic protists are now divided into many kingdom, but I'm not sure their classification is close to settled. I can't keep up. The species concept gets a tad fuzzy at that level, anyway. In marine environments, I think diatoms have the greatest biomass, but for all I know, they have been split into multiple kingdoms.

Which reminds that I read something interesting on Wikipedia (that font of knowledge mixed with prankster garbage) the other day:


"Bacteriophages are a common and diverse group of viruses and are the most abundant form of biological entity in aquatic environments ? there are up to ten times more of these viruses in the oceans than there are bacteria, reaching levels of 250,000,000 bacteriophages per millilitre of seawater."

Of course, that is in terms of numbers of virus particles, not biomass. Viruses are extremely small. Still, cool trivia.

The miniscule world beyond our vision rules the planet.

Kelly Cassidy

-----Original Me; sage-----
From: tweeters-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu [mailto:tweeters-bounces at mailman2.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Gary Bletsch
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2011 8:33 AM
To: tweeters tweeters
Subject: [Tweeters] biodiversity question

Dear Tweeters,

On a recent birding trip, a debate arose about plants and animals. The question is, would there be a greater number of plants species, or a greater number of animal species, in a given habitat?

The other fellow stoutly maintained that, in any given environment, there will be more species of plants than of animals. I would have thought that, at least on land, there would be more species of INSECTS than of plants and other animals combined, no?

In saltwater environments, I would think the animal species would vastly outnumber the plants, but the protists would outnumber the other kingdoms.

In freshwater, I am not so sure.

I have no idea how the bacteria would fit into such a ranking.

Any ideas?

Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA garybletsch at yahoo.com Mentre che li occhi per la fronda verde ficcava ?o s? come far suole chi dietro a li uccellin sua vita perde, lo pi? che padre mi dicea: ?Figliuole, vienne oramai, ch? ?l tempo che n?? imposto pi? utilmente compartir si vuole?.



_______________________________________________
Tweeters mailing list
Tweeters at u.washington.edu
http://mailman2.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters


_______________________________________________
Tweeters mailing list
Tweeters at u.washington.edu
http://mailman2.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters