The global ocean size spectrum from bacteria to whales
Hatton, Ian (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Heneghan, Ryan (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Bar-On, Yinon (Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel). Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences)
Galbraith, Eric (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)

Date:	2021
Abstract:	It has long been hypothesized that aquatic biomass is evenly distributed among logarithmic body mass size classes. Although this community structure has been observed regionally, mostly among plankton groups, its generality has never been formally tested across all marine life over the global ocean, nor have the impacts of humans on it been globally assessed. Here, we bring together data at the global scale to test the hypothesis from bacteria to whales. We find that biomass within most order of magnitude size classes is indeed remarkably constant, near 1 gigatonne (Gt) wet weight (1015 g), but bacteria and large marine mammals are markedly above and below this value, respectively. Furthermore, human impacts appear to have significantly truncated the upper one-third of the spectrum. This dramatic alteration to what is possibly life's largest-scale regularity underscores the global extent of human activities.
Grants:	Agencia Estatal de Investigación PCIN-2017-115 European Commission 682602
Note:	Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Published in:	Science advances, Vol. 7, Issue 46 (November 2021) , art. eabh3732, ISSN 2375-2548

DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abh3732
PMID: 34757796

13 p, 907.0 KB

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles