The number of ants on the ground was announced
How many stars are there in our galaxy? How many grains of sand are there in the Sahara desert? How many ants live on earth? All these are questions that seem impossible to answer. However, through intensive and extensive data analysis, science is getting surprisingly close to finding solutions to these questions.
When it comes to ants, a group led by Sabine Nooten and Patrick Schultheiss, biologists from the city of Würzburg, conducted this investigation.
Since 2022, Schultis has been conducting research in the Chair of Behavioral Biology and Social Biology at the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg (JMU).
A 20 with 15 zeros
How many ants are there on the ground? “Based on our estimates, the world’s ant population is 10 x 20 to the power of 15, or 20 quadrillion ants,” explains lead author Sabine Naughton, who recently moved from Hong Kong to Würzburg. It means 20 with 15 zeros. This number is hard to understand, but it becomes clearer when you calculate the biomass of animals. This amount is equal to 12 megatons of carbon. Patrick Schultheis explains: This amount is more than the total biomass of wild birds and mammals and is about 20% equal to the biomass of humans.
In order to calculate the number of ants, the researchers reviewed a wide range of available studies on insects, eventually evaluating about 500 relevant articles and merging them into a database.
The distribution is very different
Ants were known to live in almost all habitats except the polar regions. This study was the first to experimentally investigate the distribution of ants. It turned out that tropical regions have the highest density of ants. In these areas, in addition to weather conditions, local ecosystems also play an important role. Forests and dry areas harbor the most specimens, while ants are much rarer in areas heavily impacted by humans.
Future studies should focus on which environmental effects specifically affect ant distribution. Especially the effect of climate change should be investigated.
An important role in the ecosystem
Why the number and distribution of these insects is so important can be explained with an example. In each hectare of land, ants move up to 13 tons of soil annually. This work has a great effect in maintaining the cycle of soil nutrients and also has a decisive role in the distribution of plant seeds.
But sometimes the effect of insects is negative. Invasive species, for example fire ants, can have a negative impact on local biodiversity and cause significant damage.