Regenerate Jamaica's coastal resources
Tom Goreau
Tom Goreau
- Article
- Open access
- Published: 27 October 2025
The global biomass of mammals since 1850
Nature Communications volume 16, Article number: 8338 (2025)
Abstract
Mammals are of central interest in ecology and conservation science. Here, we estimate the trajectory of mammal biomass globally over time — including humans, domesticated and wild mammals. According to our estimates, in the 1850s, the combined biomass of wild mammals was ≈200 Mt (million tonnes), roughly equal to that of humanity and its domesticated mammals at that time. Since then, human and domesticated mammal populations have grown rapidly, reaching their current combined biomass of ≈1100 Mt. During the same period, the total biomass of wild mammals decreased by more than 2-fold. We estimate that, despite a moderate increase in the recent decades, the global biomass of wild marine mammals has declined by ≈70% since the 1850s. This provides a broader perspective to observed species extinctions, with ≈2% of marine mammal species recorded as extinct during the same period. While historical wild mammal biomass estimates rely on limited data and have various uncertainties, they provide a complementary perspective to species extinctions and other metrics in tracking the status of wildlife. This work additionally provides a quantitative view on the rapid human-induced shift in the composition of mammalian biomass over the past two centuries.
COMMENT: With humans, cows, pigs, and chickens overwhelming natural wildlife, no wonder pathogenic diseases that jump between them are evolving and spreading without control!
Jan Umsonst
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Tom Goreau
Evolution in action, parasites and pests evolve fastest to eat the most abundant food!
Bru Pearce
Very good observation Jan!
Bru
Pearce
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From: healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>
On Behalf Of Jan Umsonst
Sent: 30 October 2025 11:48
To: Tom Goreau <gor...@globalcoral.org>
Cc: EcoRestoration Alliance <ecorestorat...@googlegroups.com>; healthy-planet-action-coalition <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [HPAC] A plague of Humans, and their parasites
Hi all, all that looses their target species will search for new targets and guess which species they will focus on?