Fig. 2.

Estimates of global ant abundance and biomass. (A) The pie chart at center shows the global abundance of epigaeic foraging ants in the leaf litter and the contribution of each biome to the epigaeic ant fauna. The bars on the right show the relative contribution of each biome to global epigaeic ant abundance and land cover. Note that not all biomes are included. The area of the larger gray circle in the background corresponds to the total global abundance of all ants, including arboreal ants and nonforaging individuals. (B) The biomass of the total global ant population in comparison to other selected taxa (data for other taxa from Bar-On et al. (43)). Note that the uncertainty of the terrestrial arthropod biomass estimate is ∼15-fold and that of wild bird biomass is ∼twofold). Biomass values are in megatons of dry carbon (Mt C).