Gorshkov V.G., Dol'nik V.R. (1980) Energetics of the biosphere.
Sov. Phys. Usp., 23(7), 386-408.
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Heterotrophic organisms live on accumulated plant and animal biomass. By
harvesting the output of land area that exceeds their coverage of the
Earth's surface they attain consumption rates (per unit coverage by the
organism) that exceed by several orders of magnitude the rate of
production of vegetation (per unit Earth surface area). This occurs as
a result of the fact that organisms move over the area they utilize due
to the accumulation of production as biomass. Plants use photons, which
have zero rest mass. Photons cannot be stored so that plants cannot
increase their utilization of photons by moving about. For this reason,
plants are stationary and the area they utilize coincides with the Earth
surface area that they cover. Under natural conditions, approximately
90% of the vegetation is consumed by immobile microscopic organisms, for
which the rate of consumption equals the rate of production of
vegetation. As organisms become larger, their rates of consumption
increase and the fraction of the production of vegetation that they
consume decreases. (All vertebrates in the wild consume about 1% of the
vegetation produced.) This results in a rapid increase in the area
utilized as the size of the animal increases and increases the energy
expended on grazing, which limits the increase in size. Man falls into
the class of large organisms and under natural conditions must expend a
large amount of energy on locomotion, which leads to all of his energy
problems. When man learned how to combust the products of the biosphere
and the fossil fuels outside the body and how to use this energy for
locomotion, he became a more competitive mammal and he was able to
increase his share of the total consumption in the biosphere to 25% of
the vegetation produced on land by displacing the natural consumers.
Such a high anthropogenic share of the total consumption in the
biosphere can only be achieved through the use of nonrenewable energy
resources.
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