Number of microbial genomes

Range 10^30 to 10^31 genomes
Organism Biosphere
Reference Huse SM, Dethlefsen L, Huber JA, Mark Welch D, Relman DA, Sogin ML. Exploring microbial diversity and taxonomy using SSU rRNA hypervariable tag sequencing. PLoS Genet. 2008 Nov4(11):e1000255. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1000255. p.1 left column top paragraphPubMed ID19023400
Primary Source Whitman WB, Coleman DC, Wiebe WJ (1998) Prokaryotes: the unseen majority. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 95: 6578–6583.PubMed ID9618454
Comments "The biosphere contains between 10^30 and 10^31 microbial genomes, at least 2–3 orders of magnitude more than the number of plant and animal cells combined [primary source]."
Entered by Uri M
ID 109667