Robert Blakemore

Based on topographic field data, an argument is advanced that Soil houses ~2.1 x 10^24 taxa and supports >99.9% of global species biodiversity, mostly Bacteria or other microbes. Contradictory claims that Soil is home to only a quarter of biota while Ocean harbours 80-99% of Life on Earth are both dismissed. Earlier guesstimates of ~8.8 million taxa (~2.2 million or 25% marine), of 1-6 billion, or up to over a trillion species worldwide are likely underestimations. Recent studies show >10^12 microbial OTUs (just 10^10 or ~1% in Ocean) soon raised to 10^12-10^14 and speculated as high as 10^22-10^23 species. Scaling of simple topsoil samples herein ups the total taxa to 10^24. Biomass at 2 x 10^-13 g/cell of 2.1 x 10^30 soil cells = 4 x 10^17 g or ~400 Gt (200 Gt Carbon, 48 Gt Nitrogen).