The human being without doubt is at the top of the food chain of this planet. There is no natural predator that decimates our population significantly. However, a recent scientific study showed that there is a small animal that consumes much more prey than our species: spiders.
In the study conducted by the University of Basel in Switzerland, a group of researchers was given the task of determining the amount of food consumed by the world population of arachnids each year. As you can imagine, it is not a particularly easy task. First they had to determine the biomass of all known spider species, that is, the weight of all the spiders on the planet. This was done taking into account the physical characteristics of each species and their population.
It was determined that the spiders have a biomass of 25 million tons, which means that this is the total weight of all the spiders on the globe. Considering the different nutritional needs and patterns of each species and using biomass as a reference, the scientists determined that spiders consume between 400 and 800 million tons of food per year, which exceeds the 400 million tons of meat and fish that we consume humans.
This figure indicates that the spiders consume a biomass (combining all the species that they hunt) of between 16 and 32 times their own biomass. Compared to humans, the voracity of arachnids is even more impressive. The human being has a total biomass of 2 billion tons, which means that he consumes other species only ? of his own biomass.
If these numbers cause you arachnophobia, it may be a comfort to know that 90% of the prey that spiders consume are insects or similar animals. Humans (and other mammals that our species consumes) do not belong to the diet of spiders.
However, the scientific community begins to understand that the voracious role played by these animals in the food chain not only helps to maintain the balance of ecosystems, but also provides many benefits for our economic activity. Spiders help control pests that could be devastating to crops and certainly help reduce the use of pesticides.
"We hope that these estimates and the magnitude of their meanings will increase public recognition of the global importance of the role of spiders in terrestrial food webs," said biologist Martin Nyffeler, who is part of the research team that conducted this study.