Re: Mesozoic biomass

[FlxLandry@aol.com]

Hi!
You wrote:

>In essence, it  is like the African savannahs with size of predators and prey
>magnified  by a factor of 5-10.  So were number of predators & prey 1/5  or
>1/10 of Holocene norms? 


I think that would be our best  bet. A more precise factor could be estimated 
by evaluating whether 1) the  Mesozoic ecosystem you're studying was richer 
or poorer in plant material than  the African savannah and 2) how much bigger 
the dinos were as an average.
I  fear that extending this mode of thinking to the whole planet would lead 
to  freakingly approximative calculations. As has already been said, after a 
good  estimate is known for a few significant ecosystems (could the Morrison be 
 
considered as an individual "ecosystem"? Bakker used to consider whole  
formations as ecosystems in Dino Heresies, but I fear this is not a very  
rigorous 
approach), little more than relative estimations could be  done.

Félix  

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