Percentage Mulit- v. Uni-Cellular life

[Tim Taylor]

Hi,

I remember hearing sometime ago that, to a good approximation, all
life on Earth is bacterial (in terms of numbers of individual
organisms).

Is this right, or am I thinking of something else?

If anyone knows of any approximations of the relative abundance (%) of

a) Multicellular v. unicellular *species*, and
b) Multicellular v. unicellular *numbers of individuals*,

I would be very interested to know. Also, could someone please clear
up something I am unclear about - are most bacteria, viruses etc.
actually *cellular* at all? If not, what is the proper term for them?

Thanks in advance for any help,

Tim.

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Tim Taylor, Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh
             tel +44-(0)131-650-3084/3081/4493  fax -650-6899
             home page http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/students/timt/