One gram of forest-floor moss harbors several hundred thousand living organisms

Evidence

The collection from a Berlese funnel might typically produce the following results. One gram of moss from the forest floor, a piece about the size of a muffin, would harbor 150,000 protozoa, 132,000 tardigrades, 3,000 springtails, 800 rotifers, 500 nematodes, 400 mites, and 200 fly larvae. These numbers tell us something about the astounding quantity of life in a handful of moss. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 257

Categorization

• SHARE: A six-figure organism count per muffin-sized gram of moss is exactly the kind of stat to send to a biology-teacher friend or an ecology enthusiast.
• CANDY: The image of nearly 300,000 creatures living in one muffin-sized lump of moss is a genuinely fun, low-context fact for ordinary conversation.
• XREF: connects to: Harvested moss carries whole untold communities of invertebrates to their death — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural…, 608