300 WHITTAKER AND LIKENS 



81. R. H. Whittaker and G. E. Likens, in Primary Productivity of the World, H. Lieth and 

 R. H. Whittaker (Eds.), University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, N. C, in press, 

 1973. 



82. R. H. Whittaker and G. M. Woodwell, in Productivity of Forest Ecosystems, Symposium 

 Proceedings, Brussels, 1969, p. 159, P. Duvigneaud (Ed.), UNESCO, Paris, 1971. 



83. F. S. L. Williamson, M. C. Thompson, and J. Q. Hines, in Environment of the Cape 

 Thompson Region, Alaska, p. 437, N. J. Wilimovsky and J. N. Wolfe (Eds.), Superin- 

 tendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1966. 



84. I. Zajonc, in Productivity of Forest Ecosystems, Symposium Proceedings, Brussels, 

 1969, p. 453, P. Duvigneaud (Ed.), UNESCO, Paris, 1971. 



DISCUSSION BY ATTENDEES 



Hall: The 1967 report of the President's Council on World Food Problems 

 strongly suggests that the principal way open to us for increasing world 

 agricultural productivity is through increasing the degree of industrialization, 

 i.e., shift increasingly to a situation in which roughly 1 cal of fossil fuel is needed 

 for each edible calorie. Since you have suggested that continued industrialization 

 would potentially decrease plant productivity, we may be in a serious 

 dilemma — our best way to increase productivity will result, possibly, in a 

 decrease in productivity. Do you agree? 



Whittaker: That is just another facet of what I refer to as an unstable 

 relation. 



Cloud: Please amplify the reasons for the great discrepancy between 

 biomass and primary production indicated by your data showing land biomass to 

 be 600 times that of the oceans compared to a terrestrial productivity that is 

 only twice that of the oceans. 



Whittaker: These are the different realms of the relation between biomass 

 and production on land and sea that I referred to. It results directly from the 

 contrast in size of organisms and longevity and the striking consequent 

 difference in biomass accumulation ratio between land and sea. This is the 

 difference between microscopic organisms with a lifetime of a fraction of a year 

 as opposed to trees with decades. 



Colinvaux: Do you have any estimates of the rate at which the Amazon 

 forests are being removed? 



Whittaker: I sure would like to know — or would I? I do not have good data 

 on the rate at which forests are being removed. I know only that I do not like 

 what I see. 



Welch: What will be the effects of the decrease in world biomass caused by 

 forest harvest? 



Whittaker: I would assume that the biomass is going to decrease in other 

 areas, too. When one replaces Southern California chaparral with lawns (which 

 no longer burn up houses), one is reducing biomass. Most of the things that man 

 does reduce biomass ; the few exceptions to this would be in a prairie area where 



