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Biosignature gas detection is one of the ultimate future goals for exoplanetatmosphere studies. We have created a framework for linking biosignature gasdetectability to biomass estimates, including atmospheric photochemistry andbiological thermodynamics. The new framework is intended to liberate predictiveatmosphere models from requiring fixed, Earth-like biosignature gas sourcefluxes. New biosignature gases can be considered with a check that the biomassestimate is physically plausible. We have validated the models on terrestrialproduction of NO, H2S, CH4, CH3Cl, and DMS. We have applied the models topropose NH3 as a biosignature gas on a "cold Haber World," a planet with aN2-H2 atmosphere, and to demonstrate why gases such as CH3Cl must have toolarge of a biomass to be a plausible biosignature gas on planets with Earth orearly-Earth-like atmospheres orbiting a Sun-like star. To construct the biomassmodels, we developed a functional classification of biosignature gases, andfound that gases (such as CH4, H2S, and N2O) produced from life that extractsenergy from chemical potential energy gradients will always have falsepositives because geochemistry has the same gases to work with as life does,and gases (such as DMS and CH3Cl) produced for secondary metabolic reasons arefar less likely to have false positives but because of their highly specializedorigin are more likely to be produced in small quantities. The biomass modelestimates are valid to one or two orders of magnitude; the goal is anindependent approach to testing whether a biosignature gas is plausible ratherthan a precise quantification of atmospheric biosignature gases and theircorresponding biomasses.

A Biomass-based Model to Estimate the Plausibility of Exoplanet Biosignature Gases