[hw_penfold]

I think the natural interpretation is that the January 1977 numbers showed a value 60 times greater than the January 2013 value.

  (the dry weight of all the captured invertebrates)

Here's a direct link to the relevant graph:

http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2018/10/09/1722477115...

Full publication:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/10/09/1722477115

[lisper]

That would indeed be a not-entirely-unreasonable interpretation except for two things:

1. Why not just say that the numbers went down by 98% (i.e. 59/60)?

2. If you look at the graph, the numbers clearly went down by less than 98%.