Why the whale urine is so important for life at sea

Even biologists only capture one overview of the life of whales. There are still many species whose life is largely a mystery, especially the deep diving whales.

But scientists learn more about the role that whales play in marine ecosystems and the services they provide. Recent research shows that even whale urine is important for earth.

Previous work has suggested that whale excrement was important for ecosystems. These giant mammals cause nutrients from the depths where they feed in shallow waters.

This effect is called the “whale pump” and can improve the photosynthetic rate of plankton, which is the basis of the food network. The nutrients are not distributed uniformly across the ocean and in certain regions, phytoplankton populations are limited because there are not enough specific elements, such as iron.

Certain species of whales perform long migrations across the ocean. The humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) perform the longest migration of all mammals at around 10,000 km, moving nutrients through the ocean basins when they travel. To a certain extent, the whale pump also influences the cycle and storage of carbon.

Whales can also help to go around the nutrients in the ocean when they disrupt the seabed as they feed. Gray whales (Robustus Eschrichtius), for example, are known to feed for invertebrates on the seabed and arouse sediments that release nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus and iron.

Another key area of ​​research describes the oasis ecosystems that whale carcasses provide to the deep sea species, hagfish (Eptatretus deani) and sleeping sharks (somnios pacificus) via crustacean, molluscs, nematodes and bacteria. Large whales have large bodies with high quantities of lipids in their bones. These lipids are food for many organisms and whale carcasses create in -depth mini ecosystems.

But so far, another advantage that whales offered ecosystems had not been quantified – that of urine.

A recent study published in Nature communications Indicates that the Urine of the Baleen whales could also have a crucial function in the oceans. Certain species of whales can produce up to 950 liters of urine per day, which means that they can move nutrients on tropical nutrient terrains. Many boulen whales, such as the bump and gray whales, feed in the polar and subpolar regions during the summer, then migrate to the mass equatorial reproduction zones in relatively small areas during the winter.

During migration, the whales transport trash like the placenta, the urine, the excrement and if they die, the carcasses. For example, the document describes how gray whales tend to winter in several food grounds across the North Pacific Ocean and is in summer in a few small bays on the California coast.

The researchers describe how gray, hump and right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) transport carbon and nitrogen to the tropics, in what they call the “large whale linen”. Globally, for these species, this process results in more than 46,000 tonnes of biomass (total mass of whales and the nutrients they contain) and nearly 4,000 tonnes of nitrogen per year, transferred to mediocre nutrient terrains.

Most of this nitrogen transport comes from whale urine, which stimulates the growth and photosynthesis of phytoplankton. This increase in photosynthesis could lead to 18,180 tonnes of carbon drawn from the atmosphere. Other large bean whales probably also contribute to this purpose, but there are less data on their distributions and their ecology.

Unfortunately, the study believes that the historic whale has reduced the transport of whale nutrients to almost a third of its previous potential.

Other animals that play a crucial role in nutrient flows have also suffered from the effects of human -related activities. Sea birds and fish migrating from sea to freshwater bodies have a significant effect on the transfer of phosphorus from sea to earth, which is also an important nutrient for photosynthesis.

Bears, otters, eagles and other predators who eat fish that migrate the sea rivers, participate in the transport of ocean nutrients to land through their excrement. Moveds are also important nutrient supports and are known to transfer large quantities of aquatic ecosystems to ecosystems as they feed on plants.

Hippopotamus grazing also transfers nutrients unlike the earth to aquatic systems. But these large animals generally do not correspond to whales in quantity or on the geographical scale.

Whales are faced with many threats to their survival today, such as ship strikes, pollution, poorly managed fisheries and climate change. This recent study shows how important it is to protect whales and the ocean in which they live.

The contribution that these animals will bring to the resolution of our climate crisis by stimulating photosynthesis is under debate and their ability to balance the global carbon budget in the face of human -related emissions can be negligible. However, the more we learn about these ocean giants, the more we understand how the whales are vital for marine ecosystems.

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