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Index – Tech-Science – Does whale droppings still contribute to climate change?

Silos are the largest living creatures in the world today, aquatic mammals that use their horns in their mouths to filter their food, small crabs, or krill, from trapped seawater in huge sips.

Over the last century, whaling has reduced the number of individuals in some species by 99%, so they are now looking for international protection to prevent the extinction of the animals.

With the disappearance of millions of whales, krill were expected to breed, but the opposite has been found. The number of krill continues to decline, with major impacts on seabirds, fish and the entire ecosystem. A recent article published in Nature this week revealed that the reason for this is the disappearance of whale droppings. Iron-bearing whale droppings contributed significantly to the fertilization of the unicellular marine plants that feed on krill – the loss of which reduces the amount of carbon sequestered in the biomass.

they eat a lot

We do not understand this phenomenon yet because we have misconceptions about the amount of food consumed by silage vinegar. In the past, this has been attempted to estimate by calculating the stomach content of hunted animals, energy requirements and the corresponding metabolism resulting from their size.

Matthew Savoca, a fellow at the Naval Research Institute at Stanford University, and his colleagues have obtained more accurate data on the subject, which requires some sensors and drones.

The researchers first attempted to estimate how much water the silkworms obtained while feeding, then compared the estimate to the density of krill in the area’s water. Sensors on 321 samples from seven different whale species were attached to suction cups, which could be used to detect when the animals were feeding while they were being fed.

From the resulting data set, they were able to build an accurate picture of the silkworms’ eating habits, and the result was quite surprising: the whales consumed about three times as much as previous estimates. The largest land animal, weighing up to 173 tons, the blue whale, consumes up to 16 tons of krill per day, which can contain from 10 to 20 million calories, which is the equivalent of thirty thousand fast food burgers.

The truth is that whales do not eat much every blessed day, because they are migratory animals, they travel long distances without eating a single bite.

The food chain is broken

Silage whales were able to consume 430 million tons of krill annually in their main habitat, the waters around Antarctica, before millions were hunted. According to the researchers, if the number of protected animals returns to XX. At the beginning of the 20th century, annually 215 million tons of coal returned to the food chain, equal to the emissions of 170 million cars.

Whales do not solve the problem of climate change. But rebuilding their population is a small part, and many need to solve the problem

Savoca noted.

(science news)