If you track a whale on the high seas, you’ll see this: They travel thousands of miles, burning blubber and leaving behind nutrients in the form of urine that help entire ocean ecosystems survive. Turns out, going to the bathroom can do more than just relieve stress.
A new study published in Nature Communications finds that large whales, including humpbacks, gray whales and right whales, drag thousands of tons of nitrogen from polar feeding areas into tropical waters each year, Popular Science reports. Along the way, they quietly fertilize coral reefs and coastal ecosystems that would otherwise be starved of essential nutrients.
Scientists call this process the “giant whale pee funnel,” and it’s exactly what it sounds like: an ocean-wide transfer system that begins when the whales grow up in the Arctic and ends when the whales are released in the tropics. The team estimates they release more than 4,000 tons of nitrogen each year, mostly in the form of urea-rich urine.
The new insights build on the 2010 discovery of a system called the “whale pump,” in which whales feed in deep water and then defecate near the surface, pushing nutrients toward plankton.
“But we quickly realized that was only part of the story,” study co-author and conservation biologist Joe Roman of the University of Vermont told Popular Science. “Baleen whales are ‘primary breeders’, spending part of the year feeding in high-latitude production areas such as Alaska, and giving birth and nursing in areas such as Hawaii during the winter. [they] Usually very quickly. “
During fasting periods, migrating whales burn hundreds of pounds of fat each day. This metabolic breakdown results in large amounts of nitrogen-rich urine. For example, fin whales off Iceland can produce more than 250 gallons of urine per day, while humans produce less than half a gallon, according to the Orkney Marine Mammal Research Program.
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All this liquid gold eventually flows into the ocean, encouraging the growth of algae, plankton and coral, especially in places where nutrients are scarce.
Humpback whales migrating from Antarctica to Costa Rica leak urea along the way, connecting ecosystems thousands of miles apart. In total, whales move more than 45,000 tons of biomass each year, an astounding figure that rivals some of the largest natural upwelling systems in the ocean. Available nitrogen levels may more than double in areas they pass through.
These transhemispheric nutrient flows could have been as high as three times before commercial whaling decimated global populations. Roman believes rebuilding whale populations isn’t just about conservation, but about restoring planetary systems. “We often think of plants as the lungs of the earth,” he said. “Animals are circulatory systems.”
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