> The ocean's microscopic, single-celled plant known as phytoplankton produces more oxygen than all forests combined, with marine biologists estimating it contributes between 50 per cent and 85 per cent of the Earth’s oxygen levels.
Holy crap. I didn't know that part.
> When there are not enough whales in the ocean, krill consume phytoplankton at an unsustainable rate and threaten the global oxygen supply.
Unfortunately, "Burn krill, not rainforests!" isn't catchy enough for a bumper sticker.
Yup! Deliberately fostering phytoplankton growth using "iron fertilization" even has its own Wikipedia article [1]. The idea is that iron, not nutrients, is a limiting factor to phytoplankton growth in some areas, so we could boost phytoplankton just by throwing (a suitable form of) iron in the ocean.
IIRC, it's a controversial topic because the lack of a unified regulatory body for oceans makes experimentation difficult, and there are poorly-understood side effects with various algae. Also, wholesale manipulation of an ecosystem for scientific purposes is usually frowned upon (pollution, though, seems to get along just fine...).
Seeing high-quality video of things moving around gives a much more visceral impression than just reading text interspersed with static images, in my opinion.
A point that is easily missed is that you could burn all of the biomass currently on the earth and it would do little to the oxygen levels. Oxygen has been contributed to our atmosphere by millennia of forestry and phytoplankton.
And something like 95% of phytoplankton live in the surface 3 feet of water on the ocean. I.E.,the part of the ocean that gets hit hardest by chemical pollutants. (Especially petrochemicals.)
When I eat Jello I press my tongue against the roof of my mouth and squeeze the Jello through my teeth and imagine I am a whale filtering krill against my baleen.
I'd expect the narrow population bottleneck they've been pushed through (down to 150 individuals) would leave them with much less genetic diversity. That could be a serious and very long term problem (or not).
Irrelevant fact: whales can get flu (coronaviruses). Just FYI
Yep. Belugas have its own coronavirus SW1, you are right. I didn't knew that. And it seems that bottlenose dolphins have a second one... wow
Is particularly puzzling because it was a single captive animal so maybe beluga was not the main host here. If the memory does not fail me, Dolphinidae can sometimes pick dog viruses in captivity. They have its own poxviruses and morbiliviruses also.
Interesting, almost looks as if whale conservation, despite having been started for purely sentimental reasons afaik, has turned out to be saving our asses a bit in terms of climate change and overfishing.
Humpbacks and Sperm wales recovered. The later recovered because they do not eat krill.
Right whales recovered partially, the two species from the northern hemisphere still struggle to survive with total populations of around 410 whales and 23 whales. Yes, 23 animals. That would comprise like 12 females or so in total.
They are protected for the last 80 years if I remember correctly. And we are seeing the same animals again and again since this decade. Still not recovered.
China has wiped the yellow river dolphin and most probably also the vaquita, that was endemic from California and could be beyond repair by now. Maybe 5 or 10 reproductive females remaining and a single calf each two years. Coronavirus did more to save the american porpoise in this critical years than the current administration (and I challenge anyone to prove otherwise).
> The ocean single-celled plant known as phytoplankton
> when there are not enough whales krill consume phytoplankton at an unsustainable rate
I don't understand the claim that they are helping fight climate change.
Is lack of oxygen in the atmosphere a concern at all? Is it a concern for climate change? I've certainly heard of methane and CO2 levels being too high causing problems, but not of Oxygen levels being too low causing problems.
Photosynthesis uses C02 to convert sunlight to energy which is used by the organism and oxygen, as a byproduct, which is released. The more phytoplankton there are, the more CO2 is removed and converted to oxygen. It's exactly the same reason rainforests are good, there's just a shit ton more plankton than there's ever been trees, and their photosynthesis is efficient.
If 100% of all photosynthesis stopped today, it would still take literally millions of years before animal life would even notice a change. It took hundreds of millions of years to build to roughly present levels, and very little oxygen is actually consumed. All the "easy" oxygen sinks (like iron turning to rust) are used up. Animals don't really use very much.
The basic effect isn't hard to understand: A whale is a lot of biomass, i.e. they store carbon. Dead whales don't completely release all that carbon. And whales help other organisms thrive, which is more biomass and stored carbon.
1985 - Captain Kirk and his crew arrive from 2286 in a captured Klingon Bird of Prey to retrieve a breeding pair of humpback whales to repopulate the species and save Earth from a random probe that wanted to talk to them
An increase of 140 individuals to 40,000 individuals over 50 years, during a period in which shipping exponentially increased, seems to contradict your theory. I don't expect a shipping increase from current levels over the next 50 years to be anywhere near as large. There's not much shipping traffic to speak of in the area covered by this article, but even globally, shipping accidents with whales, tragic as they may be, are not killing them off in numbers anywhere near comparable to intentional hunting.
[+] [-] caseysoftware|5 years ago|reply
Holy crap. I didn't know that part.
> When there are not enough whales in the ocean, krill consume phytoplankton at an unsustainable rate and threaten the global oxygen supply.
Unfortunately, "Burn krill, not rainforests!" isn't catchy enough for a bumper sticker.
[+] [-] papeda|5 years ago|reply
IIRC, it's a controversial topic because the lack of a unified regulatory body for oceans makes experimentation difficult, and there are poorly-understood side effects with various algae. Also, wholesale manipulation of an ecosystem for scientific purposes is usually frowned upon (pollution, though, seems to get along just fine...).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization
[+] [-] jacobolus|5 years ago|reply
For example this video about diatoms, which are responsible for a quarter to half of the oxygen produced on earth, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygty9HxhFK4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatom
Seeing high-quality video of things moving around gives a much more visceral impression than just reading text interspersed with static images, in my opinion.
[+] [-] jtbayly|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VBprogrammer|5 years ago|reply
A point that is easily missed is that you could burn all of the biomass currently on the earth and it would do little to the oxygen levels. Oxygen has been contributed to our atmosphere by millennia of forestry and phytoplankton.
[+] [-] cushychicken|5 years ago|reply
And something like 95% of phytoplankton live in the surface 3 feet of water on the ocean. I.E.,the part of the ocean that gets hit hardest by chemical pollutants. (Especially petrochemicals.)
[+] [-] mrfusion|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JackFr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _nhynes|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PopeDotNinja|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] starpilot|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway_pdp09|5 years ago|reply
I'd expect the narrow population bottleneck they've been pushed through (down to 150 individuals) would leave them with much less genetic diversity. That could be a serious and very long term problem (or not).
Irrelevant fact: whales can get flu (coronaviruses). Just FYI
[+] [-] pvaldes|5 years ago|reply
Hum?...
Yep. Belugas have its own coronavirus SW1, you are right. I didn't knew that. And it seems that bottlenose dolphins have a second one... wow
Is particularly puzzling because it was a single captive animal so maybe beluga was not the main host here. If the memory does not fail me, Dolphinidae can sometimes pick dog viruses in captivity. They have its own poxviruses and morbiliviruses also.
[+] [-] usrusr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wjn0|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pvaldes|5 years ago|reply
Humpbacks and Sperm wales recovered. The later recovered because they do not eat krill.
Right whales recovered partially, the two species from the northern hemisphere still struggle to survive with total populations of around 410 whales and 23 whales. Yes, 23 animals. That would comprise like 12 females or so in total.
They are protected for the last 80 years if I remember correctly. And we are seeing the same animals again and again since this decade. Still not recovered.
China has wiped the yellow river dolphin and most probably also the vaquita, that was endemic from California and could be beyond repair by now. Maybe 5 or 10 reproductive females remaining and a single calf each two years. Coronavirus did more to save the american porpoise in this critical years than the current administration (and I challenge anyone to prove otherwise).
> The ocean single-celled plant known as phytoplankton
> when there are not enough whales krill consume phytoplankton at an unsustainable rate
Both statements are wrong.
[+] [-] jtbayly|5 years ago|reply
Is lack of oxygen in the atmosphere a concern at all? Is it a concern for climate change? I've certainly heard of methane and CO2 levels being too high causing problems, but not of Oxygen levels being too low causing problems.
[+] [-] grawprog|5 years ago|reply
https://earthsky.org/earth/how-much-do-oceans-add-to-worlds-...
[+] [-] caymanjim|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hannob|5 years ago|reply
The basic effect isn't hard to understand: A whale is a lot of biomass, i.e. they store carbon. Dead whales don't completely release all that carbon. And whales help other organisms thrive, which is more biomass and stored carbon.
Here's a better article on the effect: https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2019/12/natures-s...
[+] [-] koheripbal|5 years ago|reply
1700 - Early humpback whaling begins.
1844 - Invention of the explosive harpoon.
1904 - Whaling expands to the Antarctic. (massive decline in populations)
1966 - IWC banned commercial humpback whaling.
[+] [-] danaris|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notduncansmith|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonathanoliver|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leereeves|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] koheripbal|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] egberts1|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oregano|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gigatexal|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mensetmanusman|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] caymanjim|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jtbayly|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iso947|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] stevehawk|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]