“Great Whale Conveyor Belt”
Migrating whales usually soak the canyon in the summer at higher latitudes, increase energy reserves and make long moves to lower latitudes. It is still unclear why whales move, but pregnant women in particular may find it more beneficial to give birth to young people in warm, shallow, sheltered areas and nursing young nurses. Warm water also keeps you warm as whale calves gradually develop a layer of obesity gradually. Some scientists believe that whales may migrate to molt their skin in the same warm, shallow waters.
Roman et al. We examined published spatial data on whale feeding and breeding sites, witnessed from plane and ship surveys to fill the data gaps, and fed the data to models to calculate nutrient transport. They focused on six species known to travel seasonally seasonally over long distances from high to low latitudes: blue whale, fin whale, grey whale, humpback whale, and North Atlantic and southern whale.
They discovered that whales can transport around 4,000 tonnes of nitrogen each year and 45,000 tonnes of biomass during their travels. These numbers may have been three times larger in the early days before industrial whaling was depleted. “We call it the ‘Great Whale Conveyor Belt.’ ” Roman said. “Whales can also be thought of as funnels because they feed on a wide area, but they need to be in a relatively confined space to find, breed and give birth. The study did not include effects from whales that release feces or remove their skin.
“Because of its size, whales can do things other animals don’t. They live on a different size.” Co-author Andrew Pershing saidan oceanographer at the nonprofit Climate Central. “The nutrients come from outside, not from the river, but by these moving animals. It’s super cool and changes the way we think about ocean ecosystems. We don’t think of non-human animals affecting planetary scales, but whales really do.”
Nature Communications, 2025. Doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-56123-2 (About DOI).
