Discovering new ways fishes and whales help the environment, researchers from the University of Agder in Norway found that fishes and whales help absorb greenhouse gas emissions.
The discovery was made by Angela Helen Martin, a Ph.D. candidate from Agder's Department of Natural Sciences, together with University of Alaska Southeast's Heidi C. Pearson, Rutgers University's Grace K. Saba, and the Institute of Marine Research's Esben M. Olsen. They recently published "Integral functions of marine vertebrates in the ocean carbon cycle and climate change mitigation" in the journal One Earth. The new report reviews how animals, like whales and fishes, affect greenhouse gases in the ocean.
Animals Trapping Greenhouse Gases in the Ocean
"It is a good thing that carbon is trapped in the ocean, but less greenhouse gas emissions from humans is overall best for the climate," Martin commented in a news release from the University of Agder. One of the conclusions they drew is that there might be a need to reconsider how animals affect the carbon cycle to create a more effective carbon management scheme in ocean habitats and populations of marine vertebrates.
"For example, if we only protect the plants that convert greenhouse gases to organic carbon, we can miss all the carbon storage delivered by the animals," Martin said. She adds that if humans miss this, it could lead to missing the carbon storage benefits from the location.
In their study, researchers studied how marine animals, including fishes, whales, birds, and turtles, affect the storage and movement of carbon in the ocean. She explains that animals eat carbon as a part of their food, stored in their bodies and later released through excretion or respiration. Some of these materials, such as the excretions from fishes and whales, are then used by marine plants to create their food through photosynthesis.
Plants then create organic carbon from the carbon dioxide, which is also moved when animals move.
However, scientists still haven't confirmed whether the effect of animals on greenhouse gases is good or bad or indifferent for the climate overall. Martin believes that it most likely depends on the volume of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere compared to those stored or trapped in the ocean. The less carbon footprint moved into the atmosphere, the better.
A Natural Carbon Cycle Underwater
Additionally, the ocean has absorbed about 25 percent of the Earth's greenhouse gases through the carbon cycle. According to the NOAA's Ocean Service website, the carbon cycle is the process where carbon atoms continuously travel from the atmosphere to the Earth and back again to the atmosphere. Additionally, carbon trapped beneath the Earth's oceans and coastal ecosystems is called "blue carbon," with some of these stored greenhouse gases efficiently absorbed and reused by plants and animals in these systems.
However, most emissions that go into the ocean are not synthesized by living beings and dissolve into the water directly, contributing to ocean warming and acidification. She stresses the need to still cut down on our emissions of greenhouse gases to curb climate change.
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