Whales store carbon
August 2011
The amount of greenhouse gases sequestered in just one large whale is exceeded only by that stored by the largest trees. A blue whale has a biomass of 90 tons, with 9 tons of carbon stored in its tissues, according to Andrew Pershing, a research scientist from both the University of Maine and the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. Pershing and other marine researchers estimated that 100 years of whaling removed 23 million tons of carbon from marine ecosystems. Conserving larger marine vertebrates should be a top conservation priority for carbon sequestration according to the researchers.
In those ecosystems heavily impacted by whaling, the populations of smaller species increased. But such a shift toward smaller animals could decrease the total community biomass by 30 percent or more, according to the researchers. The larger animals require less food per unit mass, more efficiently storing carbon than smaller animals.
Compared to smaller animals, bigger species require less food (carbon) per day to support each gram of tissue. The same amount of food can support a greater tonnage of whales than penguins, Pershing says.
"In many ways bigger is better," Pershing says. "Larger organisms are more efficient, requiring less food per unit in their bodies."
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