Researchers have taken a close look at the global ocean's great "conveyor belt," and they don't like what they've found. The ...

Through urine, feces, placentas, carcasses and sloughing skin, whales bring thousands of tons of nitrogen and other nutrients from high-latitude areas like Alaska and Antarctica to low-nutrient ...

“We call it the ‘great whale conveyor belt,’” Joe Roman ... It’s super-cool, and changes how we think about ecosystems in the ocean.” This research also highlights the potential ...

Boersma & Nature Communications “We call it the ‘great whale conveyor belt,’” Roman added ... Seabirds transport nitrogen and phosphorus from the ocean to the land in their poop ...

Ocean currents and upwellings also transport ... have declined precipitously over the last few centuries, the great whale conveyor belt has weakened. The nutrient transport numbers — by the ...

The study focused on a handful of baleen species — namely, gray whales, humpback whales and right whales — which display “traditional migratory patterns,” moving from colder waters in the summer to ...