Linked Life Data

20554546

Source:http://linkedlifedata.com/resource/pubmed/id/20554546

Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
1699
pubmed:dateCreated
2010-10-12
pubmed:abstractText
The iron-limited Southern Ocean plays an important role in regulating atmospheric CO(2) levels. Marine mammal respiration has been proposed to decrease the efficiency of the Southern Ocean biological pump by returning photosynthetically fixed carbon to the atmosphere. Here, we show that by consuming prey at depth and defecating iron-rich liquid faeces into the photic zone, sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) instead stimulate new primary production and carbon export to the deep ocean. We estimate that Southern Ocean sperm whales defecate 50 tonnes of iron into the photic zone each year. Molar ratios of C(export):Fe(added) determined during natural ocean fertilization events are used to estimate the amount of carbon exported to the deep ocean in response to the iron defecated by sperm whales. We find that Southern Ocean sperm whales stimulate the export of 4 × 10(5) tonnes of carbon per year to the deep ocean and respire only 2 × 10(5) tonnes of carbon per year. By enhancing new primary production, the populations of 12 000 sperm whales in the Southern Ocean act as a carbon sink, removing 2 × 10(5) tonnes more carbon from the atmosphere than they add during respiration. The ability of the Southern Ocean to act as a carbon sink may have been diminished by large-scale removal of sperm whales during industrial whaling.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:chemical
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Nov
pubmed:issn
1471-2954
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Electronic
pubmed:day
22
pubmed:volume
277
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
3527-31
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
2010
pubmed:articleTitle
Iron defecation by sperm whales stimulates carbon export in the Southern Ocean.
pubmed:affiliation
School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, PO Box 2100, Adelaide, South Australia 5001, Australia. trish.lavery@flinders.edu.au
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article