Wednesday March 12, 2025
UC Santa Cruz —
New research shows that whales move nutrients thousands of miles—in their pee and poop—from as far as Alaska to Hawaii, supporting the health of tropical ecosystems and fish. UC Santa Cruz professors Dan Costa and Ari Friedlaender contributed their marine-mammal expertise to the study, which was published on March 10 in the journal Nature Communications.
Led by University of Vermont biologist Joe Roman, the research underscores that whales are not just huge—they’re a huge deal for healthy oceans. The study calculates that in oceans across the globe, great whales—including right whales, gray whales, and humpbacks—transport about 4,000 tons of nitrogen each year to low-nutrient coastal areas in the tropics and subtropics. They also bring more than 45,000 tons of biomass.
In addition, before the era of human whaling decimated populations, these long-distance inputs may have been three or more times larger. Hence, the co-authors also discuss how species recovery might help restore nutrient transfer by whales in global oceans and increase the resilience of the enriched ecosystems.
“Recently, we demonstrated how much commercial whaling impacted nutrient recycling by whales in their feeding grounds, and this work augments our understanding of how tropical systems are also impacted,” said Friedlaender, a professor of ocean sciences. “Given that these warm-water ecosystems are even more nutrient-limited than those in polar regions, the impacts may be even greater in the areas where baleen whales commonly breed and give birth.”