Scientists have discovered that the large whale eats more than three-time which was previously presumed, a finding which has uncovered the significance of whales in retaining the ocean healthy.
The study gives us ideas about the impact of destroying millions of the largest whales was so overwhelming to the marine environments. The scientist said that regenerating the whale population could bring magic to marine environments and might help refill the diminishing fish populations.
Till now, it was very difficult to get find out how the large whales fed. They cannot be kept under custody and they feed very deep under the surface water. To understand this, the scientists created sensors, which could search for fish and krill as most of the whales eat them.
These sensors, which stuck on them, were used to locate 321 baleen whales from seven different species in the Southern species that environs Antarctica. Using this technique, the scientists establish they ate about three to four times more in an amount than was formerly thought.
This indicates that the pro-whaling population would have eaten approximately 400 million metric tons of fish and krill a year, which again very far more than that has been expected. That is again two times as much as the total amount of krill left in Antarctica today.
That also means whales produce a big amount of iron-rich poop than formerly considered, which enlightens the ruthlessness of environmental destruction when the whales were killed. As the whales feed and evacuate, they reallocate the iron near the surface of the ocean. In this way, they make the iron available for phytoplankton, small algae, which can’t grow without the nutrient.
In turn, these algae are eaten by krill, which are eaten by the whales. So without them, a large amount of iron drops to the bottom of the ocean, efficiently quitting the ecosystem.
Based on the study, the scientists said that the whales play an important role in the ecosystem, so regenerating the whale population in the Southern Ocean and other oceans also would be profited to the marine environments, Savoca, and Pyenson.
