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 ...

The study focused on a handful of baleen species — namely, gray whales, humpback whales and right whales — which display ...

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

The “conveyor belt” is not just made up of urine ... It’s super-cool, and changes how we think about ecosystems in the ocean.” This research also highlights the potential ecological ...