Whale Poop Drives Global Nutrient Cycling - Scientific American

The world's oceans were once home to 10 times as many whales… before the Captain Ahabs of the world came round. Hunting hit big species the hardest, wiping out 99 percent of the southern hemisphere's blue whales, for example. And as the gentle giants disappeared… so did another lesser known element of the oceans: their poop.

"I've described it as, sort of like oversteeped green tea. Like well steeped green tea. So it's very diffuse, in a big plume." Joe Roman, a conservation biologist at the University of Vermont. "My daughter's friends say I'm a whale poop scientist." And he says, he studies all kinds. "When whales are feeding on krill, they're really high lipids, lots of fat, so it sort of clumps together and floats at the surface. So there's a great variety of fecal plumes out there in the oceans."

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