Fecal Pellets Sink Carbon

underwater photograph of marine microorganism

Biological Strategy

Salps

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Store Chemical Entities

Chemical entities include elements such as carbon and metals, and compounds such as nutrients and proteins. Living systems must often store chemical entities–for example, for food or protection–temporarily or for long periods; the latter is synonymous with sequestration. Because chemical entities can react with other chemicals, living systems must store these entities so that they are stable and out of the way (for long-term storage) or readily available when needed (for temporary storage). An example of temporary storage is found in crustaceans such as crabs, which must shed their external skeletons as they grow. But first, a crab must absorb as much calcium carbonate from its shell as possible, storing the compound in its blood until the crab can use it to grow a new exoskeleton.

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Vertebrates (Mammals, Fish, Birds, Reptiles)

Subphylum Vertebrata (“jointed”): Mammals, fish, birds, reptiles

Vertebrates are a subgroup of chordates, which all have a flexible, rod-shaped structure that supports the body called a notochord. Non-vertebrate chordates include tunicates, hagfish, and lancelets. In vertebrates the notochord ultimately becomes part of the spine, usually encased in bony joints. All chordates also have a dorsal hollow nerve cord that forms the nervous system and pharyngeal slits that open outside the body during development (and persist to form gills in aquatic animals). Lastly, chordates have a tail at the back of the body––it’s just that sometimes you need an x-ray to see it.

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Salpa aspera transport carbon to the ocean floor via their fecal pellets.

“Biologists Laurence Madin of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Patricia Kremer of the University of Connecticut and colleagues have conducted four summer expeditions to the Mid-Atlantic Bight region, between Cape Hatteras and Georges Bank in the North Atlantic, since 1975. Each time the researchers found that one particular salp species, Salpa aspera, multiplied into dense swarms that lasted for months.”

“One swarm covered 100,000 square kilometers (38,600 square miles) of the sea surface. The scientists estimated that the swarm consumed up to 74 percent of microscopic carbon-containing plants from the surface water per day, and their sinking fecal pellets transported up to 4,000 tons of carbon a day to deep water.” (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 2006)

Last Updated September 14, 2016

References

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Jellyfish-like creatures may play major role in fate of carbon dioxide in the ocean

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution,

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