I love this 2014 study on whales role in the world's oceans:
Joe Roman, James A Estes, Lyne Morissette, Craig Smith, Daniel Costa, James McCarthy, JB Nation, Stephen Nicol, Andrew Pershing, and Victor Smetacek (2014). Whales as marine ecosystem engineers. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/130220
#Whales #oceans #BiologicalCarbonPump
Study: Whales in the carbon cycle: can recovery remove carbon dioxide? https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/fulltext/S0169-5347(22)00279-8
Short Answer: Yes it can
"Their size and longevity allow whales to exert strong effects on the carbon cycle by storing carbon more effectively than small animals, ingesting extreme quantities of prey, and producing large volumes of waste products," write the authors. "Considering that baleen whales have some of the longest migrations on the planet, they potentially influence nutrient dynamics and carbon cycling over ocean-basin scales."
"Whale recovery has the potential for long-term self-sustained enhancement of the ocean carbon sink," the authors write. "The full carbon dioxide reduction role of great whales (and other organisms) will only be realized through robust conservation and management interventions that directly promote population increases."
