The collapse and recovery potential of carbon sequestration by baleen whales in the Southern Ocean

Durfort, Anaelle; Mariani, Gaël; Troussellier, Marc; Tulloch, Vivitskaia; Mouillot, David

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-92037/v1

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 71 publications

(135 reference statements)

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“…A mesopelagic fishery would currently be difficult to manage under a quota system because there are great uncertainties associated with their population structure and dynamics in space and time (Martin et al, 2020). Moreover, commonly used fishery targets such as MSY (which typically targets 30-50% of unexploited biomass) would likely be unsustainable from a carbon sequestration and ecosystem-based management perspective (Durfort et al, 2020). In addition, deep sea mining activities and other pressures which might negatively impact mesopelagic fish need to be considered (Drazen et al, 2020;Amon et al, 2022).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protecting ocean carbon through biodiversity and climate governance

et al. 2022

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Global policy goals for halting biodiversity loss and climate change depend on each other to be successful. Marine biodiversity and climate change are intertwined through foodwebs that cycle and transport carbon and contribute to carbon sequestration. Yet, biodiversity conservation and fisheries management seldom explicitly include ocean carbon transport and sequestration. In order to effectively manage and govern human activities that affect carbon cycling and sequestration, international biodiversity and climate agreements need to address both biodiversity and climate issues. International agreements that address issues for climate and biodiversity are best poised to facilitate the protection of ocean carbon with existing policies. The degree to which the main international biodiversity and climate agreements make reference to multiple issues has however not been documented. Here, we used a text mining analysis of over 2,700 binding and non-binding policy documents from ten global ocean-related agreements to identify keywords related to biodiversity, climate, and ocean carbon. While climate references were mostly siloed within climate agreements, biodiversity references were included in most agreements. Further, we found that six percent of policy documents (n=166) included ocean carbon keywords. In light of our results, we highlight opportunities to strengthen the protection of ocean carbon in upcoming negotiations of international agreements, and via area-based management, environmental impact assessment and strategic environmental assessment.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protecting ocean carbon through biodiversity and climate governance

et al. 2022

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“…Other factors, such as the differences between soluble and colloidal iron, fraction of lithogenic iron, and available organic matter, may also influence bioavailability and ocean primary production Ratnarajah et al, 2018). Fin (B. physalus) and blue whale species are likely the largest contributors to iron supply, due to their higher prey consumption, and thus having a greater potential for enhanced carbon fluxes (Durfort et al, 2020). Whether this contribution to the natural ocean iron cycle would lead to enhanced sequestration of carbon is however not demonstrated.…”

Section: Limitations Of Whale Mediated Carbon Removalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Whales and climate

2024

Frontiers Research Topics

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Frontiers is more than just an open access publisher of scholarly articles: it is a pioneering approach to the world of academia, radically improving the way scholarly research is managed. The grand vision of Frontiers is a world where all people have an equal opportunity to seek, share and generate knowledge. Frontiers provides immediate and permanent online open access to all its publications, but this alone is not enough to realize our grand goals. Frontiers journal seriesThe Frontiers journal series is a multi-tier and interdisciplinary set of openaccess, online journals, promising a paradigm shift from the current review, selection and dissemination processes in academic publishing. All Frontiers journals are driven by researchers for researchers; therefore, they constitute a service to the scholarly community. At the same time, the Frontiers journal series operates on a revolutionary invention, the tiered publishing system, initially addressing specific communities of scholars, and gradually climbing up to broader public understanding, thus serving the interests of the lay society, too. Dedication to qualityEach Frontiers article is a landmark of the highest quality, thanks to genuinely collaborative interactions between authors and review editors, who include some of the world's best academicians. Research must be certified by peers before entering a stream of knowledge that may eventually reach the public -and shape society; therefore, Frontiers only applies the most rigorous and unbiased reviews. Frontiers revolutionizes research publishing by freely delivering the most outstanding research, evaluated with no bias from both the academic and social point of view. By applying the most advanced information technologies, Frontiers is catapulting scholarly publishing into a new generation. What are Frontiers Research Topics?Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers journals series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area.

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“…We use existing outputs from already published models: [14]. The underlying codes of this paper are provided as electronic supplementary material (.py files and .ipynb file) [55].…”

Section: Data Accessibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Recovery of carbon benefits by overharvested baleen whale populations is threatened by climate change

et al. 2022

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Despite the importance of marine megafauna on ecosystem functioning, their contribution to the oceanic carbon cycle is still poorly known. Here, we explored the role of baleen whales in the biological carbon pump across the southern hemisphere based on the historical and forecasted abundance of five baleen whale species. We modelled whale-mediated carbon sequestration through the sinking of their carcasses after natural death. We provide the first temporal dynamics of this carbon pump from 1890 to 2100, considering both the effects of exploitation and climate change on whale populations. We reveal that at their pre-exploitation abundance, the five species of southern whales could sequester 4.0 × 10 5 tonnes of carbon per year (tC yr −1 ). This estimate dropped to 0.6 × 10 5 tC yr −1 by 1972 following commercial whaling. However, with the projected restoration of whale populations under a RCP8.5 climate scenario, the sequestration would reach 1.7 × 10 5 tC yr −1 by 2100, while without climate change, recovered whale populations could sequester nearly twice as much (3.2 × 10 5 tC yr −1 ) by 2100. This highlights the persistence of whaling damages on whale populations and associated services as well as the predicted harmful impacts of climate change on whale ecosystem services.

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The collapse and recovery potential of carbon sequestration by baleen whales in the Southern Ocean

Cited by 8 publications

References 71 publications

Protecting ocean carbon through biodiversity and climate governance

Protecting ocean carbon through biodiversity and climate governance

Whales and climate

Recovery of carbon benefits by overharvested baleen whale populations is threatened by climate change

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