 Can you imagine how one creature, one animal has the power to shape an entire ecosystem? I knew the blue whale was the largest animal that ever lived…Even bigger than the dinosaurs, but I never imagined it could affect our oceans. When I read an article about blue whales from Animals Around the World, I knew I had to write about them. Their link: https://www.animalsaroundtheglobe.com/why-a-single-blue-whale-can-reshape-an-entire-ecosystem-3-333179/ 1. How Big is a Blue Whale? - A blue whale is 100 feet long, or 6 feet longer than a basketball court. - It weighs 200 tons. That’s as heavy as the engine pulling a train. - Their tongue weighs about 2.7 tons. Can you imagine a whale with an elephant-sized tongue?  i - Their hearts weigh as much as a car. Ours, only 10 ounces. That’s the size of a grocery store can. - Blue whales pump 220 pounds of blood through their body. That’s what some football players weigh. - Their arteries are so big grown-ups could swim through them. - When a blue whale eats, goes to the bathroom, or decays after death, it changes the ocean around them. 2. How Much Do They Eat?  - One blue whale can eat up to 4 tons of krill in 24 hours. - 4 tons of krill equal the weight of one hippo. - It also equals 40 million teeny tiny creatures. - Each one, 1-2 centimeters long. - Eating all that krill keeps their population in check. - That leaves room for other kinds of krill and plankton to live too. - Blue whales feed on thick patches of krill. - A single blue whale can set the trophic levels lower in the ocean. - The plants and animals at the lowest trophic levels are also at the bottom of the food chain. - These 2 animals can equal each other… - 40 million krill equal one 4-ton hippo.  3. How Do Blue Whales Affect the Ocean? Do you remember how one blue whale eats about 49 million krill? That’s about 4 tons a day! That gives them the power to keep krill populations in check. It also allows diversity within plankton communities too.  This map shows where blue whales live and influence ocean life. They don’t live in the white spaces, and they don’t control krill populations there either. 4. Do Blue Whales Fight Climate Change?  Yes, they can! Blue whales live more than 90 years. During that time, they accumulate tons of carbon inside their bodies; 33 tons of carbon dioxide to be precise. When a whale dies and sinks to the bottom of the ocean, it’s called a whale fall. Those tons of carbon are stored away inside their bodies for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years. The blue whale population is now in decline, meaning they’re pulling less carbon out of the environment. One blue whale can capture the same amount of carbon dioxide as thousands of trees, and now there are fewer blue whales to do that. 5. Can a Dead Whale Create an Oasis Under the Sea?  Yes! A blue whale stimulates the ocean long beyond its lifetime. As its carcass reaches the ocean floor, the seabed grows rich in resources that can last ocean creatures for 75 years, or the turn of the next century. One blue whale carcass can deposit 2,000 years’ worth of carbon. That’s the year 4025. There are 400 species that can colonize a whale fall. Some of those organisms are found nowhere else on earth. That new community will become a hotspot for biodiversity for decades. It will also serve as a steppingstone for the spread of those species across the plains of our deepest oceans. 6. Did You Know When Blue Whales Move, It Changes the Ocean?  When a blue whale eats, each lunge they make moves over 70 tons of water. The turbulence extends down hundreds of meters. That movement mixes and distributes nutrients, oxygen, and heat through the layers of water. It also affects the chemistry and circulation patterns, and blue whales can temporarily change the temperature and microbes in the water. Would you believe as blue whales dive and surface, they create pressure waves that keep seafloor sediments in shallow water? It also pulls up buried nutrients for ocean communities. Those disturbances are multiplied across a whale’s migration route. One whale can influence ecosystems across thousands of miles of ocean. 7. Do Blue Whales Change the Behavior of their Prey? Absolutely! When a blue whale swims into an area full of krill, they change the way they swarm. Krill take defensive measures like migrating vertically, changing when they reproduce, and where they live. Why wouldn’t they? One blue whale eats 4 tons of krill in 24 hours; that’s the weight of one hippo. When blue whales often swim through an area, the krill population is more stable and diverse. They also feed other ocean animals like seabirds and small fish. 8. How Loud Are Blue Whales?  They are the loudest creature on Earth. As the Earth’s largest animal, it makes sense they have a HUGE voice. It’s 188 decibels loud, or as loud as a rocket ship when it blasts off. Their voice is deep because of its low frequency. Its long wavelength lets it travel hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles across the ocean. Would you believe the call of one blue whale can change how schools of fish swim? That it can trigger defensive responses in prey, or that it can change migration patterns for zooplankton. Blue whales have ONE powerful voice! 9. Do Migration Routes Affect Ocean Habitats? Absolutely! Blue Whales travel up to 10,000 miles each year between their feeding and breeding grounds. Their routes are biological highways that connect ocean ecosystems. As whales swim between both points, they carry with them nutrients, microorganisms, even parasites. Seabirds, sharks, and other smaller fish know when whales will arrive. They gather, waiting to share in the feast. Some parasites complete their entire life cycle aboard a whale during one of those journeys. It’s hard to believe that just one blue whale can strengthen an ecosystem. They prevent isolation and promote genetic exchange between distant communities. 10. Do Blue Whales Affect Ocean Evolution?  Absolutely! Krill have changed and evolved how they swarm, migrate vertically, and reproduce based on the presence or absence of blue whales. There are distinct differences between the two krill populations. The whale’s baleen digestive system also favors certain krill species and sizes over others in the evolutionary fight to survive. That in turn favors some krill-eating seabirds and fish too. It’s hard to believe one blue whale can drive marine evolution across thousands of ocean habitats. 11. What if Blue Whales Disappeared?  Ocean habitats would suffer. In the Southern Ocean, it’s already happened. Commercial whaling removed about 99% of the blue whales. You can still see the results today. Without whales feeding on them, the krill populations have changed. They’ve grown larger and denser. They’ve stopped changing physically; there’s no need to escape a predator. There’s also a reduction in nutrients. Without whale poop, there’s less iron in the ocean, almost 40% less. Without their deaths, other creatures aren’t born. They become rarer and more isolated. There are millions of tons of carbon that whales no longer remove and store away. We need blue whales to keep the oceans healthy and thriving. 12. Is There Still Time to Save Them?  Of course, if we do the work. The blue whale population used to be over 350,000. Today it’s only about 10-25,000. Thank goodness people have realized we must save the blue whale because of what they do for our oceans. How do we save them? Protect their feeding grounds and migration routes. It saves the whales and other species too. One blue whale is worth millions of dollars to the ocean over its lifetime. Think of the carbon they hold, the nutrients they recycle, and the fish populations that thrive because of them. 13. Is One Blue Whale Irreplaceable?  The conclusion to the article—YES! A blue whale is so much more than its incredible size. Just one whale influences the ocean by the way they eat, migrate, poop, communicate, and even die. All those things enhance biodiversity, stabilize food webs, and connect distant ecosystems.
Blue whales are one BIG animal in the ocean, but they’re key to its health. With the decline in their population, protecting blue whales is more crucial today for the whales, for the health of our oceans, and for their fellow creatures. My source link: https://www.animalsaroundtheglobe.com/why-a-single-blue-whale-can-reshape-an-entire-ecosystem-3-333179/
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AuthorWhen I write, I can only have one voice in my head, mine. A little noise is fine. But too much, or worse yet, WORDS, and I must change rooms or pull out headphones. Then I can write on! Categories
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