Blue Whales
Blue Whales play an important role in the nitrogen and carbon cycle. They are constantly replenishing the world’s oceans with these vital organic materials. The nitrogen cycle is the process by which nitrogen is converted between its various chemical forms, this conversion is mostly carried out through biological means. The blue whale tie into this cycle, because they feed on deep-living creatures and excrete urea, which is a colorless compound that is the main nitrogenous breakdown product of protein, excreted in urine. While this is a constant process, it replenishes our oceans and atmosphere for the better. The blue whales are also a contributing factor to the carbon cycle. If our blue whale population continues to grow at its current rate, then it will be the equivalent of 43,000 acres of trees regrown. This occurs, because blue whales’ feces release high quantities of iron, boosting the growth of carbon-producing phytoplankton. Also whale death influences the carbon cycle, because e as whales die and decompose carbon is released. This is how blue whales effect the carbon and nitrogen cycle. The carbon cycle effects the blue whales, because while this provides our atmosphere with more of the green house gas, it raises the average temperature of our oceans as well. This causes the whales to relocate, dying on their journey to unfit waters. There can also be too much nitrogen, which creates an excess of algae to grow. This alga grows way too rapidly for the aquatic ecosystem to handle. Eventually affecting the amount of krill and endangering the blue whale population.
My animal, the blue whale is from the Kingdom: Animalia and from the Phylum: Chordata. The blue whale’s nutrition is almost all krill, it eats over half a million calories each day. If they don’t eat krill, they will occasionally eat crustaceans and other small fish. The niche of any animal is its job in its community. The blue whales niche is to keep the krill and plankton from reaching high levels of productivity, and eventually overpopulation. Blue whales reach sexual maturity at the age of 5-10 years old. The blue whales follow specific mating rituals. The go to the equator, communicate and the mate. After 12 months, a mother blue whale gives birth to a 6,000-pound baby whale. The blue whale is the largest mammal alive and feeds on the tiniest sea creatures, krill. They have a vast amount of plates in their mouths covered in bristles to catch krill from surrounding water. Blue whales usually swim alone or in pairs, but hardly in groups, due to the lack of food they would have to share. It is estimated that only 10-20 thousand blue whales are in our oceans, due to the whaling that has taken place of hundreds of years for various resources.
The ecological ramifications of the first article, occur in a series of events. First off, sea otters were hunted for their fur ultimately lowering their population almost to extinction, until they were protected by the law. Then once the otters started repopulating, kelp forests started regrowing, because the otters were predators to sea urchins. Sea urchins are predators to kelp and without the presence of the otters, they would eat all the kelp creating “kelp barrens”. Once the otters started to repopulate, they lowered urchin population and gave the kelp a chance to regrow. Once this occurred, life began to move in to the kelp forests once again, until suddenly, the kelp forest began to once again diminish. Studies occurred, and many hypotheses were arisen and none seemed to match why kelp forest were disappearing, until they studied the otters and found that they were being killed once again. They weren’t being killed by humans though, but by orcas. Since the blue whale population was so diminished orcas resorted to eating smaller prey, the sea otter. This final hypothesis was proven to be correct, and they found that over 6,788 sea otter attacks were occurring yearly. The term “kelp barren” refers to the meaning, relatively devoid of life. As I see it, there is no way to stop this chain reaction, other than lowering orca population. The keystone species is a species of animal that without, the ecosystem around it would be altered dramatically. The keystone species in this article is the otter. It is the otter, because without it there would always be an over population of urchins. This once