A new study conducted by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel found that jellyfish help increase the amount of man-made carbon dioxide absorbed by the ocean.
If it weren't for oceans, the air would be filled with carbon dioxide produced by human activities. The ocean is known to absorb 25 percent of all man-made carbon dioxide. Organisms, both big and small living in these water bodies absorb the carbon dioxide that dissolve in the water and convert it in to organic carbon and other components during photosynthesis.
Jellyfish absorb this organic carbon and after they die and sink to the bottom of the ocean, they provide this organic carbon as food to organisms at the bottom or it is stored in deep water layers after decomposition. This phenomenon leads to more carbon dioxide being absorbed by the ocean. They also contribute to the biological pump.
For the study, the sinking velocities of different species in the ocean were analyzed. Together with colleagues from Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, Dr. Mario Lebrato, Biological Oceanographer in Prof. Andreas Oschlies' group at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, conducted field and laboratory experiments with gelatinous plankton remains. Scyphozoans (true jellyfish), ctenophores (comb jellies), and thaliaceans (salps) in the Baltic, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Southern Ocean were some species that were looked into in the study.
"The sinking speed of jelly remains is much, much higher than what we expected, about 500 to 1600 meters per day", Lebrato sums up. "And, what puzzles researchers working on the biological carbon pump: it is higher than that of non-calcifying phytoplankton and marine snow, the main sinking particles and organic carbon sources to the ocean interior".
Faster sinking organisms are able to preserve the carbon dioxide longer in their body and when they sink into the ocean it is either preserved or taken up by other ocean organisms. Also the large population of jellyfish and its faster sink rate gives it a huge advantage over others in storing of carbon dioxide.
