Whale urine helps move nutrients across the ocean in 'conveyor belt,' study finds

Brendan Rascius, The Charlotte Observer on Mar 12, 2025

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It turns out, whale pee is nothing to pooh-pooh.

The marine giants’ urine serves a vital role in ecosystems by moving tons of nutrients across vast ocean distances, according to new research.

Specifically, urine from baleen whales — as well as their other bodily waste — transports essential nutrients from high-latitude to low-latitude areas, according to a study published on March 10 in the journal Nature Communications.

“We call it the ‘great whale conveyor belt,’” Joe Roman, a University of Vermont biologist and study coauthor, said in a university news release.

The study focused on a handful of baleen species — namely, gray whales, humpback whales and right whales — which display “traditional migratory patterns,” moving from colder waters in the summer to warmer waters in the winter. For example, humpbacks in the North Pacific migrate annually from the Gulf of Alaska to the coast of Hawaii.

Using publicly available data, researchers estimated that in a given year the whales move about 4,000 tons of nitrogen and 45,000 tons of biomass to nutrient-poor tropical areas. This transfer constitutes the largest movement of nitrogen and carbon ever documented by animals across great distances.

The “conveyor belt” is not just made up of urine, though. It also includes whale carcasses and placentas.

The tropical wintering grounds — which have low nitrogen levels — greatly benefit from the whales’ injection of nutrients, which can help grow phytoplankton and microscopic algae and can provide sustenance for fish and sharks.

Its impact, particularly in some areas, is hard to overstate. For example, in Hawaii, the whales’ nutrient input is equivalent to about twice that of what is brought in by “local physical forces,” researchers said.

“Because of their size, whales are able to do things that no other animal does,” Andrew Pershing, a coauthor of the study, said in the release. “They’re living life on a different scale. Nutrients are coming in from outside—and not from a river, but by these migrating animals. It’s super-cool, and changes how we think about ecosystems in the ocean.”

This research also highlights the potential ecological impact of historical whale population declines caused by commercial whaling.

“Before industrial whaling, the global transport of nutrients by humpback, gray, and right whales would have been almost three times higher than it is now,” researchers said.

But if whale populations continue to recover, their “conveyor belt” of nutrients will likely have a greater impact.

A previous study from University of Vermont researchers, published in 2010, found whale feces serve a similar ecological function. It carries nutrients to the ocean surface, which enhances the productivity of fisheries.

In addition to Roman and Pershing, the authors of the latest study were Andrew Abraham, Jeremy Kiszka, Daniel Costa, Christopher Doughty, Ari Friedlaender, Luis Hückstädt, Milton Marcondes and Emma Wetsel.