A Living Chain That Sinks More Carbon Than Entire Forests

A chain of salps — transparent, gelatinous creatures — can stretch over forty meters through the open ocean. Individually fragile, collectively they form one of Earth's most powerful biological carbon pumps. Each salp filters seawater through its barrel-shaped body, consuming phytoplankton and packaging the carbon into dense fecal pellets that sink rapidly to the deep ocean floor. This process, known as the biological carbon pump, moves carbon from the surface to the abyss at astonishing speed — far faster than most marine organisms. Unlike forests, which store carbon over decades and centuries, salp chains can transport vast quantities of carbon to depth in a single night. Scientists are only beginning to understand the scale of their contribution to ocean carbon cycling and, by extension, global climate regulation. These overlooked creatures may be among the most important climate engineers on the planet — and almost no one knows they exist.

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Видео A Living Chain That Sinks More Carbon Than Entire Forests канала MicroScope Lab