Editing Whale fall (section)

==Contribution to the biological pump==
The amount of [[carbon]] tied up in a typical single whale carcass (about two [[tonne]]s of carbon for a typical 40-tonne carcass) is roughly equivalent to the amount of carbon exported to a hectare of abyssal ocean floor in 100–200 years.<ref name="Smith and Baco 20032">{{Cite book|title=Oceanography and Marine Biology: an Annual Review|last1=Smith|first1=Craig R.|last2=Baco|first2=Amy R.|volume=41|pages=311–354|contribution=Ecology of whale falls at the deep-sea floor|citeseerx=10.1.1.486.8957|contribution-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=64crGFXWn5gC&pg=PA311|name-list-style=amp}}</ref> This amount of organic material reaching the seafloor at one time creates a pulse equivalent to about 2000 years of background [[carbon cycle|carbon flux]] in the 50 square meters of sediment immediately beneath the whale fall.<ref name="Smith and Baco 20032" /> This helps to sustain the community structure that develops around a whale fall, but it also has potential implications for the [[biological pump]], or the flux of organic material from the surface ocean to depth.

Whales and some other large marine animals feed on and follow large aggregations of zooplankton for sustenance. Based on simple trophic structure, this would mean whales and other large zooplankton feeders can be found at higher abundance around areas of high primary production, potentially making them important exporters of carbon to depth through food falls.<ref name=":22">{{Cite journal|last1=Higgs|first1=Nicholas D.|last2=Little|first2=Crispin T. S.|last3=Glover|first3=Adrian G.|last4=Dahlgren|first4=Thomas G.|last5=Smith|first5=Craig R.|last6=Dominici|first6=Stefano|date=2012-06-01|title=Evidence of ''Osedax'' worm borings in Pliocene (~3 Ma) whale bone from the Mediterranean|journal=Historical Biology|volume=24|issue=3|pages=269–277|doi=10.1080/08912963.2011.621167|s2cid=85170976 }}</ref> Biological pump models indicate that a large amount of carbon uptake by the deep sea is not supplied by particulate organic carbon (POC) alone, and must come from another source. Lateral [[advection]] of carbon, especially in coastal areas contributes to this deficit in the model, but food falls are also another source of organic carbon for the deep ocean.<ref name=":22" /> Various percentages of the food fall contribution to the total carbon flux to the deep ocean have been hypothesized, ranging from 0.3%<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Smith|first=Craig|date=2005|title=Bigger is better: The role of whales as detritus in marine ecosystems|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228387134|journal=Whales, Whaling, and Ocean Ecosystems|volume=12}}</ref> to 4%.<ref name=":22" />

There is growing evidence that the contribution of food falls to the deep ocean carbon flux is larger than originally proposed, especially on the local scale in areas of high primary productivity. Unfortunately, contributions of food falls to the biological pump are hard to measure and rely on a few serendipitous studies on discovered falls<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Smith|first1=C. R.|last2=Kukert|first2=H.|last3=Wheatcroft|first3=R. A.|last4=Jumars|first4=P. A.|last5=Deming|first5=J. W.|date=1989|title=Vent fauna on whale remains|journal=Nature|language=en|volume=341|issue=6237|pages=27–28|doi=10.1038/341027a0 |bibcode=1989Natur.341...27S|s2cid=4355561}}</ref><ref name=":22" /> as well as planted carcasses<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal|last1=Kemp|first1=Kirsty|last2=Jamieson|first2=Alan John|last3=Bagley|first3=Philip Michael|last4=Mcgrath|first4=H.|last5=Bailey|first5=David Mark|last6=Collins|first6=M. A.|last7=Priede|first7=Imants George|date=2006|title=Consumption of a large bathyal food fall, a six-month study in the north-east Atlantic|journal=Marine Ecology Progress Series|language=en|volume=310|pages=65–76 |doi=10.3354/meps310065|doi-access=free}}</ref> with much of the deep sea carbon flux studies relying on sediment traps.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PiDT2MbZddkC|title=Biological Oceanography|last1=Miller|first1=Charles B.|last2=Wheeler|first2=Patricia A.|date=2012|publisher=Wiley|isbn=978-1-118-22317-8|language=en}}</ref>