Tiny but mighty climate ocean heroes

The document describes how small marine organisms, such as krill, salps, and echinoderms, act as 'climate heroes' by facilitating the ocean's carbon sink and supporting biodiversity. It details the biological carbon pump mechanisms used by krill and salps to move carbon to the deep ocean, the role of echinoderms in seabed carbon storage, and the importance of marine invertebrates in the reproduction of carbon-storing seagrasses and seaweed.

• Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) support the ocean's carbon sink by consuming phytoplankton—which fix between 30 billion and 50 billion metric tons of carbon annually—and transporting that carbon to the deep ocean via carbon-rich waste.
• Salps (tunicates) contribute to the 'biological carbon pump' by producing dense fecal pellets that transport carbon to the seafloor; in some cases, they move up to ten times more carbon than areas without salp swarms, with a single large bloom estimated to export about 100 metric tons of carbon per day.
• Echinoderms, including sea urchins and sea stars, are estimated to capture and store up to 100 million tons of carbon each year by creating calcium carbonate skeletons from dissolved carbon in seawater, which eventually become seabed sediments.
• Certain marine invertebrates act as pollinators for carbon-storing ecosystems; for example, invertebrates aid the reproduction of turtle grass (Thalassia testudinum) in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, and the isopod Idotea balthica helps transfer reproductive cells for the red seaweed Gracilaria gracilis.

APA

WWF International (n.d.). Tiny but mighty climate ocean heroes. https://www.worldwildlife.org/resources/facts/tiny-but-mighty-ocean-climate-heroes/

Chicago

WWF International. Tiny but mighty climate ocean heroes. n.d. https://www.worldwildlife.org/resources/facts/tiny-but-mighty-ocean-climate-heroes/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=WWF International |title=Tiny but mighty climate ocean heroes |url=https://www.worldwildlife.org/resources/facts/tiny-but-mighty-ocean-climate-heroes/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{wwfinternationalndtiny, author = {{WWF International}}, title = {{Tiny but mighty climate ocean heroes}}, institution = {WWF International}, url = {https://www.worldwildlife.org/resources/facts/tiny-but-mighty-ocean-climate-heroes/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }