In the ocean, poo is a big deal. Poo is a major source of nutrition for aquatic plants and it helps to sequester huge amounts of CO2 from the air. It’s not easy to study pooping behavior and the pooing of ocean animals.
Luckily for us, Japanese researchers reviewed almost 36 hours worth of video footage in order to figure out how the common seabird poops. How Seabirds Poop To The Rhythm
A team of researchers from the University of Tokyo used video cameras on the bellies of streaked seabirds, which inhabit the Pacific Ocean.
According to the team, birds follow a strict routine. They poop every 10 minutes at least and never float on water. This behavior is thought to keep the feathers of the seabirds clean and also act as fertilizer in the ocean. Leo Uesaka is a co-author of the study and an ocean and atmosphere researcher at University of Tokyo. He didn’t plan to be a bird poo videographer full time. He wanted to capture the way the streaked Shearwater took off from the surface of the ocean. Uesaka said in a release that “Streaked Shearwaters are characterized by long, narrow wings. They glide well, and do not flap.” The birds have to use a great deal of energy in order to fly. Uesaka observed that birds sometimes took off in less than one minute. They would then defecate, and return to sea. He observed that the flying birds maintained a regular rhythm, defecating every 4 to 10 minutes regardless of when they had last eaten. Uesaka said, “Initially I thought it was humorous but later realized it is more important and interesting for marine ecology.” Read more: Ants Poop, and they even use toilets to fertilize their own gardens
Studying Bird Poop
Uesaka captured hours of footage of the streaked shearwaters. He noted 195 excretion episodes at an average of 5.2 poos every hour. One of the pooping events occurred while the bird floated.
This means that the risk of excreting at the surface of the ocean outweighs any effort required to fly. Uesaka said that there must be an important reason for this. The researchers hypothesized that defecation in the air helps birds keep their feathers clean and avoid predators such as seals and sharks who are attracted by the smell. It could also make it easier for the bird to expel feces. The Ocean Benefits from Regular Pooping
Although the reason for shearwaters to poop in the air is not known, Uesaka’s research shows that this is an important contributor to ocean ecosystem. Birds excrete approximately 5 percent of body weight in 30 grams per hour, due to their size and frequency. Shearwaters are among the estimated 424,000,000 members of Procellariiformes, a biological taxon which includes herringbirds. These ocean birds excrete six Titanicsworth of feces every day. Research has shown that seabird droppings are a fertiliser for coastal water and land because of their nitrogen and phosphorus contents. Shearwaters, however, are pelagic birds that spend the majority of their time on open water. It is only by analyzing how they defecate can we determine how important their contribution to marine plankton is. Uesaka is using GPS-linked camera to map seagull waste across the ocean. He wants to map out how our waterways are fertilized by feces. He concluded that “feces are very important.” But people do not really consider it.
Read more: Ocean Gardeners – Why Whale Poop is Important Now More than Ever.
Sources for Articles
Discovermagazine.com writers use high-quality, peer-reviewed sources and studies for their articles. Our editors check for accuracy in science and for editorial standards. The sources for this article are listed below:
- – Current Biology. Seabirds’ excretion patterns in flight.