Ocean phytoplankton and algae produce 70-80% of the earths atmospheric oxygen. Why is tree conservation for oxygen so popular over ocean conservation then?
In: Biology
So, a lot of posts here are bringing up the role that the ocean plays in the average persons mind. It may well be true that it’s easier for people to imagine the productive value of a forest than an ocean. However, I’d argue that a lot of these are missing a bigget issue, which is that much of the ocean production is limited by the amount of nutrients are available around them, meaning that there isn’t a lot we can do to promote or conserve.
Unlike trees and other land plants that rely on the soil for their nutrients, ocean plants (phytoplankton) rely on what’s in the water. This is important because when these plants die or get eaten, they don’t return to the water in the same way that land material returns to the soil; in the ocean things fall all the way to the seafloor, which can take a long time, but effectively removes it from being useful for life at the surface.
There’s a bunch of more intricate stuff going on as well (ocean microbes are much better at recycling stuff than land plants, so a lot of nutrient material gets recycled before it sinks) but it’s probably beyond the scope of an eli5. It is worth saying, however, that some areas of the ocean are more nutrient rich (particularly coastal areas) and there are some efforts to expand large scale kelp farming. This isn’t exactly conservation, but it’s probably the closest ocean equivalent to a large reforestation project.
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