Those two pictures alone probably wouldn't spark any overwhelming interest in you, but if you are someone who is concerned about global warming you've got to read this. Although these two gooey globs don't look like much, they are actually helping to clean up the carbon that’s gathered in the atmosphere!

The first picture is of a chain of organisms called Salps. Salps join together in the ocean and form groups by the billions that can occupy as much space as the state of Indiana! These little guys, who are almost transparent, move by pumping water through their bodies. As the water passes through, they are actually filter feeding on the tiny phytoplankton and algae that go with it. So??? What's so important about that??? Well…the phytoplankton and algae that they eat are soaked in atmospheric carbon dioxide because they extract carbon from the atmosphere to build their shells and skeletons (carbon dioxide is the greenhouse gas that is the #1 contributor to global warming). Salps can actually consume up to 75 percent of the phytoplankton from the sea surface each day. The Salps swim, eat, and defecate constantly. The pellets that they defecate sink to the bottom of the ocean, and the consumed carbon is dragged down with it. These organisms can actually transport thousands of tons of carbon from the atmosphere on a daily basis! The more phytoplankton that is around the more Salps there are, because they can actually reproduce at extremely fast rates by budding. Scientists are actually planning on introducing large supplies of phytoplankton to the oceans to encourage Salpa reproduction and reduce atmospheric carbon.

The second picture shows the "house" or "sinker" of a giant larvacean called a Bathochordaeus. Although I'm not sure that I can properly pronounce Bathochordaeus or even larvacean…I am sure that they are a very important organism. The best way to understand the larvacean sinker is to think about the larvacean as a spider and the sinker as it's web. The larvacean creates the mucus sinker to filter food from the water that is small enough for them to eat. They sit in the middle of the sinker and wait for food to get stuck in it. Eventually larger particles start plugging the filters and when they are all plugged, the larvacean drops the sinker and starts building a new one. The discarded sinker deflates and drops down to the bottom of the ocean, picking up more and more particles on its way down. It becomes almost like a carbon "bomb" by the time it reaches the bottom, where it deposits carbon that will not be released into the atmosphere.

Go goo!