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| One of the thousands of species of Diatom via Discovery.com. Diatoms are photosynthetic plankton (microscopic
algae) ubiquitous in oceans and freshwater systems. They are a major source of nutrients
for marine organisms as well as a major producer of oxygen. |
Phytoplankton (photosynthetic plankton) play a huge, and largely under-appreciated, role in feeding every living creature on this planet! And they provide half of all the oxygen we breath. Consequently -- life on earth depends on these tiny nearly invisible organisms floating by the trillions upon trillions in the oceans around us.
Given this understanding, headlines such as the one below from Scientific American are more significant than they might first appear.
Phytoplankton Population Drops 40 Percent Since 1950
Researchers find trouble among phytoplankton, the
base of the food chain, which has implications for the marine food web
and the world's carbon cycle.
I highly recommend this very informative Scientific American article to put the decline in phytoplankton into perspective.
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| Here's a slide from one of my lectures on "Life on the Open Ocean" |
