PLANKTON AND PLANKTOLOGY
The scientific discipline of studying plankton is known as Marine Planktology under the larger classification of
oceanography. Planktology covers topics such as the multitude of aquatic microscopic plant organisms that float in open seas and depend on the natural
sea currents for movement; the primary production food cycle; the biological pump; and the prey and predator relationships of marine organisms. The greatest number of planktonic algae are found in our coldest of ocean waters. Plankton algae are found from the shallow waters
along the coasts to the middle of the oceans where they depend on food materials brought up to the surface by the mixing of deeper waters with the upper layers. Planktologists at marine laboratories study the important physiological and
ecological attributes of the role of plankton on Earth's marine ecosystem and distribution of plankton in the world seas. Several famous scientists on this subject include Victor Hensen who coined the expression
plankton meaning "floating about" Karl Banse and Paul Falkowski. Supplementary publications covering topics of plankton are listed to better understand planktonic ecosystems and the biological processes that
affect them such as ocean mixing and turbulence due to currents. The energy source for phytoplankton is
photosynthesis. A partial list of plankton topics is referenced and covered including:
The Harrison Lab Marine Phytoplankton Phisiology and Ecology
Craig Sandgren
Plankton Ecology and Phycology
National Oceanographic Data Center
World Ocean Plankton Database
Image Quest 3-D and Peter Parks Plankton Articles and Images
Plankton initially grow as individual tiny microscopic cells and eventually grow into long chains capable of developing into full-fledged ocean blooms from green algae, blue algae, brown algae, or even red
algae when the population of micro algae explodes. Plankton are foundation species of considerable professional collegiate ecological significance. Life on Earth almost certainly originated in calm sea areas and was
primarily limited to these sea areas for the first 3 billion years of evolution, therefore it should not be a surprise that in terms of pure marine biodiversity the marine environment is considerably richer than the land. The
first green plants were plankton algae. The oxygen they produced bubbled up through the water and into the air. As the amount of oxygen increased the environment began safe for land species as it blocked the harmful ultraviolet light. In some cases the oceanic plankton have been
greatly reduced which causes a gradual decline in sea life nearby. This can be explained by a process that is failing in some areas known as upwelling which is the movement of rich nutrients from the deep cold waters to surface waters. The scientific study of algae is done by Algologists
examining diverse marine organisms at the fundamental base of the food chain fully susceptive to minute changes and aquatic plant environmental stresses. It is estimated that nearly 2.5 billion tones less of
CO2 is being absorbed than was previously thought. Nature, vol. 442, p 1025.
Note: The Blue Whale subsistence is attributed to consuming large amount of plankton-eating krill, and the krill survive on consuming the plankton, in essence establishing only two short steps
from the smallest phytoplanktonic algae to the largest animal ever existing on our planet.
"It is commonly held by biologists that life originated in the sea; and it is in the sea today that we find those plants and animals which have departed least from the original, the ancestral condition, in which life is not
complicated by diversity of form or function." Reference Methods in Planktology, George Wilton Field, American Naturalist, Vol 32, No. 382, October 1898, pp 735-745.
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