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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 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
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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