Phytoplankton, which release oxygen through photosynthesis, are responsible for producing half of the world's oxygen. As well as forming the basis of marine food chains, these tiny organisms safeguard the Earth's atmosphere. Niki Fears has been a writer and editor for more than four years and has written for a number of major sites. She specializes in natural health, nutrition, herbalism, environment, religion and spirituality, traditional medicine, culture, folklore and myth, and alternative news.
What Plants Live in the Oceanic Zone? Climate in a Freshwater Biome. What Lives in the Photic Zone? Description of the Four Types of Aquatic Ecosystems. Marine Animals That Eat Plants. Plankton are incredibly important to the ocean ecosystem, and very sensitive to changes in their environment, including in the temperature, salinity, pH level, and nutrient concentration of the water. When there are too many of certain nutrients in the water, for instance, harmful algal blooms like red tides are the result.
Because many zooplankton species eat phytoplankton, shifts in timing or abundance of phytoplankton can quickly affect zooplankton populations, which then affects species along the food chain.
Researchers are studying how climate change affects plankton , from the timing of population changes to the hardening of copepod shells, and how those effects ripple through ecosystems. What are phytoplankton? Harmful Algal Blooms. If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media. Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service.
Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives. Marine ecosystems contain a diverse array of living organisms and abiotic processes. From massive marine mammals like whales to the tiny krill that form the bottom of the food chain, all life in the ocean is interconnected. While the ocean seems vast and unending, it is, in fact, finite; as the climate continues to change, we are learning more about those limits.
Explore these resources to teach students about marine organisms, their relationship with one another, and with their environment. Students explore major marine ecosystems by locating them on maps.
Students use marine examples to learn about energy transfer through food chains and food webs. They discuss how food webs can illustrate the health and resilience of an ecosystem. The marine ecosystem is made up of a complicated series interconnected energy producers—like plants and photoplankton—and consumers—from plant-eaters to meat-eaters, both great and small. Explore the lives and habitats of species that live under or near oceans, lakes, rivers, estuaries, and other marine regions around the world.
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Skip to content. In spring and summer, phytoplankton bloom at high latitudes and decline in subtropical latitudes. These maps show average chlorophyll concentration in May — left and November — right in the Pacific Ocean. ENSO cycles are significant changes from typical sea surface temperatures, wind patterns, and rainfall in the Pacific Ocean along the equator. Compared to the ENSO-related changes in the productivity in the tropical Pacific, year-to-year differences in productivity in mid- and high latitudes are small.
Because phytoplankton are so crucial to ocean biology and climate, any change in their productivity could have a significant influence on biodiversity, fisheries and the human food supply, and the pace of global warming. Many models of ocean chemistry and biology predict that as the ocean surface warms in response to increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases, phytoplankton productivity will decline. Productivity is expected to drop because as the surface waters warm, the water column becomes increasingly stratified ; there is less vertical mixing to recycle nutrients from deep waters back to the surface.
Between late and mid, satellites observed that warmer-than-average temperatures red line led to below-average chlorophyll concentrations blue line in these areas. Graph adapted from Behrenfeld et al. Over the past decade, scientists have begun looking for this trend in satellite observations, and early studies suggest there has been a small decrease in global phytoplankton productivity.
For example, ocean scientists documented an increase in the area of subtropical ocean gyres—the least productive ocean areas—over the past decade. Hundreds of thousands of species of phytoplankton live in Earth's oceans, each adapted to particular water conditions. Changes in water clarity, nutrient content, and salinity change the species that live in a given place.
Because larger plankton require more nutrients, they have a greater need for the vertical mixing of the water column that restocks depleted nutrients. As the ocean has warmed since the s, it has become increasingly stratified, which cuts off nutrient recycling. Continued warming due to the build up of carbon dioxide is predicted to reduce the amounts of larger phytoplankton such as diatoms , compared to smaller types, like cyanobacteria. Shifts in the relative abundance of larger versus smaller species of phytoplankton have been observed already in places around the world, but whether it will change overall productivity remains uncertain.
As carbon dioxide concentrations blue line increase in the next century, oceans will become more stratified.
As upwelling declines, populations of larger phytoplankton such as diatoms are predicted to decline green line. Graph adapted from Bopp by Robert Simmon. These shifts in species composition may be benign, or they may result in a cascade of negative consequences throughout the marine food web.
Life Water. EO Explorer. At the time of publication, it represented the best available science. What are Phytoplankton? Importance of phytoplankton The food web Phytoplankton are the foundation of the aquatic food web, the primary producers , feeding everything from microscopic, animal-like zooplankton to multi-ton whales.
Climate and the Carbon Cycle Through photosynthesis, phytoplankton consume carbon dioxide on a scale equivalent to forests and other land plants. Return to: Importance of phytoplankton. Studying phytoplankton Phytoplankton samples can be taken directly from the water at permanent observation stations or from ships.
Global Patterns and Cycles Differences from place to place Phytoplankton thrive along coastlines and continental shelves, along the equator in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and in high-latitude areas. Differences from season to season Like plants on land, phytoplankton growth varies seasonally. Long-term changes in phytoplankton Productivity Because phytoplankton are so crucial to ocean biology and climate, any change in their productivity could have a significant influence on biodiversity, fisheries and the human food supply, and the pace of global warming.
Species composition Hundreds of thousands of species of phytoplankton live in Earth's oceans, each adapted to particular water conditions.
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