News tagged with phytoplankton
Findings overturn old theory of phytoplankton growth, raise concerns for ocean productivity
A new study concludes that an old, fundamental and widely accepted theory of how and why phytoplankton bloom in the oceans is incorrect.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jul 16, 2010 |
4.4 / 5 (20) |
20
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Planet's nitrogen cycle overturned by 'tiny ammonia eater of the seas'
(PhysOrg.com) -- It's not every day you find clues to the planet's inner workings in aquarium scum. But that's what happened a few years ago when University of Washington researchers cultured a tiny organism from the bottom ...
Sep 30, 2009 |
5 / 5 (13) |
0
The Carbon Cycle Before Humans
Geoengineering -- deliberate manipulation of the Earth's climate to slow or reverse global warming -- has gained a foothold in the climate change discussion. But before effective action can be taken, the Earth's ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 16, 2010 |
3.1 / 5 (19) |
1
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Newly Discovered Fat Molecule: An Undersea Killer with an Upside
(PhysOrg.com) -- A chemical culprit responsible for the rapid, mysterious death of phytoplankton in the North Atlantic Ocean has been found by collaborating scientists at Rutgers University and the Woods Hole ...
Nov 05, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (10) |
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Ocean carbon: A dent in the iron hypothesis
Oceanographers Jim Bishop and Todd Wood of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have measured the fate of carbon particles originating in plankton blooms in the Southern Ocean, ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
May 06, 2009 |
4.7 / 5 (10) |
1
Ocean geo-engineering produces toxic blooms of plankton
(PhysOrg.com) -- New research led by The University of Western Ontario warns of the potential for ecological harm caused by the fertilization of oceanic waters with the trace element iron. This fertilization ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Mar 15, 2010 |
4.5 / 5 (10) |
9
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Antarctic icebergs play a previously unknown role in global carbon cycle, climate
(PhysOrg.com) -- In a finding that has global implications for climate research, scientists have discovered that when icebergs cool and dilute the seas through which they pass for days, they also raise chlorophyll ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Mar 25, 2011 |
4.6 / 5 (9) |
3
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Calcifying microalgae are witnesses of increasing ocean acidification
For the first time researchers have examined on a global scale how calcified algae in their natural habitat react to increasing acidification due to higher marine uptake of carbon dioxide. In the current issue ...
Aug 03, 2011 |
4.3 / 5 (9) |
1
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Phytoplankton cell membranes challenge fundamentals of biochemistry
Get ready to send the biology textbooks back to the printer. In a new paper published in Nature, Benjamin Van Mooy, a geochemist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and his colleagues report that microscopic plants ...
Feb 02, 2009 |
4.7 / 5 (7) |
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'Black box' plankton found to have huge role in ocean carbon fixation
Carbon fixation by phytoplankton in the open ocean plays a key role in the global carbon cycle but is not fully understood. Until now researchers believed that cyanobacteria overwhelmingly accounted for phytoplankton's role ...
Apr 15, 2010 |
4.8 / 5 (6) |
1
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Death of the 'Doughnut': How quaggas are casting a pall on the Lake Michigan fishery
(PhysOrg.com) -- Something has been eating Charlie Kerfoot's doughnut, and all fingers point to a European mollusk about the size of a fat lima bean.
Sep 03, 2010 |
4.8 / 5 (6) |
1
Tiny organisms give big warning about planet health
San Francisco State University scientists are studying whether a hardworking microscopic organism that helps rid the planet of too much carbon dioxide will continue to work so well in the year 2100, when the ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Dec 08, 2010 |
4.7 / 5 (6) |
0
Volcano fuels massive phytoplankton bloom
Advocates for seeding regions of the ocean with iron to combat global warming should be interested in a new study published today in Geophysical Research Letters.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 06, 2010 |
4.8 / 5 (5) |
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Iron fertilisation would 'significantly' change deep-sea ecosystems
Adding iron to the oceans in an effort to curb growing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere would lead to 'significant changes' in deep-sea ecosystems, the latest study suggests.
Jun 24, 2011 |
4.8 / 5 (5) |
7
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Surprises from the ocean: Marine plankton and ocean pH
The world's oceans support vast populations of single-celled organisms (phytoplankton) that are responsible, through photosynthesis, for removing about half of the carbon dioxide that is produced by burning fossil fuels – ...
Jun 21, 2011 |
4.4 / 5 (5) |
3
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Phytoplankton
Phytoplankton are the autotrophic component of the plankton community. The name comes from the Greek words phyton, or "plant", and πλαγκτος ("planktos"), meaning "wanderer" or "drifter". Most phytoplankton are too small to be individually seen with the unaided eye. However, when present in high enough numbers, they may appear as a green discoloration of the water due to the presence of chlorophyll within their cells (although the actual color may vary with the species of phytoplankton present due to varying levels of chlorophyll or the presence of accessory pigments such as phycobiliproteins, xanthophylls, etc.).
For more information about Phytoplankton, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
