News tagged with plankton
Expedition studies acid impacts on Arctic
The effects of ocean acidification on Arctic seas will be studied by a team of 30 researchers, including Dr Toby Tyrrell from the University of Southampton, who set sail from the UK today (1 June), venturing ...
Jun 01, 2012 |
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Scientists sound acid alarm for plankton
The microscopic organisms on which almost all life in the oceans depends could be even more vulnerable to increasingly acidic waters than scientists realised, according to a new study.
May 15, 2012 |
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Jellyfish replacing fish in over-exploited areas
(PhysOrg.com) -- Over-fished commercial stocks of plankton-eating fish have been replaced in several locations by jellyfish species. This appears to be something of a paradox because fish move quickly and ...
Sep 16, 2011 |
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Global change puts plankton under threat
Changes in the ocean’s chemistry, as a result of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, threaten marine plankton to a greater extent than previously thought, according to new research.
May 04, 2012 |
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Giant kraken lair discovered
Long before whales, the oceans of Earth were roamed by a very different kind of air-breathing leviathan. Snaggle-toothed ichthyosaurs larger than school buses swam at the top of the Triassic Period ocean food ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 10, 2011 |
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Massive volcanoes, meteorite impacts delivered one-two death punch to dinosaurs: study
(PhysOrg.com) -- A cosmic one-two punch of colossal volcanic eruptions and meteorite strikes likely caused the mass-extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period that is famous for killing the dinosaurs ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 17, 2011 |
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Dynasty of plankton-eating giants from Age of Dinosaurs revealed in new study
(PhysOrg.com) -- Giant plankton-eating fish filled the prehistoric seas for more than 100 million years before they were wiped out in the same event that killed off the dinosaurs, new fossil evidence claims.
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Feb 18, 2010 |
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150 years later, Darwin vindicated... by jellyfish: Researchers link tiny sea creatures to large-scale ocean mixing
(PhysOrg.com) -- Creatures large and small may play an important role in the stirring of ocean waters, according to a study released Wednesday that confirms a theory advanced by Charles Darwin.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jul 29, 2009 |
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Ocean microbe communities changing, but long-term environmental impact is unclear
As oceans warm due to climate change, water layers will mix less and affect the microbes and plankton that pump carbon out of the atmosphere – but researchers say it's still unclear whether these processes ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 09, 2012 |
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Red Sea coral seen to feed on jellyfish
(PhysOrg.com) -- Corals depends on the products of photosynthetic algae for most of their food, but they also eat tiny plankton. Now, for the first time, there is evidence of a coral eating jellyfish.
Nov 17, 2009 |
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Simple nerve cells regulate swimming depth of marine plankton
As planktonic organisms the larvae of the marine annelid Platynereis swim freely in the open water. They move by activity of their cilia, thousands of tiny hair-like structures forming a band along the larval ...
Oct 18, 2011 |
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'Explosive' evolution in pupfish
Two groups of small fish, one from a Caribbean island and one from the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, exhibit some of the fastest rates of evolution known in any organism, according to a new UC Davis study.
Apr 27, 2011 |
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Oceanic 'garbage patch' not nearly as big as portrayed in media: researchers
There is a lot of plastic trash floating in the Pacific Ocean, but claims that the "Great Garbage Patch" between California and Japan is twice the size of Texas are grossly exaggerated, according to an analysis ...
Jan 04, 2011 |
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Plankton key to origin of Earth's first breathable atmosphere
Researchers studying the origin of Earth's first breathable atmosphere have zeroed in on the major role played by some very unassuming creatures: plankton.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 21, 2011 |
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Salt marsh sediments help gauge climate-change-induced sea level rise
A newly constructed, 2,000-year history of sea level elevations will help scientists refine the models used to predict climate-change-induced sea level rise, according to an international team of climate researchers. The ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jun 20, 2011 |
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Plankton
Plankton (singular plankter) are any drifting organisms (animals, plants, archaea, or bacteria) that inhabit the pelagic zone of oceans, seas, or bodies of fresh water. That is, plankton are defined by their ecological niche rather than phylogenetic or taxonomic classification. They provide a crucial source of food to larger, more familiar aquatic organisms such as fish and whales.
Though many planktic (or planktonic—see section on Terminology) species are microscopic in size, plankton includes organisms covering a wide range of sizes, including large organisms such as jellyfish.
For more information about Plankton, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
