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Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
Zooplankton are often described as "food food" for good reasons. They are often the primary pathway to #fishes from algae. This is true on #coral reefs with fishes like Fusiliers having fast streamlined bodies and forked tail, large eyes for spotting small prey, and extendable jaw for suction-feeding. But it turns out planktivorous fishes are much more diverse in body form, which is driven more by the habitat they live in.
theconversation.com/we-study-p
#Science #evolution

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
It would be a cool superpower to just take a bite out of another organism and absorb its special power 🦸‍♂️. Some microbial plankton have been doing this for a long time, engulfing entire algal cells (photosymbiosis), or selectively stealing algal chloroplasts for photosynthesis (kleptoplastidy). An Antarctic dinoflagellate has now been shown to steal plastids from Phaocystis algae to amp up their own photosynthesis. 🌞
sciencedirect.com/science/arti
#Science #ecology

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
Autotrophs are organisms which use pigments for photosynthesis by absorbing light at specific wavelengths. The dominant chlorophyll-a absorbs #light in the violet-blue (430nm) and red (660nm) wavelengths, but not green, which is why #algae is green. Phycocyanin, an accessory #pigment in #cyanobacteria, absorbs in those green wavelengths, so is blue in colour. This is why we can determine algae types from space.
scitechdaily.com/new-research-
#Science #satellites #oceans

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
To follow-up last-week's post, the Fram expedition was a classic 19th C mission, half #exploration, half #science. Nansen wanted to reach the north pole and thought the (untested) polar ice drift theory would do it. Amazingly, everyone wanted to join this 3 year "fools errand". #Nansen proposed it in 1890 to the Norwegian Geographical Society and was financed by the Crown and private funds. The Fram ("Forward") cost about half the budget and was built in a year.
1/4

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
Some people have a legendary life full of adventure and accolades. One of these is Fridtjof Nansen, #Norwegian explorer, #scientist, and plankton pioneer. He intentionally froze the specially designed ship #Fram into the ice for 3 years to study #Arctic #oceanography (a whole story on that!), invented water samplers and a closing plankton net named for him, became a diplomat, and was awarded the #Nobel Peace Prize for refugee works post WWI.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fridtj

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
There is a whole field of study investigating #biochemistry of compounds found in phytoplankton. Euglena is a diverse group of flagellated single-celled #algae familiar to many from biology courses. During #photosynthesis they store the resulting glucose as a starchy β-1,3 polymer called "paramylon" in rod-like bodies particular to each species. Recently, these have been found to have remarkable biological adhesive properties. #Science
japan-forward.com/plankton-glu

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
When we think of #nutrients that limit #algae growth, it is usually nitrogen or phosphorus, which is absolutely true, but occasionally, other factors become important. One is hydrated silica dioxide, which is necessary for #diatoms to produce their glass "frustule" shells. In both lakes and oceans, #silica can be drawn down to the point it prevents reproduction. So, in some locations "dissolved sand" can actually limit algal growth. #Science
nature.com/articles/s41598-019

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
The Great Calcite Belt stretches north of Antarctica to the tips of South America and Australia. Its name comes from high levels of calcium suspended in the water from dense blooms of coccolithophores. These #algae have shells of calcium carbonate, which dissolves at shallow depth here due to upwelling, so it is available for new algal growth. The blooms whiten the water which shows up as bright turquoise colour on #satellite images. #Science
scitechdaily.com/nasa-unveils-

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
The most common #phytoplankton on the planet was only discovered in 1986. Prochlorococcus is a genus of picoplankton (~½ micron) #photosynthetic bacteria found in the Sargasso Sea by Penny Chisholm, Robert Olsen +, and eventually across all tropical oceans. It accounts for up to half the world's #oxygen production. Recently, a relationship with heterotrophic #bacteria was found, reinforcing its importance to the #carbon cycle. #ClimateChange
phys.org/news/2025-01-abundant

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐

A popular type of #zooplankton, well-known to comic book readers, are from the genus Artemia, known commonly as Brine Shrimp or "Sea-Monkeys". As their name suggests, this large plankton (~10 mm) dominate in saline #lakes where there are few fish predators. Their resting cysts are harvested in a lucrative #Utah fishery and sold to the #aquaculture and #aquarium industry as live fish food because they hatch out so easily (thus #SeaMonkeys).
globalseafood.org/advocate/gre

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
I imagine when asked what the biggest #animal is on earth, most people would not say a member of the plankton. The longest animal is a colonial #Siphonophore, of genus Apolmeia, which was longer than 120m (400 ft), seen in a deep midwater canyon off western #Australia. They have been spotted before in the Indian #Ocean, but this was a whopper. It has many tentacles used to catch #zooplankton prey that give it a furry appearance. #Science
science.org/content/article/lo

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
There is a #Michelin 3-star "el Chef del Mar" obsessed with the sea and incorporating plankton into his cuisine. Ángel León runs Aponiente in Cádiz #Spain serving seafood with a twist. He incorporates underutilized sea products, including Zostera "sea rice", and overtly includes #algae, including diatoms to clarify broth. His Abyssal Lights drink uses crustacean derived luciferase to create #bioluminescence to toast with.
🍸 #Science #Food
modernfarmer.com/2013/05/the-f

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) #satellite launched 2 years ago measures gravity altimetry *very accurately in order to estimate ocean #bathymetry, because deep sites cause a drop in gravity. New maps of the #ocean bottom are here, almost instantly improving our charts by 10x resolution. #Undersea features are very important ecological drivers of plankton and #fish distributions, and tracking water levels under #ClimateChange.
livescience.com/planet-earth/r

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
While some #algae cause Harmful Algal Blooms (#HABs), killing fishes, birds or mammals, a few create aerosolized compounds sufficient to be toxic several km inland. One of these species is the #dinoflagellate Karenia brevis, the #Florida Red Tide algae. These neurotoxic shellfish poisoning brevetoxins can cause severe respiratory and #asthma reactions needing public health advisories requiring a Red Tide Respiratory Forecast tool. #science
acep.org/toxicology/newsroom/o

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
My favorite #ecology paper is "The Paradox of the Plankton" published in 1961 by G. Evelyn Hutchinson. This #paradox exists because resources are always limited (nutrients, light), yet algae have high diversity. This runs counter to the Competitive Exclusion Principal which states some should die out. Hutchinson proposed equilibrium never exists because environmental and ecological variability constantly creates new niches. A fantastic read 📖
edit.fis.uni-hamburg.de/ws/fil

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
In case you ever wondered why SpongeBob's Plankton has a single eye, this is because he is a copepod (specifically a Cyclopoid #copepod given his relatively short antennae). Most Copepoda have a single pigmented eyespot (often red), which is actually a tripartate (three cupped ocelli) nauplius eye. The actual function of this #eye isn't well understood, though likely related to movement and orientation.

Also, because his right antenna isn't bent, he is immature. 😉

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
Harpacticoids are a diverse often benthic order of Copepoda, but a few species have incredibly evolved to live inside of #polar sea ice. Dresclieriella glacialis is able to burrow, forage and reproduce deep within the #ice, capable of withstanding the large salinity fluctuations during ice formation and melt, and though specialized, is still able to swim around ice in the plankton after melt. Loss of sea ice from #ClimateChange is a major concern for this #foodweb.

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
Ciliates are a phylum of asexually reproducing #protozoans familiar to many people because of Paramecium. However, they are very diverse with likely ~30k species, using a variety of lifestyles, and live in most water habitats using their hair-like cilia to move and feed. Most are heterotrophic but some also photosynthesize. Unique to eukaryotes they have 2 nucleii. Shelled loricated #ciliates such as tintinnids are well known in the #fossil record >500 MYA. #science

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
Late summer is when you may see floating scums of bright green on the surface of lakes when winds are calm, often described as spilled oil paint. These could be a range of #algae but are usually #cyanobacteria. Some of these have protein lined gas vesicles to help mediate buoyancy but can overshoot during photosynthesis and get stuck in surface tension. Don't touch these scums (or get them on your dog) because they can contain #toxins. #HABs #ClimateChange #Science

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid 🦠🦐
Some types of algae can still photosynthesize in near dark. I noticed this in reservoirs where Planktothrix cyanobacteria produced oxygen where I measured no light with my sensors 😶
The collaborative MOSAiC study has measured this in the #Arctic where #algae begin #photosynthesis in March even though sunlight has barely returned. 0.000001% of summer light! This is very important because it extends the ecological season considerably. #Science
phys.org/news/2024-09-arctic-m

Phys.org · Arctic microalgae show photosynthesis in near darkness is possibleBy Science X