What is the difference between plankton and algae

In a balanced ecosystem, phytoplankton provide food for a wide range of sea creatures including shrimp, snails, and jellyfish. When too many nutrients are available, phytoplankton may grow out of control and form harmful algal blooms HABs. These blooms can produce extremely toxic compounds that have harmful effects on fish, shellfish, mammals, birds, and even people.

Scientists use a range of technologies to predict where and when HABs are likely to form and how they will affect the areas where they occur. Scientists use this information to inform coastal authorities on how to best respond in order to minimize negative impacts. Home Ocean Facts What are phytoplankton? Marine biologists use plankton nets to sample phytoplankton directly from the ocean. Samples may be sealed and put on ice and transported for laboratory analysis, where researchers may be able to identify the phytoplankton collected down to the genus or even species level through microscopic investigation or genetic analysis.

Although samples taken from the ocean are necessary for some studies, satellites are pivotal for global-scale studies of phytoplankton and their role in climate change.

Individual phytoplankton are tiny, but when they bloom by the billions, the high concentrations of chlorophyll and other light-catching pigments change the way the surface reflects light. In natural-color satellite images top , phytoplankton appear as colorful swirls. Scientists use these observations to estimate chlorophyll concentration bottom in the water.

These images show a bloom near Kamchatka on June 2, The water may turn greenish, reddish, or brownish. The chalky scales that cover coccolithophores color the water milky white or bright blue. Scientists use these changes in ocean color to estimate chlorophyll concentration and the biomass of phytoplankton in the ocean. Phytoplankton thrive along coastlines and continental shelves, along the equator in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and in high-latitude areas. Winds play a strong role in the distribution of phytoplankton because they drive currents that cause deep water, loaded with nutrients, to be pulled up to the surface.

These upwelling zones, including one along the equator maintained by the convergence of the easterly trade winds, and others along the western coasts of several continents, are among the most productive ocean ecosystems. By contrast, phytoplankton are scarce in remote ocean gyres due to nutrient limitations. Phytoplankton are most abundant yellow, high chlorophyll in high latitudes and in upwelling zones along the equator and near coastlines.

They are scarce in remote oceans dark blue , where nutrient levels are low. This map shows the average chlorophyll concentration in the global oceans from July —May View animation: small 5 MB large 18 MB. Like plants on land, phytoplankton growth varies seasonally. In high latitudes, blooms peak in the spring and summer, when sunlight increases and the relentless mixing of the water by winter storms subsides. Recent research suggests the vigorous winter mixing sets the stage for explosive spring growth by bringing nutrients up from deeper waters into the sunlit layers at the surface and separating phytoplankton from their zooplankton predators.

In the subtropical oceans, by contrast, phytoplankton populations drop off in summer. As surface waters warm up through the summer, they become very buoyant. With warm, buoyant water on top and cold, dense water below, the water column doesn't mix easily. Phytoplankton use up the nutrients available, and growth falls off until winter storms kick-start mixing. In lower-latitude areas, including the Arabian Sea and the waters around Indonesia, seasonal blooms are often linked to monsoon-related changes in winds.

As the winds reverse direction offshore versus onshore , they alternately enhance or suppress upwelling, which changes nutrient concentrations. In the equatorial upwelling zone, there is very little seasonal change in phytoplankton productivity. 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.

Often, changes in plankton can reveal early warning signs of a problem in the environment. One sign of imbalance is termed a red tide. Red tides, also known as harmful algae blooms, are an overgrowth of algae, a type of phytoplankton, that can cover the surface of the water. In severe cases, the massive overgrowth of the algae can release sufficient toxins to cause a die-off of fish and marine animals in the area, creating what is known as a dead zone in the water.

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.

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