Latest Phytoplankton Stories

Stanford, CA -- A startling discovery by scientists at the Carnegie Institution puts a new twist on photosynthesis, arguably the most important biological process on Earth. Photosynthesis by plants, algae, and some bacteria supports nearly all living things by producing food from sunlight, and in the process these organisms release oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide. But two studies by Arthur Grossman and colleagues*+ reported in Biochimica et Biophysica Acta and Limnology and Oceanography...

Certain fish could disappear from restaurant menus and our plates at home by 2100, as global warming changes ocean food webs, a new study suggests. Climate change has the potential to threaten ecosystems all over the world, and those in the ocean are no exception. Two marine ecologists led a study of the effects of climate change on the food web of the Bering Sea, which currently provides about half of the fish caught in U.S. waters each year and nearly a third caught...

By 2100, warmer oceans with more carbon dioxide may no longer sustain 1 of the world's most productive fisheries, says USC marine ecologistThe last fish you ate probably came from the Bering Sea. But during this century, the sea's rich food web"”stretching from Alaska to Russia"”could fray as algae adapt to greenhouse conditions."All the fish that ends up in McDonald's, fish sandwiches"”that's all Bering Sea fish," said USC marine ecologist Dave Hutchins, whose former student at the...

MIAMI -- The sturdy steel trawler spent the summer on Fort Lauderdale's New River, but the sheltered waters haven't kept the company that owns it from an international storm of controversy over whether its owners' real aim is to help save the planet or just turn a profit. Planktos, a small California company, intends to spread as much as 100 tons of pulverized iron over the vast Pacific Ocean off the Galapagos Islands, hoping it will fertilize a rich crop of carbon dioxide-gobbling...

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- A new study suggests that the iron-rich winter runoff from Pacific Northwest streams and rivers, combined with the wide continental shelf, form a potent mechanism for fertilizing the nearshore Pacific Ocean, leading to robust phytoplankton production and fisheries.The study, by three Oregon State University oceanographers, was just published by the American Geophysical Union in its journal, Geophysical Research Letters.West coast scientists have observed that ocean...

Atmospheric scientists have reported a new and potentially important mechanism by which chemical emissions from ocean phytoplankton may influence the formation of clouds that reflect sunlight away from our planet.This intimate connection between life and the environment of Earth could have profound implications for the future of our planet's global ecosystem. Discovery of the new link between clouds and the biosphere grew out of efforts to explain increased cloud cover observed over an area...

Transparent jellyfish-like creatures known as salps, considered by many a low member in the ocean food web, may be more important to the fate of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the ocean than previously thought. In the May issue of Deep Sea Research, scientists report that salps, about the size of a human thumb, swarming by the billions in hot spots may be transporting tons of carbon per day from the ocean surface to the deep sea and keep it from re-entering the atmosphere. Salps are...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Marine biologists are seeing mysterious and disturbing things along the Pacific Coast this year: higher water temperatures, plummeting catches of fish, lots of dead birds on the beaches, and perhaps most worrisome, very little plankton - the tiny organisms that are a vital link in the ocean food chain. Is this just one freak year? Or is this global warming? Few scientists are willing to blame global warming, the theory that carbon dioxide and other manmade emissions are...

NASA -- Who would have thought that melting snow cover in the Himalayan Mountains could alter the ocean food chain over a thousand miles away? Well, that's just what's happening, according to a NASA-funded study appearing in this week's Science magazine. The study finds a decline in winter and spring snow cover over Southwest Asia and the Himalayan mountain range is creating the right conditions for more widespread blooms of ocean plants in the Arabian Sea. The decrease in snow cover has led...

Astrobiology Magazine -- Ecologists know that when it comes to habitats, size matters, and now a new study finds that contrary to earlier beliefs, that maxim holds true right down to the tiny plants at the bottom of many oceanic and freshwater food chains.The study, conducted by University of Florida, University of Kansas and University of Texas researchers, is important because it shows that tiny microbes follow the same diversity patterns as larger organisms, said Robert D. Holt, a UF...