LTER: Phytoplankton Component

The phytoplankton are your basic, minute, free-floating plants of the ocean. They are like any plant you are familiar with in that they take up carbon dioxide and release oxygen in photosynthesis, using nutrients produced by bacteria in the process. This group is studying production rates of the phytoplankton in the area and under what conditions and depths they occur. They are also recording the yearly blooms that occur as the levels of water mix due to seasonal temperature changes. The mixing brings nutrients up from the lower levels and gives the phytoplankton more food for production. Monitoring this activity on a consistent basis will give them a good picture of how things change day to day and year to year and what may be affecting this level of the food chain.

Something interesting to consider here: phytoplankton are a good resource for taking carbon dioxide out of the air (where it is a major greenhouse gas) and into the ocean. If bacterial activity is high, it produces mass amounts of carbon dioxide for the phytoplankton to use; therefore, the phytoplankton will take much less out of the air. Also, changes in average air temperature, which affects water temperature, can upset the balance that nature has set for itself concerning yearly blooms of phytoplankton. More or less blooms will have an affect on bacterial activity (which decompose dead phytoplankton and use other byproducts from its photosynthesis), krill populations (which eat the phytoplankton), and other factors not yet considered.

Sampling in the Field- taking water samples and reading light levels at various depths.

Phytoplankton under the microscope. Magnification is about 1000 x.