Plankton Research Paper

A question that many wonder about is why is phytoplankton important? Plankton is revealed by ocean color and help show scientists where ocean currents provide nutrients for plant growth. They also help show where pollutants are poisoning the ocean preventing plant growth and where changes in the climate of the ocean are occurring. Plankton is also the foundation of the oceans food chain. As phytoplankton begin to grow and multiply, small fish eat them, then the larger animals begin to eat those smaller animals. The food chain of the ocean begins phytoplankton, then comes zooplankton, next is the predatory zooplankton, fourth is the filter feeders and last is the predatory fish. Phytoplankton is sometimes called the grass of the sea because

Researchers that are studying the origins of earth’s first breathable atmosphere have zeroed in on the major role played by the most unassuming creature: plankton. They believed 500 million years ago the earth’s crust contained upheavals [a violent, sudden change or a disruption]. This initiated a strange reverse green house effect, cooling the world’s oceans, spawned giant plankton and sent bursts of oxygen into the atmosphere. This new discovery reveals details of how oxygen came to vanish from the earth’s ancient atmosphere during the Cambrian period and reappeared in higher levels than ever before. Plankton maybe at the bottom of the food chain today but back then they ruled the planet. No life existed on land during that period of time, life in the ocean was not very diverse aside from the abundance of trilobites, an extinct marine arthropod the existed abundantly in the Paleozoic

Our understanding of plankton has immensely evolved greatly over time. In the early 1800’s many scientists originally used simple nets and jars to study plankton but quickly after learning how huge their world was scientists strained to learn more. They asked a range of questions, including “where do different types of plankton live?,” “how to plankton populations change over time?,” and “what roles do they play in aquatic food webs?.” Such questions efforts motivated many scientists to create new tools that would help them to view certain aspects of plankton in the ocean. From the original simple net grew a range of new technologies that allowed us to develop a detailed picture of the behavior and habitat of plankton. (how has are knowledge of plankton changed over time ,