@DrPlanktonguy@ecoevo.socialWeekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐
Antarctic and North Pacific krill (Euphausia superba and pacifica) are a vital component of high latitude ecosystems as food for many species including whales. It is also a valued commercial fishery since they are 40% protein and 20% lipid. The quota of 620,000 tonnes was rapidly reached this past year for use as omega-3 oil, bait and animal feed. For perspectiv…
@DrPlanktonguy@ecoevo.socialWeekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐
If you are a filter feeder how to you deal with a gummed up feeding mechanism? Cladoceran zooplankton have a post abdominal claw with a sharp pointed tip which acts as a combination toothpick and anchor to clear out the feeding groove of the carapace. Some groups also grasp algal filaments or plants with it. These claws are distinctive to species based on the si…
@DrPlanktonguy@ecoevo.social @DrPlanktonguy@ecoevo.socialWeekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐
The equinox has returned, so let's talk spring phytoplankton blooms. Temperature and light has increased to create stratification (warm water layer floats over a denser one). Algae is kept near the surface, growing quickly without sinking into the depths. This is the Sverdrup (1953) Critical Depth Hypothesis.
Dr. David Shull at Western Washington Univ…
@DrPlanktonguy@ecoevo.socialWeekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐
Recently, Japanese researchers found some odd DNA in a dinoflagellate cell, which isn't really an Archaea, or a virus, but something else entirely. Apparently symbiotic or parasitic, with an extreme genome reduction, Sukunaarchaeum mirabile has the genetic coding to replicate, but not sustain itself metabolically, so is it life or not alive? Classifying organ…
@DrPlanktonguy@ecoevo.social @DrPlanktonguy@ecoevo.social @DrPlanktonguy@ecoevo.socialWeekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐
While I have often talked about eutrophication (high nutrients leading to excess algae production), systems worldwide have also undergone oligotrophication: productivity reduction from nutrient decline or ecosystem changes. While lakes becoming clearer is often viewed positively, this results in food web alterations and loss of culturally and commercially importa…
@DrPlanktonguy@ecoevo.socialWeekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐
Some calanoid copepods, including Calanus finmarchicus, spend 6-8 months of the winter in a dormancy state as juvenile copepodites deep under the thermocline at a depth of 500-1500m which reduces predation and energy use. This depth is determined by interaction of temperature and salinity of the water and the copepod's lipid content of waxy esters. They have …
@DrPlanktonguy@ecoevo.socialWeekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐
#ClimateChange is expected to modify food-webs in the oceans, including in nutrition. In an MIT modeling study scientists found that under heating scenarios, phytoplankon can shift from protein to carbohydrate and lipid dominated cell composition, which they hav…
@DrPlanktonguy@ecoevo.socialWeekend #Plankton Factoid 🦠🦐
In recent years it has been found that phytoplankton productivity can be fueled by deep-sea hydrothermal vents. These vents produce iron and dense microbial blooms which can locally stimulate algae blooms, but it wasn't clear how this linkage of ecosystems separated by kilometers was possible. Now, an Antarctic study suggests that earthquakes can cause violen…
