How are phytoplankton created?

Question

I am doing a school project on the link between phytoplankton, the hole in the ozone layer and the penguin population. I need to know how phytoplankton are created so if anyone has any ideas on how they are created it would be a great help if you tell me.

Answer 1

Suspended drifting material in the water is either living or dead. In the first case, it is commonly referred to as plankton, and in the latter, detritus. Detritus will be covered in a future article. The word phytoplankton comes from the Greek words, phyton, meaning plant, and planktos, meaning to drift or wander, and combined to mean, "drifting plant." A problem arises from the fact that the original name certainly stemmed from the notion that green things that used sunlight and had cell walls were plants. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Most of the phytoplankton are in the Kingdom Protista, or protists, and may share unique attributes that are neither animal nor plant, or perhaps a bit of both.

Phytoplankton belong to a diverse taxonomical assemblage that had origins nearly 2 billion years ago. Some phytoplankton are among the most evolutionarily ancient organisms on earth, while others, such as the diatoms, have evolved relatively recently. Most current taxonomical sources recognize five Kingdoms: Monera (the bacteria and blue-green algae), Protista (protozoa, algae, and slime molds), Plantae (true plants), Fungi, and Animalia. Phytoplankton are found in Monera and Protista, and none are found in the plant kingdom Plantae.

Answer 2

Phytoplankton are the autotrophic component of plankton. The name comes from the Greek terms, phyton or "plant" and πλαγκτος ("planktos"), meaning "wanderer" or "drifter".[1] Most phytoplankton are too small to be individually seen with the unaided eye. However, when present in high enough numbers, they may appear as a green discoloration of the water due to the presence of chlorophyll within their cells (although the actual color may vary with the species of phytoplankton present due to varying levels of chlorophyll or the presence of accessory pigments such as phycobiliproteins, xanthophylls, etc.).

Phytoplankton bloom in the South Atlantic (February 15, 2006) seen from space

Phytoplankton bloom in the South Atlantic (February 15, 2006) seen from space

Phytoplankton obtain energy through a process called photosynthesis and must therefore live in the well-lit surface layer (termed the euphotic zone) of an ocean, sea, lake, or other body of water. Through photosynthesis, phytoplankton are responsible for much of the oxygen present in the Earth's atmosphere – half of the total amount produced by all plant life.[2] Their cumulative energy fixation in carbon compounds (primary production) is the basis for the vast majority of oceanic and also many freshwater food webs (chemosynthesis is a notable exception). As a side note, one of the more remarkable food chains in the ocean – remarkable because of the small number of links – is that of phytoplankton fed on by krill (a type of shrimp) fed on by baleen whales.

Phytoplankton are also crucially dependent on minerals. These are primarily macronutrients such as nitrate, phosphate or silicic acid, whose availability is governed by the balance between the so-called biological pump and upwelling of deep, nutrient-rich waters. However, across large regions of the World Ocean such as the Southern Ocean, phytoplankton are also limited by the lack of the micronutrient iron. This has led to some scientists advocating iron fertilization as a means to counteract the accumulation of human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere[3].

While almost all phytoplankton species are obligate photoautotrophs, there are some that are mixotrophic and other, non-pigmented species that are actually heterotrophic (the latter are often viewed as zooplankton). Of these, the best known are dinoflagellate genera such as Noctiluca and Dinophysis, that obtain organic carbon by ingesting other organisms or detrital material.

Diatoms

Diatoms

Dinoflagellate

Dinoflagellate

The term phytoplankton encompasses all photoautotrophic microorganisms in aquatic food webs. Phytoplankton serve as the base of the aquatic food web, providing an essential ecological function for all aquatic life. However, unlike terrestrial communities, where most autotrophs are plants, phytoplankton are a diverse group, incorporating protistan eukaryotes and both eubacterial and archaebacterial prokaryotes. There are about 5,000 species of marine phytoplankton.[4] There is uncertainty in how such diversity has evolved in an environment where competition for only a few resources would suggest limited potential for niche differentiation.[5]

In terms of numbers, the most important groups of phytoplankton include the diatoms, cyanobacteria and dinoflagellates, although many other groups of algae are represented. One group, the coccolithophorids, is responsible (in part) for the release of significant amounts of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) into the atmosphere. DMS is converted to sulfate and these sulfate molecules act as cloud condensation nuclei, increasing general cloud cover. In oligotrophic oceanic regions such as the Sargasso Sea or the South Pacific gyre, phytoplankton is dominated by the small sized cells, called picoplankton, mostly composed of cyanobacteria (Prochlorococcus, Synechococcus) and picoeucaryotes such as Micromonas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoplankt...