What are the Roles of Plankton in a Marine Ecosystem? ByďźšErin Su
Contents Page What are Plankton?
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What Types of Plankton are There? Where Do You Find Plankton Keeping it Balanced Algae Bloom
Sites
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Why Do We Need Plankton? Glossary
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What are Plankton?
Plankton are small microscopic creatures that live in water. Plankton comes from a greek word “planktos”, which means “drifter” or “wander”. They are also at the bottom of every marine food chain or web, meaning they are the producers or primary consumers of every marine food chain.
What Types of Plankton Are There? There are many types of plankton, but the most wellknown kinds are phytoplankton and zooplankton. Phytoplankton is the producer of the food chain. Phytoplankton is an organism that does photosynthesis just like any other plant, but it does not look like any plant. It is also a type of tiny algae. Phytoplankton is responsible for 50% of the photosynthesis in the water.
Phytoplankton
Zooplankton
Zooplankton is an animal-like organism that eats phytoplankton. Then after the primary consumer (zooplankton) eats the producer (phytoplankton), small fishes like jellyfish will eat the zooplankton.
Where Do You Find Plankton? Plankton is in the Euphotic Zone, which is also known as the drifting state. The drifting state is from the surface to around 100 meters deep into the water. You can find plankton in fresh or salt water. Plankton likes to live in colder places in the water, and so they tend to move away if a place is too warm. Plankton don’t have legs and don’t swim; so they are moved around by ocean currents.
Keeping it Balanced It is very important to have the right amount of plankton in the ocean. Plankton has decreased 40% in the last 20 years. When there is a lack of plankton, then there is a much higher risk of all their predators becoming extinct; a great loss in the oceans. Also since phytoplankton is responsible for 50% of the photosynthesis in the water, it is responsible for taking carbon dioxide out of the water, and giving oxygen to all the ocean consumers. Without this, the oceans will soon become polluted. What happens if there is too much plankton? All of the plankton’s predators will increase a lot, and soon there will be no more resources. Then the predators population will become lower. A reason why plankton are decreas ing, is because of globa l warming .
Algae Bloom If too many nutrients go to a plankton, then a harmful algal bloom( HAB) happens. Some effects of HAB are: it blocks sunlight from the organisms in water, it decreases the oxygen level in water, and it harms fish, mammals, birds, and also humans. HAB could also poison to the water, causing death to many living creatures in the ocean.
A fish after an
algae bloom
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Glossary
Ecosystem
Microscopic
Photosynthesis
A place where living and non-living things interact with each other.
Very small things that can only be seen with a microscope.
A process that plants use to turn carbon dioxide to oxygen.
Sources
http://www.ehow.com/about_6461310_role-planktonecosystem.html http://www.ask.com/science/roles-plankton-playecosystem-27e923e9d942c4ac http://marinesciencetoday.com/2013/03/20/planktonswitching-roles-in-arctic-ecosystem/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFQ_fO2D7f0 http://www.answers.com/Q/ What_would_happen_if_there_were_too_many_plankton _in_an_area
Thank You!