EAPS 10400 Lecture 14: plankton, algae, and plants

• School: Purdue University
• Department: Earth Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences
• Course: EAPS 10400
• Professor: Greg Michalski

Document Summary

Pelagic suspended in sea water: plankton drift through the ocean, ex. Fish eggs, jelly fish, copepods, coccolithophores: phytoplankton (autotrophic, generates 50% of oxygen, 50 trillion kilograms of carbon carbohydrates, diatom and dinoflagellate, zooplankton, copepod, nekton actively swim through the ocean. Types: picoplankton very small, diatoms dominant and most productive, dinoflagellates single-celled and use flagella, coccolithophores single-celled autotrophs. Provides fossil energy: produces oil when they die. Being small: helps get nutrients, helps get light. Hard to come in contact with other organisms. Movement is reversible: uses a cork-screw motion. Responsible for generating most of the oxygen. Live on the surface of layered mats: fossil stromatolites. Modified cells (heterocysts: fixed nitrogen, growth of near-by plants. Akinete: thick walled cell, allows bacteria to survive harsh conditions. Red tides or harmful agal blooms (hab: physical disturbances cause dinoflagellates to generate bioluminescence. Capture energy to produce of the earth"s oxygen. About 1 micron in size (50 micrometers)