Marine Plankton

Plankton are important to not only the ocean but also to man. This is because the plankton is the bottom of the food web. If plankton did not exist the whole food chain would fall apart. Including human life that not only feeds on creatures of the ocean but uses the oxygen produced as seventy percent of the earth's air. Plankton are also a large food source for not only fish but plants or algae within the ocean as well. Because many lower level fish feed on plants not just plankton their second source of food would also dwindle. Finally Plankton are considered the key to life's existence. This is not just because they provide a strong food source for fish and plants in the ocean but because of their role in the biogeochemical cycle of the carbon cycle within the ocean. The organic makeup of the plankton are more dense than sea water causing them to sink into the ocean ecosystem bringing the carbon with their bodies. The plankton has been discovered to be one of the largest reasons why the world receives so much of its oxygen from the ocean. The most common type of phytoplankton are Diatoms and Dinoflagellates. Diatoms are single-celled algae. They often join together in long chains. Where as Dinoflagellates are small organisms with two tails. Dinoflagellates come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Some have shells and some do not need them. Not all dinoflagellates rely only on photosynthesis for all their energy like most plankton. Some wrap themselves around food and are able to absorb it. Some dinoflagellates can make their own light using an adaptation called bioluminescence.