plankton net. fnft fnft: the evolutionary relationships of the major groups of marine organisms

PlanktonNet

Fnft

Fnft: The evolutionary relationships of the major groups of marine organisms

SizeDistribution

Fnft: Relative sizes of phytoplankton groups

Fnft: Food pyramid that leads to an adult herring

• PHYTOPLANKTON

“plant plankton”

Photosynthetic

The very base of the food chain…

Fnft: A micrograph of pelagic diatoms

Diatom

(chain) diatom

Fnft: The size difference between a typical centric diatom and a coccolithophore cell

© Steve Gschmeissner/Photo Researchers, Inc.

Fnft: SEM of Thalassiosira

© Dee Breger/Photo Researchers, Inc.

Fnft: SEM of entire Asteromphalus heptacles

Courtesy of Dr. José Luis Iriarte M., Universidad Austral de Chile

Fnft: Mixed sample of spinous and chain-forming diatoms, Diatoma vulgare

© blickwinkel/Alamy Images

Figure 3.11: Cells in a chain of Stephanopyxis

Courtesy of Kohki Itoh

Fnft: centric diatom from saltwater

© Phototake/Alamy Images

Fnft: A dinoflagellate

© Phototake/Alamy Images

Dinoflagellates

• Ceratium• A Dinoflaggelate• “Phytoplankton”

Fnft: SEM of Gonyaulax polygramma

Fnft: SEM of Dinophysis rapa

Figure 3.16c: SEM of Gonyaulax

© CSIRO Marine Research

Fnft: SEM of Ceratochoris horrida

© CSIRO Marine Research

Why do phytoplankton matter to global change?

• ZOOPLANKTON

“animal plankton”

NOT Photosynthetic – but “herbivores” and “carnivores” instead

They FEED ON the very base of the food chain (phytoplankton)…but how?

• 2 types of ZOOPLANKTON

HOLOPLANKTON

Spend entire lives as plankton

Copepod, for example

MEROPLANKTON

Only part of their lives as plankton

crabs & many fish, for example

Copepod, holoplankton

• …a “survey” of zooplankton

salp

Larvacean:(Sea

Squirt)Filter

Feeder

Feeding on Dispersed Prey

The appendicularian Oikopleura, within its mucous bubble.• Arrows indicate path of water flow.

(mollusk)

Inhabitants of the Pelagic Division

Some large gelatinous

zooplankton: (a) A pelagic

mollusk, Corolla.

© David Wrobel/Visuals Unlimited

(sea star)

Polychaete worms &some mollusks

(crustacean)

Meroplankton

Inhabitants of the Pelagic Division

• Some large gelatinous zooplankton: (b) A ctenophore, Bolinopsis, swimming with eight rows

of ciliated combs.

Courtesy of OAR/National Undersea Research Program/NOAA

They aren’t always “small!”

Some large gelatinous zooplankton: (c) A colony of salps (Pegea) cloned from a single parent.

© Eric Prine/age fotostock

The “ultimate” symbiosis: sea slug w/ jellyfish

Not all plankton are small

Water spider

The cycle from a larva stage to the upcoming of adult hood.

Vertical Migration:Tying the Upper Zones Together

A midwater siphonophore with a small, gas-filled pneumatophore at the upper end.

Courtesy of Dr. Alice Alldredge, University of California, Santa Barbara

Badplankton

Fnft: Phytoplankton bloom along the California coast

Food Chain impacts

Table 15.01