Nutrients from the seabirds’ guano fuels the growth of carbon-storing phytoplankton, but penguin populations have plunged in the past 4 decades.
food webs
Posted inNews
Marine Life May Be Headed to Higher Latitudes
Researchers tracked plankton through a changing climate over 8 million years. Now, that knowledge is helping scientists understand the coming effects of warming oceans.
Posted inNews
Ocean Acidification May Drive Diatom Decline
Diatoms contribute to global oxygen production, marine food webs, and carbon sequestration, but scientists predict that diatom populations will decline due to ocean acidification associated with climate change.
Posted inNews
Algal Mats May Be a Key to the Arctic Food Web
Melt ponds in sea ice have thriving algal communities with startlingly high levels of photosynthetic activity.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Multicellular Algae Discovered in an Early Cambrian Formation
A new study describes eukaryotic organisms found organized in a cortex-medulla pattern in southern China’s Kuanchuanpu Formation.
Posted inNews
Finding Prehistoric Rain Forests by Studying Modern Mammals
Mammal teeth store a record of the plants they ate, providing clues about the ecosystems in which they lived.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
A Promising Development for Detecting Ocean Productivity
A comparison of primary productivity measurements across the North Pacific Ocean demonstrates the potential for using autonomous instruments to discern effects of climate change on the marine food web.
Posted inNews
A Subglacial Lake in Antarctica Churns Out Nutrients
Eight hundred meters below the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, microbes in subglacial Lake Whillans create organic carbon that helps power the Southern Ocean’s vast food chain.
Posted inScience Updates
Progress and Planning in Understanding Ocean Acidification
The 4th Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network (GOA-ON) International Workshop; Hangzhou, China, 14–17 April 2019
Posted inScience Updates
Sustainable Observations of Plankton, the Sea’s Food Foundation
Workshop on Developing an Implementation Plan for a Sustained, Multidisciplinary Global Observing System of Plankton Communities; Santa Cruz, California, 25–27 June 2018