Phytoplankton are the foundation of ocean ecosystems: like rainforests, they consume carbon from the atmosphere, form the basis of the marine food web and have a decisive influence on fish abundance ...

Microscopic ocean algae produce a huge share of Earth’s oxygen—but they need iron to do it. New field research shows that when iron is scarce, phytoplankton waste energy and photosynthesis falters.

Phytoplankton—microscopic algae that form the base of ocean food webs—have long been viewed as transient players in the global carbon cycle: They bloom, die, and the carbon they contain is quickly ...

Each winter, Baffin Bay freezes over as polar darkness descends over the top of the world. Come spring, phytoplankton will bloom in these cold waters between Greenland and Canada, bolstering a ...

We are what we eat. And in the ocean, most life-forms source their food from phytoplankton. These microscopic, plant-like algae are the primary food source for krill, sea snails, some small fish, and ...

Below the surface of the oceans, microscopic algae known as phytoplankton are growing as the world warms. That’s one finding of our new study, published in Nature Climate Change, which provides the ...

Phytoplankton are microscopic plants floating around in marine and aquatic ecosystems that produce 50-80% of the world’s oxygen. Besides providing food for countless other organisms, they are so ...

Take a deep breath. Now take nine more. According to new research, the amount of oxygen in one of those 10 breaths was made possible thanks to a newly identified cellular mechanism that promotes ...