Small Plankton Can Do Big Things?
Source: ScienceDaily
Date: September 13, 2013
Website: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130913085756.htm
Can small things do big things? Apparently they can when I saw this article. Not too long ago, a group of marine scientists found a small group of plankton thriving under elevated carbon dioxide levels. This could result in major climate changes, imbalance in the food web and carbon dioxide shortage in the ocean. This all happened off the coast of Svalbard, Norway, in 2010. Ulf Riebesell, a professor and head of the group says," if the tiny plankton blooms, it consumes the nutrients that are normally also available to larger plankton species." If the larger plankton run out of food, they will die. If the smaller plankton keep taking the carbon dioxide away, there will be less carbon dioxide that the ocean can absorb in the future. Because of this happening, Ulf and his group decide to add carbon dioxide and nutrients to the mesocom water to see how the tiny plankton will react. Ulf concludes," time and [time] again the tiniest plankton benefits from the surplus carbon dioxide, they produce more biomass and organic carbon, and dimethyl sulphide production and carbon export are decreasing."
I chose to talk about this article because it was interesting to me. It talked about something so small doing something that could possibly change our lifestyle completely. You would think that something that small was only going to become food for the predators. However, it is just like this picture of Plankton from SpongeBob. You think nothing that small can do anything, but in the show he is a mad scientist who can build anything. Plankton may be picked on constantly about his size, however all he would need to do is build something to destroy you, right? Sometimes you can prove people wrong when you try. It is basically the same thing as what is happening in this article.
Sometimes you wonder what would happen if we just let it be. What would happen if we let that small group of plankton alone? Some very drastic changes would happen in our world. We all know from earlier on in my ScraMS report that the larger plankton would die. You see, the larger plankton produce dimethyl sulphide which stimulates cloud formations over the oceans. Less dimethyl sulphide means more sun reaches the Earth's surface, adding to the greenhouse effect. Therefore, it was a good idea that Ulf and his group tested it by putting more carbon dioxide into the water. Now we know what we should do in case we see more cases like this in the future. Well, I'm pretty much done with this article. Thank you for reading my article and I hope to see you reading my next one. Peace!
I chose to talk about this article because it was interesting to me. It talked about something so small doing something that could possibly change our lifestyle completely. You would think that something that small was only going to become food for the predators. However, it is just like this picture of Plankton from SpongeBob. You think nothing that small can do anything, but in the show he is a mad scientist who can build anything. Plankton may be picked on constantly about his size, however all he would need to do is build something to destroy you, right? Sometimes you can prove people wrong when you try. It is basically the same thing as what is happening in this article.
Sometimes you wonder what would happen if we just let it be. What would happen if we let that small group of plankton alone? Some very drastic changes would happen in our world. We all know from earlier on in my ScraMS report that the larger plankton would die. You see, the larger plankton produce dimethyl sulphide which stimulates cloud formations over the oceans. Less dimethyl sulphide means more sun reaches the Earth's surface, adding to the greenhouse effect. Therefore, it was a good idea that Ulf and his group tested it by putting more carbon dioxide into the water. Now we know what we should do in case we see more cases like this in the future. Well, I'm pretty much done with this article. Thank you for reading my article and I hope to see you reading my next one. Peace!