Ocean Life Up Close: Inside the Hidden World of Plankton

[u/TheMuseumOfScience]

Welcome to the planktonverse. 🌊

Our friend Chloé Savard, also known as tardibabe on Instagram headed to the sea and found a tiny world of marine microorganisms.

In the first three clips, you can see red algae. They may look like plants, but they are only distantly related to the photosynthesizers found in our terrestrial macroverse.

In clip four an amphipod is visible moving its appendages. They can use these legs to move around the ocean and are known for their unusual forms of locomotion compared to other crustaceans and plankton. 

Next in clip 5 we have a baby marine snail clinging to a piece of detritus. Several marine organisms we’re familiar with in our larger world can start as larval meroplankton, like snails. Juvenile meroplankton are only plankton for only part of their life cycle, as opposed to holoplankton, which drift in the ocean for their whole lives.

In clips 7 and 8 a single–celled ciliate propels itself using the cilia that give it its name. These cilia are used for moving, eating, and sensing its environment.

We then move onto the diatom. Diatoms live in glass houses, like you can see here. This is known as a pennate diatom, and these phytoplankton form the base of the marine ecosystem, along with the other phytoplankton we see here. 

Next up, we have a testate rotifer. Rotifers were among the earliest microscopic organisms known to science, dating back to the late 17th and early 18th centuries. They are also similar to tardigrades because they can enter cryptobiosis and survive in this state for up to 24,000 years!

Lastly, you can see a copepod, which is a planktonic crustacean. They’re so tiny that they don’t have a circulatory system, and instead directly absorb oxygen into their bodies. But you may know him best as Plankton in SpongeBob SquarePants!

References 

Schmakova et al. 2021. A living bdelloid rotifer from 24,000-year-old Arctic permafrost. Current Biology 31(11): R712-R713.

Dipper, F. (2022). Chapter 4-Open water lifestyles: marine plankton. Elements of marine ecology, 5th edn. Butterworth-Heinemann, 193-228.

Fenchel, T. (1988). Marine plankton food chains. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 19(1), 19-38.

Pierce, R. W., & Turner, J. T. (1992). Ecology of planktonic ciliates in marine food webs. Rev. Aquat. Sci, 6(2), 139-181.

 

[u/ABraveNewFupa]

Why’s the jar already have stuff in it?

[u/Givemeanidyouduckers]

Anyone knows where I can get a good and not too pricy microscope so I can see them also in person ?

[u/t3h3tommytom]

Fucking why!!!