Tiny plankton could have big impact on climate
Tiny plankton could have big impact on climate
by Staff Writers
Paris (SPX) Sep 18, 2013
As the climate changes and oceans' acidity increases, tiny plankton seem set to succeed. An international team of marine scientists has found that the smallest plankton groups thrive under elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) levels. This could cause an imbalance in the food web as well as decrease ocean CO2 uptake, an important regulator of global climate.
The results of the study, conducted off the coast of Svalbard, Norway, in 2010, are now compiled in a special issue published in Biogeosciences, a journal of the European Geosciences Union.
"If the tiny plankton blooms, it consumes the nutrients that are normally also available to larger plankton species," explains Ulf Riebesell, a professor of biological oceanography at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel in Germany and head of the experimental team. This could mean the larger plankton run short of food.
Large plankton play an important role in carbon export to the deep ocean, but in a system dominated by the so-called pico- and nanoplankton, less carbon is transported out of surface waters. "This may cause the oceans to absorb less CO2 in the future," says Riebesell.
More:
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Tiny_plankton_could_have_big_impact_on_climate_999.html