Talk:Phytoplankton

message: I've rewritten this to fit better with the plankton page, and corrected some inaccuracies:
* fungi are decomposers not photosynthesisers, so are not phytoplankton. 
* plankton do not 'hover', which implies an active process, but drift passively in the water column.
* primary production is a term for the cumulative amount of carbon fixed per area over a period of time by phytoplankton.
* some oceanic ecosystems are supplied by chemical energy from hydrothermal vents.
I've commented out some stuff about zooplankton and food chains - this should go in a zooplankton page. Agree?
There's a lot more I can add, which I will do in time...
Tonderai 20:52, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misc from 2003 

message: Ref to "stew fish peoplee" which doesn't look very scientific...— Preceding unsigned comment added by  (talk • contribs) 
Fixed it - Vsmith 12:13, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page appears to have some vandalism 

message: In the article Plankton it is written as πλανκτον.
In this article, πλαγκτν. Which one is correct?
:Good question.  The first one seems to be a literal translation (π = pi = p; λ = lambda = l; ...; ν = nu = n), but the second seems to include γ (= gamma = g?), so seems to be wrong.  However, I'm not entirely convinced by the literal translation either.  According to a mates' PhD. thesis the name derives from the Greek for "wandering" (πλανκτος = planktos?), and was introduced by Victor Hensen in 1887.  I don't have a proper reference for this, but I thought I'd best mention it in case someone else does.  Hope this helps.  Cheers, --Plumbago 10:32, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Had a word with my mate, and he confirms that "planktos" is the root.  He cites Victor Hensen via Thurman (1997, Introductory Oceanography, Prentice Hall College, New Jersey, USA, ).  I'll make the appropriate changes.  Cheers, and well spotted!  --Plumbago 08:30, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  In Classical Greek orthography, the the nasal obstruent is velarized before a velar, therefore it is represented with γ. So, the form with gamma is correct. I have edited the article accordingly. CRCulver 21:24, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Greek word 

message: Is it true that phytoplankton populations are on the decline (and thus that the Earth's future atmospheric oxygen level is at risk)? Badagnani 06:44, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The simple answer is "no".  While phytoplankton abundance certainly varies, and there are good reasons to expect their numbers to fall somewhat in the future as the ocean stratifies because of global warming, I've never heard anyone question the future of Earth's oxygen atmosphere (and I work as a professional oceanographer).  I'd love to know where this oxygen story comes from: the split in global primary production between land and ocean slightly favours land ecosystems (but the split is more pronounced on a per unit area basis because there's less than half as much land as there is ocean; see primary production).  Given that almost all fixed carbon is respired back to CO2 (consuming O2) it's not at all obvious where the idea that that ocean's are "responsible" for our oxygen comes from.  Further (and I'm treading well outside my expertise here), as I understand it (see this graphic), the majority of fossil fuel carbon has a terrestrial source, suggesting that geologically net primary production (that is, the extremely long-term balance between primary production and respiration) has been dominated by terrestrial production.  Anyway, I'm going off on one now, so I'll stop!  ;-)  Hope this helps.  Cheers, --Plumbago 08:32, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Oh I've seen statements about this before, but not in reliable sources (this one certainly isn't reliable).  I don't really keep on top of trends in phytoplankton, but I'm aware that there is some evidence for a recent decline.  My understanding is that natural (i.e. non-anthropogenically forced) variability is not well-quantified, so that any declines observed may simply be part of a multi-year cycle.  It's not something I work on myself, but I don't see fellow scientists rushing to study declining phytoplankton numbers, and I interpret that to mean it's not "interesting" (i.e. is most likely boring variability).  Cheers, --Plumbago 09:14, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disappearing? 

message: This page mentions a nutritional supplement called "Marine Phytoplankton"]. Is this for real? If so, human consumption of phytoplankton for medicinal purposes should be added to the article. Badagnani (talk) 08:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: While this might be the case, unless there are solid sources supporting such medicinal use, we shouldn't be an advertising forum for potentially questionable products.  Companies selling those already have their own marketing budgets.  --PLUMBAGO 06:43, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  As a nutritional supplement 

message: The effects on phytoplankton of increasing ocean acidification should be mentioned in the article. Badagnani (talk) 16:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Ocean acidification]] 

message: With all respect to the author of this article and those who have helped through the project,I should say you have done something bad and insulted geography science!By the way,the right name for what you have called "Arabian Sea" is "Persian Gulf". Please make it correct.
regards
Ehsan Amozegar  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.176.178.33 (talk) 07:17, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I've removed the offending photo. --Epipelagic (talk) 08:55, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why you insist to change the name of Persian Gulf?! 

message: In the section  Ecology, first paragraph:
"As a side note, one of the more remarkable food chains in the ocean – remarkable because of the small number of links – is that of phytoplankton-feeding krill (a crustacean similar to a tiny shrimp) feeding baleen whales."
This sentence seems a bit awkward. Also: this seems more like a subjective statement.
Bhoya (talk) 21:56, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for working on it.  This may be of interest, to people of all ages. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:10, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  "As a side note ..." 

message: Can someone who knows how to do this please update this dead link? 96.237.28.183 (talk) 20:18, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference 4 is a dead link 

message: I've just removed the assertion "Thus phytoplankton are responsible for much of the oxygen present in the Earth's atmosphere – half of the total amount produced by all plant life", and wanted to briefly expand on my reasoning.  Basically, the source does not (strictly) support this statement.  It says "Phytoplankton produce half of the oxygen generated by plants on Earth", but does not say anything about the source of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere.  For instance, if all of the oxygen produced by oceanic phytoplankton is consumed in short order by oceanic heterotrophs (and there are still uncertainty about whether the oceans are net heterotrophic or autotrophic), then it's arguable that they contribute little to the atmosphere.  Contributions of oxygen to the atmosphere are driven by an imbalance between its production (through photosynthesis) and its consumption (through respiration), where a consistent bias in production over consumption would result in net oxygen accumulation - as well as organic carbon retention.  And as the article on fossil fuel notes, most of the proven reserves are derived from terrestrial plants (in the form of coal), which is suggestive of land plants being more important over the long term than phytoplankton.  All that said, it's not unlikely that my reasoning is wrong here, but before my change is reversed I'd suggest that we need a stronger source than a NASA publicity piece only tangentially related to this point.  Cheers, --PLUMBAGO 10:03, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: This issue is still a problem for the page. The sources used to support the statements in the article are either too flimsy to support the text (e.g. a pop-sci piece makes a passing reference to oxygen) or are rather old academically. If a good case can be made for having this text in here that doesn't overblow the role of phytoplankton for atmospheric oxygen, then dig up the sources and add them. In the meantime, this subsection is getting deleted. —PLUMBAGO 08:05, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Atmospheric oxygen 

message: I think perhaps there should be some sort of division between ocean phytoplankton and freshwater phytoplankton. While they're certainly all important, this article seems to focus on the oceans more than freshwater (there's only one mention of blue-green algae, even). Thus, someone searching for phytoplankton with an involvement in limnology is likely not to find the answers they need. Could someone correct this? Maybe divide the ecology section into two, and add to the freshwater explanation?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sailor7sakura (talk • contribs) 20:34, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps a freshwater section would suffice?  It could explain what the key differences are between marine and freshwater phytoplankton.  But it needs to be done carefully as (IMHO) they have more in common with each other than they have differences.  Anyway, you seem to know what you're talking about, so have a go at writing something.  Cheers, --PLUMBAGO 11:21, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oceanography vs Limnology 

message: Consider adding sub-headers in the "Ecology" section, since it is quite long. This would help readers find the info they want to know! Cold water kid (talk) 19:12, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ecology section 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Has this news article been evaluated for inclusion in the article? --Leitmotiv (talk) 22:39, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  News article on decline 

message: Apparently an open area of inquiry is the potential for warming to turn off phytoplankton's production of oxygen leading to potential anoxia and mass extinction of aerobes (including people).  In  the researcher's own words it isn't firmly established, but this area of inquiry merits neutral balanced inclusion here.   See for example the recent discussion starting at this thread (That's to a version diff, which will probably be archived eventually, so look for the full thread in later versions) NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:40, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Climate change - phytoplankton - potetional deoxygenation of earth's atmosphere 

message: Interesting  new article at NASA's Earth Observatory page:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/151374/coastal-phytoplankton-on-the-rise 
Image of the Day for May 30, 2023
"Blooms of the plant-like organisms near coastal areas have become more frequent in the 21st century."
Multiple possible causes. Interesting  topic with ongoing work. Pete Tillman (talk) 08:02, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Coastal Phytoplankton on the Rise"