Tag: phytoplankton

Scientists Unlock Secrets of the Great Australian Bight

The largest specimens of nano-phytoplankton barely equal the width of the finest strand of human hair, while impossibly small pico-phytoplankton is 10-100 times tinier again. Although virtually invisible, the two self-feeding microscopic organisms represent the beginning of the food chain for the entirety of Earth’s aquatic mammal population including that which thrives in Australia’s prime…


Australia’s Black Summer Bushfires Created an Algae Bloom Larger Than the Country

Australia’s devastating Black Summer bushfire season gave life to a bloom of phytoplankton larger than the size of Australia in the Southern Ocean, a study has found. An international team of authors found the bloom, that took place between New Zealand and South America, was unlike anything measured before in the area. The research published…