Click above to view a silent movie of different phytoplankton. Images by Elisa Malinverno and Angelicque White.
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Phytoplankton Differences
Phytoplankton are organisms which use the energy of the sun and nutrients dissolved in seawater to live and grow. They come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors: (1) small, calcite shelled organisms termed coccolithophores (2) large colonial cyanobacteria and (3) medium-sized, silica shelled diatoms inside which filamentous cyanobacteria live. Remote sensing of phytoplankton in the ocean takes advantages of these differences to detect the presence of these organisms in our global ocean.
- feature story by Angelicque E. White, PhD |
