Peeking into the #Ocean’s Microscopic Baby Boom
https://hakaimagazine.com/videos-visuals/peeking-into-the-oceans-microscopic-baby-boom/

"The rapid increase of #phytoplankton marks the biological spring in the ocean—#zooplankton proliferate with the sudden flush of food... While many #animals spend only a brief time in the soup before they settle to the #seafloor or become more mobile, some species live out the rest of their lives as #plankton... It’s astonishing how alien the larval forms of common #SeaCreatures can seem"

Weekend #Plankton #Factoid
A new paper on #mixotrophs. These protists are both plants or animals. Some algae, often #dinoflagellates, can consume other organisms in addition to being able to photosynthesize. They switch as needed, and during the recent heat-waves driven by #ClimateChange, they become dominant. The fate of this production isn't well known because some species are often not preferred for grazing #zooplankton because of toxicity or armoured cell walls.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/neither-plants-nor-animals-these-ocean-organisms-protect-their-ecosystems/

Press release at @eLife of our paper exploring the mechanism of pressure sensing by UV light sensors in #Platynereis larvae

https://elifesciences.org/for-the-press/5f58b93c/plankton-use-uv-light-sensors-to-detect-pressure-change-and-avoid-getting-swept-away

Luis Alberto Bezares Calderón et al. paper here:
https://elifesciences.org/reviewed-preprints/94306

#neuroscience #cilia #zooplankton #science @biology

Zooplankton in ocean and freshwater are rapidly escalating the global environmental threat of plastics #ocean #environment #zooplankton #plastic https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/11/231109121429.htm