Giant plankton gains long-due attention
Friday, April 22, 2016 - 07:00
in Earth & Climate
A team of marine biologists and oceanographers from CNRS, UPMC and the German organization GEOMAR have revealed the importance in all the world's oceans of a group of large planktonic organisms called Rhizaria, which had previously been completely underestimated. According to their findings, these organisms make up 33% of the total abundance of large zooplankton in the world's oceans, and account for 5% of the overall marine biomass. The study was carried out on samples collected during eleven oceanographic campaigns (2008-2013) covering the world's main oceanic regions, and included the Tara Oceans expedition. It is published on 20 April 2016 on the website of the journal Nature.