Marine fertility: Researchers study how nutrients get to the bottom of the food web
Credit: Public Domain CC0 Almost all marine life—fish, turtles, sharks, whales, and more—depends on marine food webs for survival. However, the foundation of this enormous flow of energy lies on the shoulders of the microscopic but mighty phytoplankton. Without essential nutrients such as phosphorus, the growth of these tiny floating marine plants is limited, and the effects of such restrictions flow through the ecosystem, impacting the abundance and diversity of marine creatures. A team of Florida State University and New Hampshire University researchers have published a new study looking at how one important source of the nutrient, dissolved organic phosphorus, is distributed across the global ocean surface where it is consumed by phytoplankton. The work was published today in Natural Geoscience . All living organisms, including phytoplankton, need phosphorus to synthesize DNA, RNA and other important organic compounds. In addition