I for one would like to welcome our new plankton overlords
Posted 31 weeks 6 hours ago byThere's an upside to climate change for somebody:
Now, though, a new laboratory study has shown that some types of plankton thrive in water with a low pH created by greatly raising concentrations of carbon dioxide. The plankton that demonstrated this unexpected ability are certain coccolithopores, single-celled plants that are sheathed in Frisbee-like plates rich in calcium. They are a cornerstone of ocean ecosystems and play a significant role, as they die and sink, in taking carbon out of circulation and locking it away in rock.
It's time to stop tracking Big Oil's campaign contributions and start focusing on Big Plankton. I hear the president's already in their ... um, what do plankton have instead of pockets?
Thoughts
Plankton Overload
Submitted on April 25th, 2008 by BigAlKeep in mind that almost nothing is simple with ecosystems. "Too much of a good thing" often has unwelcome consequences due to upsetting the balance. In the case of plankton, a recent documentary on PBS is enlightening. There is a growing problem of hydrogen sulfide and methane emissions from ocean sediments off the coast of Namibia (SW Africa), apparently due to plankton blooms since overfishing decimated their anchovy populations. Plankton not eaten sinks to the bottom, increasing organic loading in the sediment, and the anaerobic bacteria have a field day. H2S kills sealife and methane is a powerful greenhouse gas...
(Similarly, increased CO2 levels have been found to STUNT the growth of certain plants, rather than stimulating their growth. Things have evolved within relatively narrow ranges of environmental parameters (like CO2, pH, nutrients, etc.) for millions of years, and now we're pushing those envelopes.)