Faglige nøgleord: Climate change, plankton, ocean
Oplæg tilgængeligt på: Engelsk
We will dive into the ocean to meet our tiny heroes, planktonic organisms; discover many astonishing facts about their life, understand how the entire life on Earth relies on them and relate them to the ongoing climate change.
Would you believe me if I told you that a group of tiny marine organisms, which you cannot even see with bare eyes, has the power to support the entire life in the ocean? And not only this, every second breath of oxygen we take is produced by some of these little heroes through one of their “superpowers”, photosynthesis. Plankton are microscopic organisms that float in the ocean consisting of phytoplankton (plant – like organisms) and zooplankton (the smallest animals on Earth).
In this lecture, we will first see how beautiful and morphologically diverge these organisms are and understand why they are the basis of life in the ocean. In the second part, we will focus on the ongoing climate change, by explaining the greenhouse concept and how these planktonic organisms help us mitigate its effects by storing carbon in the deep ocean.