Plankton abundance and diversity

in #steemit6 years ago

Greetings beloved steemit community, as many know on the platform uses certain "qualifiers" to describe the range we have within the blockchain steem, these are the famous adjectives plankton, minnow, dolphin, orca, others that I lose of sight, until reaching the last ladder known as a whale, but in reality, what does plankton mean?, the name of my status in steemit, I in particular little wise of this creature and that is why I will talk a little bit about of the.


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Plankton


This name comes from the Greek errante and serves to designate a tiny mass of living beings that generally inhabit in suspension in the waters, both sweet and the sea, the reason is that most of the organisms that constitute the plankton although they are trained to swim and they do it very quickly, because of their tiny size they are dragged by the current and there is little they can do to go towards a certain point. The plankton is collected, for its microscopic study, by conical networks of fine silk that crawl through the water.


Habitat

In general, the plankton inhabits almost always in the upper layers of waters, since animal organisms such as zooplankton depend on plant organisms as phyto plankton for their food, and these only develop where the sunlight reaches them. In this way, unicellular natural plant microscopes are the kiss of all marine food, these tiny plants use the salts of the sea to produce food under the action of photosynthesis, and multiply at a very rapid rate, by simple cell division, increasing its number when there is an abundance of sunlight and nutrients. The proliferation of plankton is so considerable that it gives a special coloration to large areas of the sea.

The need for sunlight plankton generally prevents it from developing beyond nine meters deep, the larger animals that make up the plankton usually migrate to the surface at night and return to the deep water at dawn.


Clasificación


Among the numerous classes of phytoplankton that exist, two types are the most important:

  • Diatoms are enclosed in a shell made of silica and, as this substance reaches the sea through the fusion of snow and ice mainly, diatoms abound, especially in the cold areas of the oceans. The silica of its cover makes the weight of the diatoms superior to that of water, so that many of these organisms have filaments of regular length that slow the rate of sinking. There are also those that contain a small amount of oil inside, in order to also stay close to the surface to take advantage of sunlight. Unlike most vegetables, diatoms do not make starches, but their food reserves are made up of fats. The shells of the diatoms accumulate in some sea beds and form layers of considerable thickness.
  • The dinoflagellates make up the remaining group of phytoplankton and are also microscopic organisms. They have cellulose-coated cells and usually have two flagella, one extended forward and the other wrapped around the cell. These flagella are used by the microorganism to swim. Because some dinoflagellates absorb food, in the same way that animals do.

The plant plankton is also formed by a certain type of algae, some unicellular and others filamentous, like certain species of green algae. Anabena, for example, is a cyanophycean algae that has the property of converting nitrogen gas into nitrate, fulfilling the same function in the sea as do bacteria on land fixing nitrogen, on the other hand also performs photosynthesis thus releasing oxygen to the atmosphere and reducing the carbon dioxide in the same, to extinguish all the carbon accumulated in their skeletons, represents a reserve of energy of this element that agglomerates on the seabed.

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In the sea there are also many types of zooplankton that are mostly tiny in size: tiny crustaceans, like the copepods , small jellyfish, wandering annelids and some salps.

It includes some aquatic animals that float freely only during a part of their life, and those that are designated with the name of temporary plankton such as larvae of crabs. lobsters, mollusks, starfish and ofiuros, and even the large fish, such as tuna and swordfish. The organisms of zooplankton are generally very sensitive to the action of light and, as they have the ability to swim, they are located in the depths that are most convenient for them in relation to sunlight.


Plankton as food


It is one of the forms of life that abounds most in the sea, and it is the food of most of the marine fauna, which makes them the base of the food chain of the ocean, large animals can only feed on plankton when they are endowed with beards in the mouth, which fulfills the function of filters, as happens with the largest animal that exists: the blue whale. Other animals that are grouped in shoal or that inhabit the bottom of the waters also feed on plankton, capturing it by means of tentacles or other diverse organs.

Due to the extraordinary abundance of this specimen, there is a belief that, in the future, humanity will be able to feed on these organisms once effective methods for their capture have been perfected. Currently it is proven that phytoplankton is an excellent food for its properties and one of them is the silica coating that has its cells, which facilitates the absorption by our body of the nutrients that form it as carbohydrates and proteins, in addition to its easy and beneficial assimilation process, provides a great contribution of electrolytic which helps to regulate the levels PH maintaining a good state of our cells and their functioning.

Some benefits of phytoplankton as food is the purification of our organism, for example diatoms plays a very important role in these processes, it works like a microfilter that prevents the accumulation of toxins in the blood and tissues, thus discarding the impurities and dangerous substances for our body. Some have even noticed the increase in lymphocytes, which undoubtedly strengthens our immune system, some of the constituents of the plant as minerals, amino acids. omega can avoid critical processes such as degeneration, inflammation, cellular oxidation among others.

In conclusion the plankton is not only essential for the animals that inhabit the ocean, either on the surface or in the depth, but also serves as a food and chemical regulator of the entire aquatic world, coming to provide benefits beyond its habitat by releasing oxygen into the atmosphere and transforming it into a carbon reserve that lies at the bottom of the ocean. Thanks to its nutritional power, a future may be one of our main sources of proteins, so its existence is vital for us.

plankton life biology steemit blog

Sincerely @eli1107


Bibliographic references:

  1. http://esmateria.com/2013/07/29/el-primer-atlas-mundial-del-plancton-oceanico-ayudara-a-mejorar-las-predicciones-climaticas/

  2. http://www.umaclife.com/pdfs/Alpha-3-phytoplankton.pdf

  3. https://www.vitonica.com/alimentos-funcionales/todo-sobre-el-plancton-propiedades-beneficios-y-su-uso-en-la-cocina

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