Shellfish, such as clams, mussels, and oysters, feed on marine plankton. At least one species of dinoflagellate, Gonyaulax catenella Whedon and Kofoid, has been shown by Sommer and coworkers (1) to be a source of the poison found in the California mussel, Mytdus californianus Conrad. The present investigation was carried out to determine the feasibility of collecting the plankton and extracting...

The effect and fate of dry atmospheric deposition on nutrient-starved plankton in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea (EMS; Crete, 2012) was tested by spiking oligotrophic surface seawater mesocosms (3 m3) with Saharan dust (SD; 1.6 g L−1; 23 nmol NOxmg −1; 2.4 nmol PO4mg −1) or mixed aerosols (A; 1.0 g L−1; 54 nmol NOxmg −1; 3.0 nmol PO4mg −1) collected from natural and anthropogenic sources. Using ...

Stream and lake ecosystems in agricultural watersheds are exposed to fungicide inputs that can threaten the structure and functioning of aquatic microbial communities. This research analyzes the impact of the triazole fungicide tebuconazole (TBZ) on natural biofilm and plankton microbial communities from sites presenting different degrees of agricultural contamination. Biofilm and plankton comm...

[1] Mid-Cretaceous (Barremian-Turonian) plankton preserved in deep-sea marl, organic-rich shale, and pelagic carbonate hold an important record of how the marine biosphere responded to shortand long-term changes in the ocean-climate system. Oceanic anoxic events (OAEs) were short-lived episodes of organic carbon burial that are distinguished by their widespread distribution as discrete beds of ...

We present a system to recognize underwater plankton images from the Shadow Image Particle Profiling Evaluation Recorder. As some images do not have clear contours, we develop several features that do not heavily depend on the contour information. A soft margin support vector machine (SVM) was used as the classifier. We developed a new way to assign probability after multi-class SVM classificat...

The ocean dominates the surface of our planet and plays a major role in regulating the biosphere. For example, the microscopic photosynthetic organisms living within provide 50% of the oxygen we breathe, and much of our food and mineral resources are extracted from the ocean. In a time of ecological crisis and major changes in our society, it is essential to turn our attention towards the sea t...