Plankton, Base of Ocean Food Web, in Big Decline. By Seth Borenstein, AP, July 28. 2010. "Despite their tiny size, plant plankton found in the world's oceans are crucial to much of life on Earth. They are the foundation of the bountiful marine food web, produce half the world's oxygen and suck up harmful carbon dioxide. And they are declining sharply. Worldwide phytoplankton levels are down 40% since the 1950s, according to a study published July 28 in the journal Nature. The likely cause is global warming, which makes it hard for the plant plankton to get vital nutrients, researchers say. The numbers are both staggering and disturbing, say the Canadian scientists who did the study and a top U.S. government scientist. 'It's concerning because phytoplankton is the basic currency for everything going on in the ocean,' said Dalhousie University biology professor Boris Worm, a study co-author...
"Half a million datapoints dating to 1899 show that plant plankton levels in nearly all of the world's oceans started to drop in the 1950s. The biggest changes are in the Arctic, southern and equatorial Atlantic and equatorial Pacific oceans. Only the Indian Ocean is not showing a decline... Virginia Burkett, the chief climate change scientist for U.S. Geological Survey, said the plankton numbers are worrisome and show problems that can't be seen just by watching bigger more charismatic species like dolphins or whales. 'These tiny species are indicating that large-scale changes in the ocean are affecting the primary productivity of the planet,' said Burkett, who wasn't involved in the study."
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