Plankton Portal Talk

Request

  • zsil by zsil

    Could someone make a guide on average range that the individual plankton's can habituate and what their size ranges are?

    Posted

  • yshish by yshish moderator, translator in response to zsil's comment.

    Hey, I'm not sure what exactly you meant by that.. but.. isn't it included in the Field Guide already?

    The size is represented by those yellow circles.. the locations by the yellow pin marks.

    Posted

  • zsil by zsil

    I meant how deep or close to the surface they can be found and what the size is in mm.

    Posted

  • yshish by yshish moderator, translator in response to zsil's comment.

    I'm sure some of the scientists has replied a similar question already but I can't find it:] ..In general, the closer to the surface you are, the more creatures you see. We're not deeper than about 140 m, so we are in the epipelagic, photic/sunlight zone. The tiniest organisms usually appears closer to the surface, the bigger ones go deeper. But you can see them even in the low depth water 😃

    I'll ask @jo.irisson to look at your question 😃

    Posted

  • jo.irisson by jo.irisson translator, scientist

    The field guide provide clues regarding the relative size of the organisms but your comment makes me realise it does to have a scale, to convert the size on screen to mm! That's the first thing you learn in science class: all drawings and pictures should have a scale. I am stunned we did not notice this before.

    Anyhow, with of the image that you see on plankton portal is about 5 cm in real life (for the Med) and about 6 cm (for the California current). So most organisms are pretty small!

    Regarding depth, most organism can be found at all depths. You should not rely on depth as an identification criterion, especially because most plankton migrates vertically between day and night (so depth without the time can actually be misleading). That said, some specific organisms / features are often found at specific depths. For example, accumulations of doliolids and ephyrae usually occur near the surface. But those patterns are actually what we want to explore with the data generated by PlanktonPortal, so, for most of it, we don't know yet!

    Posted