Tag Archives: Arctic marine ecosystem

Aggregates

During the green edge 2016 experiment, at the beginning of June, we observed an aggregate event :  A morning the hole used for water column sampling was full of millions of large organic particles : aggregates. The same situation repeats every day during a full week before disappearing completely.

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Sunlight energy: both vital and corrosive for microscopic algae

Microscopic algae known as phytoplankton are photoautotrophic organisms. That is to say that like higher plants, they use minerals (C02, P, N …) and energy from the sun to grow and multiply. As the base of the marine food chain, they are also the base of organic matter production and the sequestration of atmospheric C02. Because of this, understanding the processes controlling their biomass and degradation is a major challenge for scientists.

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