Phytoplankton: Arguably the Most Important Life on Earth

Thank you to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for partnering with us on this episode of SciShow. Visit https://www.montereybayaquarium.org or if you are in the area, swing on by to learn more about the beauty and wonder of the ocean. There are incredible creatures living in the ocean that have the power to reshape the planet’s atmosphere - and you’ve probably never even seen them before. These microscopic critters are called phytoplankton, and almost all life, both on land and in the ocean, depends on them. Hosted by: Hank Green SciShow has a spinoff podcast! It's called SciShow Tangents. Check it out at http://www.scishowtangents.org ---------- Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scishow ---------- Huge thanks go to the following Patreon supporters for helping us keep SciShow free for everyone forever: Kevin Carpentier, Eric Jensen, Matt Curls, Sam Buck, Christopher R Boucher, Avi Yashchin, Adam Brainard, Greg, Alex Hackman, Sam Lutfi, D.A. Noe, Piya Shedden, KatieMarie Magnone, Scott Satovsky Jr, Charles Southerland, Patrick D. Ashmore, charles george, Kevin Bealer, Chris Peters ---------- Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet? Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/scishow Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/scishow Tumblr: http://scishow.tumblr.com Instagram: http://instagram.com/thescishow Follow Monterey Bay Aquarium! Twitter: @MontereyAq Facebook: @montereybayaquarium Instagram: @montereybayaquarium Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/MontereyBayAquarium Tumblr: @montereybayaquarium ---------- Sources: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/phyto.html https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0891584918316897?via%3Dihub https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933680/ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0392-9 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/6/e1500157 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1617144/ https://www.jstor.org/stable/1542527?seq=1 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025322705000575 https://www.britannica.com/science/Phanerozoic-Eon https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC30111/ https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/protista/dinoflagellata.html http://docsdrive.com/pdfs/academicjournals/ecologia/2011/23-30.pdf https://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/G102/lectures/102proterozoic.html https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/7/e1501822 https://www.britannica.com/science/biogenic-ooze Image Sources: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Diatoms_through_the_microscope.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phytoplankton_-_the_foundation_of_the_oceanic_food_chain.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cwall99_lg.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cyclococcolithus-leptoporus_hg.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Diatom2.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ceratium_hirundinella.jpg?uselang=es https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:White_Cliffs_of_Dover_02.JPG https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gephyrocapsa_oceanica_color.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Algal_bloom(akasio)_by_Noctiluca_in_Nagasaki.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_Tide-_Noctiluca.jpeg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kayaking_in_the_Bioluminescent_Bay_Vieques.webm https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dinoflagellate_bioluminescence_2.jpg https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010900/a010907/ https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13021 https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/satellites-on-toxic-algae-patrol/ https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13192 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ziemia_okrzemkowa.JPG https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CSIRO_ScienceImage_8289_SEM_diatom.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Diatom_algae_Amphora_sp.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CSIRO_ScienceImage_7632_SEM_diatom.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gephyrocapsa_oceanica.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oxyrrhis_marina.jpg