Name of plankton: Oceanic bacterioplankton

Where sample was found: Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study site, oil amendment experiment

Project: Microbial Observatory

Photo credit: Rachel Parsons, BIOS

What role do these organisms play in the ecosystem: Some bacterioplankton can degrade oil and use it as fuel. These bacterioplankton were found in surface waters at BATS and grew when crude oil was added to the experiment. This shows that the surface ocean at BATS has background numbers of bacteria such as ethane-consuming Colwellia, aromatic-eating Cycloclasticus, alkane-eating Oceanospirillales, oil-eating Alcanovorax, methane-loving Methylococcaceae.

Interesting facts: The bacterioplankton in this image are clustering around an oil droplet.

Name of plankton: Oceanic virioplankton

Where sample was found: Chesapeake Bay, surface water

Project: Microbial Observatory

Photo credit: Rachel Parsons, BIOS

What role do these organisms play in the ecosystem: Oceanic virioplankton encompass enormous genetic diversity, affect biogeochemical cycling of elements, and partially control aspects of prokaryotic production and diversity.

Interesting facts: Virus densities were 32,000,000,000 cells per milliliter of seawater in Chesapeake Bay. This is ten times the number seen in surface seawater at BATS.

Name of plankton: Chaetoceros

Where sample was found: Harrington Sound, Bermuda

Project: Scallop Project

Photo credit: Andrew Cogswell, BIOS

What role do these organisms play in the ecosystem: Chaetoceros is an abundant centric diatom found in the marine environment. It is an important phytoplankton capable of fixing carbon.

Interesting facts: Because of high growth rates and contain high concentrations of lipids, Chaetoceros has been used as a potential alga to harvest lipids for biofuels.