Specialized proteomic responses and an ancient photoprotection mechanism sustain marine green algal growth during phosphate limitation.

Marine algae perform approximately half of global carbon fixation, but their growth is often limited by the availability of phosphate or other nutrients. As oceans warm, the area of phosphate-limited surface waters is predicted to increase, resulting in ocean desertification. Understanding the responses of key eukaryotic phytoplankton to nutrient limitation is therefore critical.

Deep-Sea DuraFET: A Pressure Tolerant pH Sensor Designed for Global Sensor Networks.

Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide is driving a long-term decrease in ocean pH which is superimposed on daily to seasonal variability. These changes impact ecosystem processes, and they serve as a record of ecosystem metabolism. However, the temporal variability in pH is observed at only a few locations in the ocean because a ship is required to support pH observations of sufficient precision and accuracy.

Abundance and Biogeography of Picoprasinophyte Ecotypes and Other Phytoplankton in the Eastern North Pacific Ocean.

Eukaryotic algae within the picoplankton size class (≤2 μm in diameter) are important marine primary producers, but their spatial and ecological distributions are not well characterized. Here, we studied three picoeukaryotic prasinophyte genera and their cyanobacterial counterparts, Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus, during two cruises along a North Pacific transect characterized by different ecological regimes. Picoeukaryotes and Synechococcus reached maximum abundances of 1.