{"id":2262,"date":"2026-11-05T15:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T15:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/11\/05\/imagine-newsletter-the-power-of-plankton\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T15:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T15:54:10","slug":"imagine-newsletter-the-power-of-plankton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/11\/05\/imagine-newsletter-the-power-of-plankton\/","title":{"rendered":"Imagine newsletter: the power of plankton"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/span> KyivCityUa\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This roundup of The Conversation\u2019s environment coverage was first published in our award-winning weekly climate action newsletter, Imagine.<\/em><\/p>\n

In a world without plankton, I wouldn\u2019t get stung by jellyfish when swimming in the sea. But my friend\u2019s fish and chip shop would go bust. There\u2019d be big climate implications too.<\/p>\n

Plankton, meaning \u201cdrifter\u201d in Greek, encompasses all the viruses, bacteria, insects, larval fish and jellyfish that don\u2019t actively swim. Instead, they drift in oceans, rivers and lakes, at the whim of currents and tides. Many are microscopic; some, like barrel jellyfish, are huge.<\/p>\n

I recently explored the planet\u2019s reliance on plankton in a new episode of BBC Radio 4\u2019s Life Without series with TV presenter and comedian Alan Davies. Listen to this thought experiment here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Don\u2019t have time to read about climate change as much as you\u2019d like?<\/em><\/strong>
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Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead.<\/a> Every Wednesday, The Conversation\u2019s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 50,000+ readers who\u2019ve subscribed so far.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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First, a quick food web refresher. Algal plankton or phytoplankton are single-celled organisms that photosynthesise to produce oxygen and capture carbon dioxide. These form the base of the marine food web. Next up, it\u2019s zooplankton, tiny marine animals that feed on phytoplankton. Without zooplankton like copepods (a microscopic crustacean), young fish, basking sharks and blue whales wouldn\u2019t have anything to eat. When those animals die and sink, so too does the carbon captured during photosynthesis, so phytoplankton are an essential climate variable<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Climate canaries<\/h2>\n

Climate change increases the frequency of marine heatwaves and the distribution of some plankton is already shifting towards the poles where ocean temperatures are cooler. By looking at the fossil record of plankton, researchers have found that some plankton are now less able to adapt to climate change<\/strong><\/a> than they were in the past.<\/p>\n

Geological warming around the last ice age 21,000 years ago was relatively gradual. A study by paleobiologists at the University of Bristol found that \u201ccurrent climate change is too rapid and is reducing food supply \u2026 making plankton difficult to adapt to this time\u201d.<\/p>\n

Plankton postcodes<\/h2>\n

Depending on their location, phytoplankton\u2019s chemical fingerprint varies. So much so, that crime scene investigators can diagnose drowning in a specific location depending on the presence of certain microscopic plankton<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n \"shark<\/a>
\n Sharks in the open ocean, such as mako sharks, get most of their food from specific plankton postcodes.<\/span>
\n Subphoto.com\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This \u201cpostcode\u201d also gets transferred to other animals as they feed on these ocean drifters. Plankton postcodes have helped a global team of marine biologists map the feeding habits of 114 different species of sharks<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Christopher Bird and Clive Trueman at the University of Southampton found that sharks living in coastal waters, such as the great white or reef sharks, had been feeding close to where they were caught. Sharks in the open ocean, such as mako sharks, appeared to get most of their food from a specific plankton postcode, no matter where in the world they were caught. And knowing where sharks feed helps protect them.<\/p>\n

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\n Read more:
\n How plankton help control clouds over the world\u2019s most remote oceans<\/a>
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\n <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

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Cloud control<\/h2>\n

Plankton help control the formation of clouds<\/strong><\/a> over remote seas in the Southern Ocean far from land.<\/p>\n

\u201cClouds are made up of many tiny droplets of water that have condensed from water vapour onto microscopic particles floating in the Earth\u2019s atmosphere. These particles are known as cloud condensation nuclei. Plankton essentially help provide clouds with these nuclei to form around,\u201d says Daniel Grosvenor, a researcher at the University of Leeds.<\/p>\n

His team found that more cloud droplets tended to occur above patches of the ocean with more plankton. Plankton could influence cloud albedo (the amount of energy from the Sun that\u2019s reflected back to space). Grosvenor\u2019s study also suggests that, in a lifeless ocean without phytoplankton, the Southern Ocean\u2019s surface would probably be \u201csomewhat warmer\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KyivCityUa\/Shutterstock This roundup of The Conversation\u2019s environment coverage was first published in our award-winning weekly climate action newsletter, Imagine. In a world without plankton, I wouldn\u2019t get stung by jellyfish when swimming in the sea. But my friend\u2019s fish and chip shop would go bust. There\u2019d be big climate implications too. Plankton, meaning \u201cdrifter\u201d in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2262\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}