A simple single-celled marine organism, known as a diatom, has an enormous impact on our atmosphere and oceans, and without these chlorophyll- producing organisms classified as phytoplankton, life as ...

Microscopic ocean algae produce a huge share of Earth’s oxygen—but they need iron to do it. New field research shows that when iron is scarce, phytoplankton waste energy and photosynthesis falters.

If you know what diatoms are, it’s probably for their beauty. These single-celled algae found on the ocean floor have ornate glassy shells that shine like jewels under the microscope. Their pristine ...

Epizoic diatoms, microscopic algae that inhabit the surfaces of living hosts, have emerged as a focal point in studies of host–microbe interactions in marine reptiles, particularly sea turtles. These ...

Each year, vast blooms of phytoplankton spread across the Southern Ocean, drawing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and ...

A group of diatom species belonging to the Nitzschia genus, gave up on photosynthesis and now get their carbon straight from their environment, thanks to a bacterial gene picked up by an ancestor, ...

Companies around the world are racing to patent the genetic building blocks of plankton – microscopic ocean life that ...

Large phytoplankton blooms north of the Hawaiian Islands have been seen in satellite imagery as vast swirls of color nearly every summer, but their origin and ecosystem dynamics have remained ...