Sentences with phrase «marine snow»

They found that after two weeks, toxic marine snow from this algae could sink at rates of over 100 meters per day.

The greater accumulation of marine snow on submarine hills plays an important role in this increase in biomass, which was even found for areas elevated only a few tens of meters above the surrounding plain.

In field and laboratory experiments scientists from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel has shown that dead jellyfish and pelagic tunicates sink much faster than phytoplankton and marine snow remains.

«Our future work will focus on the ways in which smaller organisms that feed on marine snow may be affected by the toxicity, and how that in turn can affect the larger food web.»

The slow trickle of marine snow sinking down from above does not provide nearly enough food to support all the organisms that live down there.

Astrid Schnetzer, associate professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences at NC State, wanted to know how domoic acid gets transported to depth via marine snow after a toxic algal bloom and how long it may persist.

Using data from 1989 to 2012, Smith and his colleagues compared the amount of marine snow arriving at Station M with estimates of populations of microscopic algae observed at the surface using satellites.

They suspended conical «sediment traps» above the seafloor to collect and measure the amount of marine snow falling through the water.

Tiny algae called Marine Snow located under the ice in Antarctica may hold the key to understanding the food chain for a huge part of the ocean.

«Marine snow fuels life on the sea - floor.»

When algae cells run out of nutrients and start to die, they clump together and sink as marine snow.

The NOC's robot - sub, Autosub6000, used seafloor photographs to create the first landscape - scale map of marine snow patches in addition to a map of the abundance of life on the sea - floor (also known as biomass).

In a few weeks, such deep - sea «feasts» can deliver as much food to deep - sea animals as would normally arrive over years or even decades of typical marine snow.

However, marine snow only falls as a light dusting and doesn't have much nutritional value.

In the Porcupine Abyssal Plain, about 350 miles (560 kilometers) southwest of Ireland, Lampitt and his colleagues collected marine snow and the creatures that consume it at different depths.

Smith and his colleagues used several instruments to study the amount of marine snow arriving at Station M, as well as its impacts on life in the deep.

These decaying plants are joined by falling particles of flesh, soot and sand — a constant deluge called marine snow.

Many seafloor animals feed on marine snow — the organic remnants of algae and animals that live in the sunlit surface waters, far above.

These observations of spatial variation in relation to the terrain features are likely driven in part by changes in ocean bottom current speeds produced by the hilly terrain; this causes changes in the settling and drifting of marine snow.

«Marine snow,» Reisenbichler notes, «a mucuslike substance filled with bacteria and fecal pellets.»

Known as «marine snow,» the particles were roughly 80 % slime or mucus — what remains after algae cells die — 15 % living algae, and 5 % fecal pellets from zooplankton which had eaten the algae.

«Toxic «marine snow» can sink quickly, persist at ocean depths.»

«This study confirms that marine snow is a major vector in terms of getting domoic acid to depth,» Schnetzer says.

The algae and its marine snow aggregates can serve as a major food source for other forms of marine life like plankton - eating fish and shellfish.

Dr Kirsty Morris from the NOC, the lead author of the study, said «the autonomy and automation technology we used a llowed us to quantify a much larger area in a much quicker time than would have been possible by hand - measuring and counting each clump of marine snow.»

In a new study, researchers from North Carolina State University found that a specific neurotoxin can persist and accumulate in «marine snow» formed by the algae Pseudo-nitzschia, and that this marine snow can reach significant depths quickly.

City - sized maps of terrain and life on the sea - floor have revealed that drifts of «marine snow» on submarine hillsides act as a source of food to fuel a higher biomass of marine life on the hills than on the flatter plains surrounding hills.

«Recent large toxic blooms off of the California coast and the attendant damage to local shellfish and the shellfish economy underscore the importance of understanding how long the marine snow remains toxic, how deep it can go and how long marine organisms are exposed to the toxin,» Schnetzer says.

Potential links between the distribution of this marine snow, seafloor terrain and ecology have been difficult to resolve.

In a previous study she showed that marine snow can reach depths of several hundred meters within a few days, which contradicted previous theories suggesting that it might dissipate and dissolve long before reaching the ocean floor.

Importantly, the marine snow cover was quantified using machine vision, where a computer algorithm automatically detected the location and coverage in digital images of this important food supply.

Marine snow is a mixture of dead algal plankton, plankton poo and other biological debris that sinks through the ocean from the surface in greenish - white «fluffy» clumps, like snow.

Deploying new sensors that drift with sometimes strong currents (allowing better measurement of marine snow than sensors placed on the ocean floor or tethered to the surface), the team sampled the flora and fauna and measured the amount of falling carbon material captured to assess the role of the ocean as a true carbon sink.

Their main source of food is «marine snow» — a slow drift of mucus, fecal pellets, and body parts — that sinks down from the surface waters.

However, researchers have long been puzzled by the fact that, over the long term, the steady fall of marine snow can not account for all the food consumed by animals and microbes living in the sediment.

But on the other hand, the «marine snow» produced by Oikopleura transports carbon down to the sea floor — and a new carbon dioxide can be processed on the surface.

«We are continuously asked, how much organic carbon and CO2 do gelatinous plankton sink worldwide, whether their export capacities are similar to phytoplankton and marine snow.

«And, what puzzles researchers working on the biological carbon pump: it is higher than that of non-calcifying phytoplankton and marine snow, the main sinking particles and organic carbon sources to the ocean interior».

Old nets are discarded and sink down to the seafloor as «marine snow», clogged with the leftovers from the phytoplankton feast.

While the opening pages on photosynthesis and food chains attempt to cover too much too quickly, the longer sections on phytoplankton and marine snow are quite successful, helping children understand and visualize vital processes taking place, unseen, within the oceans.

Carbon arrives in the twilight zone via this marine snow.

When the plants die, they sink as so - called «marine snow» to the deep ocean where the carbon is stored and prevented from re-entering the atmosphere.

Animals and bacteria in the twilight zone often consume and further decompose the sinking marine snow, converting the carbon into dissolved organic and inorganic forms that can find their way back to the surface and then the atmosphere.