Dagboek

Participants

 

R/V Pelagia Cruise STRATIPHYT
	Diary overview
Wednesday, 5 August	‘All dressed up’…
Today turned out to be a typical day of work at sea, despite the constant threat of strong winds. This morning we woke to a wind force of 9, which threatened to prevent the morning's second CTD, the water of which is crucial for my project's experiments.  However, to our pleasant surprise, the winds stayed in our favor and continued to fade throughout the day, allowing us to complete all the required sampling.
So, what exactly are we doing way out here in the middle of the ocean? And what are we sampling for? Well, my project focuses on describing the different loss factors (i.e. death) of phytoplankton in the ocean. Wat zeg je? My team (Tea, Douwe, and Jan) and I are working to determine the different ways in which phytoplankton die and what is the relative importance of each.  Waarom?  Well, if you are really interested you can read the next paragraph, otherwise, skip to the following one.   Phytoplankton are freely floating single-celled photosynthetic organisms, in other words, they are single-celled plants of the ocean. These organisms are important as they form the base of the food web for the majority of the world's ocean, capturing the energy of the sun and transferring it to larger and larger organisms via trophic transfers (i.e. smaller organisms eating bigger ones). The manner in which phytoplankton die is important, because it determines how the energy, which originates from the sun, is transferred to the rest of life in the ocean. For example, if a phytoplankton are eaten by grazers (i.e. plant eaters), such as a copepod, the copepod can then eaten by a larger animal and so on and so forth, until you reach the top of the food chain occupied by the largest organisms, such as whales and sharks. However, if a phytoplankton cell is alternatively killed by a virus, the energy and nutrients within the phytoplankton is released and is free to be used by bacteria and remaining phytoplankton, which can then in turn eaten by smaller organisms. In this way, the energy is recycled in the surface waters within the microbial loop instead of being transferred through the food web. The best synopsis of this relationship was given by someone who stated "how phytoplankton die determines how other organisms may live."   I would like to say that I am very lucky to have such a great and hardworking team. Although, others comment often on how hard and long we all work. We have lots of fun and laughs in the process. We listen to music all day and dance to maintain our body temperatures in the 12°C container, which is quite interesting in our "suits". If you keep up with day messages, then you have already seen photo's of these so called "suits." Needless to say, we have been regarded fondly by several crew members, while wearing our "suits", as members of the Teletubbies. Kristina Mojica