| <p>Scientists discovered a huge bloom of phytoplankton—photosynthetic cells at the base of the ocean's food web—during a 2011 research cruise to the polar Bering and Chuckchi Seas. The bloom was happening in waters beneath meter-thick ice, even though scientists previously thought that the ice would block too much sunlight for large-scale photosynthesis. WHOI biologist Sam Laney, using an automated microscope imaging system called the Imaging FlowCytobot, gathered these images of several kinds of phytoplankton in the bloom.</p> |
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Tiny round cells of the alga Phaeocystis are only a few micrometers in diameter, but they form large colonies of hundreds of individual cells held together with a gel-like substance. Here, in a rare view, are single cells, doublets, and the beginnings of colony formation. Colony-forming cells are getting a start by attaching to two cells of a larger algae species, Thalassiosira.
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