WEBVTT FILE

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One phytoplankton cannot

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do too much, but so many of them
actually control everything that we have:

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our food, our air that we breathe and our climate.

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They're so powerful.

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Phyto Phyters!
[rock music throughout]

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Microscopic warriors
fighting for the sea.

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These tiny titans, the Phyto
Phyters are out to do battle on the seas.

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The evil Alexandrium
was up to his old schemes.

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My saxitoxins will poison
your precious shellfish.

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You're no match for Dinophysis!

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Dinophysis steals pigments from the Phyto Phyters,

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but Protoperidinium lights up the battle
with its bioluminescence.

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Who will reign marine supreme?

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Go, Emiliania!

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Only the Phyto Phyters
will decide the true fate of the seas.

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Each sold separately.

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They're just insanely important.

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I mean, there's many things
that are important,

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but these are insanely important.

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Plankton generally doesn't really

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mean like a taxonomic group of things.

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We think about mammals and then plants.

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Plankton are not that.

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Plankton are really defined by the way they live.

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Plankton means the wanderer in Greek.

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And these are just oceanic organisms
that really just don't swim that fast.

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They can’t fight the ocean currents.

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It's a really nontraditional way
of thinking about biology, in a sense.

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Plankton, we can define

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traditionally,

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in zooplankton, so something that is kind of more animal-like

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and phytoplankton, something that is more plant-like.

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All phytoplankton does a process
we call photosynthesis.

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They take carbon dioxide and carbon
in an organic form,

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capture some of the sunlight
and then produce

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our carbohydrates
or just simply said, sugars.

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They now are carrying that Sun energy
and push it into

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the food system of the ocean.

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And while they're doing all that stuff,
they also produce the oxygen.

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So opposite from us,
we inhale oxygen, exhale carbon dioxide.

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So that's why they're really important.
That's why we love them so much.

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And that's why they're like really crucial
for the whole life on the Earth.

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Phytoplankton itself,
its diversity is gigantic.

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I think there's like 10,000 species,
and each of them has a specific role.

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Why is there so much diversity in
something that is so teeny tiny?

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It's fantasy, science
fiction, and horror comes together.

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I mean, it's just so beautiful.

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But there are certain type
of phytoplankton, called coccolithophores,

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and specifically the most famous one
is Emiliania huxleyi.

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But they take this inorganic carbon
to make that something like

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like a shell, in which they live in.

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They’re calcium carbonate which they make,

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which is pretty much chalk.

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They make it in a shape
of these hubcaps.

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And if you think about how teeny tiny
they are,

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they're like, you know, I don't know.

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I can put probably like 30 or 40
or 50 of them in the width of my hair.

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When they bloom, once they die,

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not only they take that normal
like sugar carbon that they produce,

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but they also take the calcium carbonate,

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that inorganic, that chalky material
down to the bottom of the ocean.

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So they're really, really good for exporting carbon,

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removing it from this contact with the atmosphere,

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which is really important when it comes
to the flow of carbon in the whole Earth

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ecosystem, but also control of
the carbon in the atmosphere.

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So Alexandrium is a very specific type
of phytoplankton.

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It's called a dinoflagellate.

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So it's kind of like

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maybe plant, maybe zooplankton,
maybe this animal, maybe can be both, no?

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But one thing that it does, it makes this
very, very, very, very powerful toxin.

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They’re causing problems in the Gulf of Maine.

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Alexandrium, you don't have to have a lot.

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Actually really low numbers of Alexandrium
can be present and produce

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really detrimental effect on humanity

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that feeds on this shellfish.

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So the changes of the color of the ocean

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due to the presence of this phytoplankton
are just so miniature, no?

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We cannot see it with our eyes,

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but if we have sensitive instruments,
such as the Ocean Color Instrument on PACE,

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we're going to be able to differentiate
not only because it's sensitive

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to the intensity,
but it's also sensitive to the colors.

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Having this hyperspectral view with really high sensitivity

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is going to allow me to differentiate

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much, much more of the phytoplankton,

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because each of them--or at least each group--has its own optical patterns.

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It's an optical fingerprint.

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We're hoping that

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PACE, due to its capabilities, is going to be able

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to really focus
on specific species of interest,

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such as the harmful algal bloom species

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or species that are very beneficial
for the growth of certain organisms.

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So the speciation is

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a function of the technical abilities
that PACE has, but it's also

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it's a function of our capabilities
to understand the local ecosystem.

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[music]