Solving the San Francisco plankton mystery

Not Exactly Rocket Science
By Ed Yong
Jan 30, 2010 11:00 PMNov 5, 2019 12:11 AM

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This article is reposted from the old Wordpress incarnation of Not Exactly Rocket Science.

Look into the oceans past the sharks, seals and fish and you will find the tiny phytoplankton. These small organisms form the basis of life in the seas but if their populations get to big, they can also choke the life from it by forming large and suffocating algal blooms.

The waters of San Francisco Bay have never had big problems with these blooms and if anything, scientists worried that the waters didn't have enough phytoplankton. All that changed in 1999, when the phytoplankton population started growing. It has doubled in size since.

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