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BREADCRUMB

 1. Home
 2. Ocean Life
 3. Plankton
 4. http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/plankton/every-breath-you-take-thank-ocean
    With Every Breath You Take, Thank the Ocean




WITH EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE, THANK THE OCEAN

Kelps are large, brown algae that grow along coasts around the world, especially
in cooler regions. (George Cathcart)

by Kalila Morsink

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When was the last time you thought about your breathing? Take a breath right now
and think about it. You breathe because you need oxygen, a gas which makes up 21
percent of the Earth’s atmosphere. All that oxygen has to come from somewhere.
You might already know that it comes from photosynthetic organisms like plants.
But did you know that most of the oxygen you breathe comes from organisms in the
ocean?

That’s right—more than half of the oxygen you breathe comes from marine
photosynthesizers(link is external), like phytoplankton(link is external) and
seaweed. Both use carbon dioxide, water and energy from the sun to make food for
themselves, releasing oxygen in the process. In other words, they
photosynthesize. And they do it in the ocean.

Scientists use satellite images of the ocean to estimate chlorophyll
concentrations in the water. (NASA, Robert Simmon and Jesse Allen)


Photosynthesizers have been in the ocean for a long time. Land plants start
appearing in the fossil record 470 million years ago(link is external), before
dinosaurs roamed the earth. But the ocean was producing oxygen for billions of
years before that. The oldest known fossil is from a marine cyanobacterium, a
tiny-blue green photosynthesizer that was releasing oxygen 3.5 billion years
ago. In a way, we owe the ocean for all of the oxygen that comes from land
plants as well, because land plants evolved from green marine algae. If there
were a race to put oxygen in the atmosphere, the ocean would have one heck of a
head start.

But the ocean’s long history of photosynthesis would matter very little to us if
not for the photosynthesizers that live in it today. Of these, the most
impressive is another cyanobacterium called Prochlorococcus. It is estimated to
be more abundant than any other photosynthesizer on the planet, and to be
responsible for producing 20 percent of the oxygen in the atmosphere. One in
every five breaths you take, you owe to Prochlorococcus. Perhaps as amazing is
the fact that scientists only discovered this super-abundant photosynthesizer in
1988(link is external)—less than thirty years ago!

Under the microscope, you can peer inside the cells of this filamentous red
algae. The thin, hair-like filaments are only one cell wide, seen here at 250x
zoom. Red algae are red because of the pigment phycoerythrin, which along with
green chlorophyll allows the algae to undergo photosynthesis and turn sunlight
into energy. (Arlene Wechezak / Nikon Small World)


Another of the ocean’s photosynthesizers is impressive for a different reason.
Recall that sunlight is necessary for photosynthesis. That means all marine
photosynthesizers have to live in what scientists call the “photic zone”—the
layer at the top of the ocean that is illuminated by sunlight. The photic zone
extends down to about 656 feet(link is external) (200 meters) below the surface
of the ocean, but it’s difficult to put a depth limit on it, because
photosynthesizers keep taking photosynthesis down farther than we thought
possible. Eight hundred and eighty-six feet below the ocean’s surface, you would
barely be able to see light. But a type of red algae called Corallinales
nevertheless photosynthesizes at that depth(link is external). The red color of
Corallinales comes from a pigment which enables it to absorb blue and green
light, which is just about the only kind of light that manages to filter down to
the improbable depths at which Corallinales lives. This photosynthesizer
produces oxygen despite only being able to access the tiniest fraction of
sunlight.

Science Magazine

Whether they evolved the earliest, photosynthesize the most, or dwell the
deepest, marine photosynthesizers are indispensable to our survival. If they
weren’t around, we wouldn’t be breathing. So, once in a while, take a moment to
remember the ocean and its photosynthesizers. They’re helping you out with every
breath you take.

July 2017
Tags: Phytoplankton Seaweed Algae Adaptations


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