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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey

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Speaker 1: brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum here. One of Earth's unsung heroes,

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Speaker 1: is also among its tiniest. Plankton, a single celled algae.

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Speaker 1: It's barely visible to the eye, but it contributes to

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Speaker 1: some of the world's most important resources. It's essential to

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Speaker 1: the food chain. It's a main supplier of oxygen, and

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Speaker 1: it's the fuel that keeps our cars running and our

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Speaker 1: homes heated. These organisms, no bigger than a human hair,

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Speaker 1: float in the sunny upper parts of the ocean. The

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Speaker 1: two main types of plankton, phytoplankton and zooplankton, support one another.

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Speaker 1: Phytoplankton and organisms so small that millions can fit in

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Speaker 1: one drop of water, produces its own energy through photosynthesis.

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Speaker 1: It accounts for nearly half of all photosynthesis on the planet. Zoloplankton,

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Speaker 1: which are tiny animals and crustaceans like copa pods, along

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Speaker 1: with other small fish and marine creatures, eat phytoplankton, then

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Speaker 1: become food for bigger fish and so on up the

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Speaker 1: food chain, from seals to dolphins. Virtually every creature in

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Speaker 1: the ocean eats either plankton or an organism that depends

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Speaker 1: on plankton in a David versus Goliath like battle. Filter

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Speaker 1: feeding Baleen whales like the humpback rely on tiny organisms

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Speaker 1: such as plankton and krill. Like a filter, these whales

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Speaker 1: take in huge gulps of water, then use their tongues

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Speaker 1: to push out liquid so food like krill and plankton

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Speaker 1: remain right. Whales also swim open mouthed through plankton filled waters.

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Speaker 1: They trapped the plankton, and their tongue pushes the organisms

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Speaker 1: down their throat. But plankton's role in the food chain

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Speaker 1: doesn't stop in the ocean. Polar bears and seabirds rely

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Speaker 1: on plankton fueled meals like seals and fish. Even humans

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Speaker 1: count on fish and therefore plankton to survive. Americans alone

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Speaker 1: eat around fifteen and a half pounds or about seven

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Speaker 1: kilos of fish and shellfish per purse in per year.

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Speaker 1: That's a whole out of plankton. Plankton itself is even

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Speaker 1: making its way toward dinner tables. It's not common in

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Speaker 1: restaurants yet, but algel Leon and new Mendez, both chefs

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Speaker 1: of Michelin starred restaurants in Britain, added plankton to a

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Speaker 1: special event menu in This included delicacies like a plankton

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Speaker 1: cocktail and a plankton risotto. Leon told the UK newspaper

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Speaker 1: Metro it's velvety and dry before mixing it with liquid.

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Speaker 1: Silky ones mixed oily and elegant, pungent on the nose,

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Speaker 1: yet subtle and leaves a long finish in the mouth.

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Speaker 1: While it's still rare in restaurants, plankton is slowly catching on.

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Speaker 1: According to fine dining lovers, Plankton producers like Spanish agriculture

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Speaker 1: company Phytoplankton Merino are growing the microalgae for human consumption,

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Speaker 1: and one chef even tried his hand at phytoplankton bread.

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Speaker 1: Plankton's earthly contributions go beyond the food chain. Marine plants

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Speaker 1: like phytoplankton kelp and algil plank din produce of earths oxygen.

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Speaker 1: In fact, Prochlorococcus, a type of phytoplankton, produces the oxygen

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Speaker 1: for one out of every five breaths a human takes,

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Speaker 1: and Phytoplankton's superpowers don't stop there. Not only do they

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Speaker 1: help produce oxygen through photosynthesis, phytoplankton also take carbon from

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Speaker 1: the atmosphere during the process of living and store it

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Speaker 1: deep in the ocean when they die, which ultimately helps

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Speaker 1: curb climate change. This is similar to the processed trees

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Speaker 1: used to store carbon in leaves, and since photosynthesis consumes

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Speaker 1: carbon dioxide, the carbon is basically stored in each plankton.

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Speaker 1: One group of scientists found that phytoplankton incorporate up to

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Speaker 1: forty five to fifty billion tons of inorganic carbon into

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Speaker 1: their cells, and that petroleum we use to fuel our cars.

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Speaker 1: It's made through a process that dates back to ancient seas,

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Speaker 1: and it also involves that tiny superhero of an organism, plankton.

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Speaker 1: When plankton dye, they sink to the bottom of the oceans. Here,

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Speaker 1: debris settles on top of them, and chemical reactions transform

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Speaker 1: the materials into waxy carrogen and bitumen, a black tar

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Speaker 1: that's one of the main ingredients of petroleum. The carriagin

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Speaker 1: also undergoes further changes as it heats and it becomes

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Speaker 1: what's known as crude oil, or if temperatures are even hotter,

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Speaker 1: natural gas. Plankton may be essential, but this small organism

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Speaker 1: is also a little bit tricksy. Scientists have long struggle

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Speaker 1: to accurately predict phytoplankton numbers and growth rates, but that

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Speaker 1: changed in two thousand five thanks to NASA's satellite observations.

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Speaker 1: VANASA reported that scientists can figure out phytoplankton numbers based

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Speaker 1: on how green water is. When phytoplankton't get stressed by

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Speaker 1: cold water, they become less green. Phytoplankton rich waters become

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Speaker 1: greener as conditions and growth rates improve. Oh And by night,

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Speaker 1: plankton filled water can glow through the organ s's bioluminescence

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Speaker 1: electric blue, green, red, or orange. Researchers estimate phytoplankton makes

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Speaker 1: up one percent of all of Earth's biomass. That's the

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Speaker 1: total mass of organisms, but that number is dwindling. A

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Speaker 1: study published in the journal Nature in July showed that

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Speaker 1: gradually warming ocean waters have destroyed some of Earth's phytoplankton

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Speaker 1: since ninety Whether we know it or not, all humans

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Speaker 1: rely on this microalgae. That's why a decrease or more

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Speaker 1: is worrisome. Today's episode was written by Stephanie Vermillion and

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Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Clay. For more on this and lots

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Speaker 1: of other supergreen topics visit how stuff works dot com.

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