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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Oct 9, 2025

An Ultra-clean Multilayer Apparatus for Collecting Size Fractionated Marine Plankton and Suspended Particles

An Ultra-clean Multilayer Apparatus for Collecting Size Fractionated Marine Plankton and Suspended Particles

Published on: April 19, 2018

Geologic controls on phytoplankton elemental composition.

Shlomit Sharoni¹, Itay Halevy²

¹Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel shlomit.sharoni@weizmann.ac.il.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

|December 23, 2021

Summary

Marine plankton

Keywords:

C:N:P marine fauna evolution organic matter stoichiometry

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Published on: November 12, 2021

Area of Science:

Geochemistry
Paleontology
Oceanography

Background:

Planktonic organic matter (C:N:Porg) is fundamental to marine food webs and ocean biogeochemical cycles.
The geologic history of planktonic C:N:Porg ratios is largely unknown, often assumed constant at the Redfield ratio.
These nutrient ratios influence marine metazoan evolution and global biogeochemical dynamics.

Purpose of the Study:

To reconstruct the Phanerozoic geologic history of planktonic organic matter's carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus (C:N:Porg) ratios.
To investigate the environmental factors driving changes in C:N:Porg over geologic timescales.

Main Methods:

Utilized a long-timescale biogeochemical cycle model incorporating nutrient- and temperature-dependent C:N:Porg parameterizations.
Calculated C:N:Porg ratios throughout the Phanerozoic Eon.

Main Results:

Inferred a decrease in C:Porg and N:Porg ratios from the Paleozoic to the present.
Attributed these changes to decreasing global average temperatures and increasing oceanic phosphate availability.
Identified the expansion of land plants and the breakup of Pangaea as key drivers of increased phosphate flux.

Conclusions:

Phanerozoic changes in planktonic C:N:Porg ratios were driven by climate and tectonic events.
These shifts in nutrient content likely influenced marine fauna evolution and global biogeochemistry.