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Phytoplankton

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Astrobiology

  • 40 Accesses

Synonyms

Algae; Microalgae

Definition

The term plankton comes from the Greek meaning to drift or wander and was introduced in 1887 by Victor Hensen to refer to biological matter that drifts in bodies of water (Mills 1989). The term phytoplankton refers to the photosynthetic species of the plankton community. Phytoplankton are a genetically diverse set of organisms that include the prokaryotic cyanobacteria and many eukaryotic groups (Hackett et al. 2007; Simon et al. 2009).

Overview

Evolutionary History

Microfossil and molecular clock evidence indicates that prokaryotes originated in the Archean and eukaryotes in the Proterozoic (Betts et al. 2018). Determining when these groups first became photosynthetic, first became planktonic, and whether they originally inhabited fresh or marine environments is extremely challenging. Analyses of extant cyanobacterial genomes indicate that photosynthesis may have been acquired relatively late in the evolution of cyanobacteria, perhaps not long...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Oceanography, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada

    Zoe V. Finkel

  2. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada

    Andrew J. Irwin

Authors
  1. Zoe V. Finkel
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  2. Andrew J. Irwin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zoe V. Finkel .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Labo. d'Astrophysique de Bordeaux (LAB), Observatoire Aquitain des Sciences de l'Univers (OASU), Floirac CX, France

    Muriel Gargaud

  2. Astronomy Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA

    William M. Irvine

  3. Centro de Biología Molecular, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Ricardo Amils

  4. Geophysical Lab., Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC, USA

    Henderson James Cleaves

  5. Dépt. Sc. de la Terre et de l’Atmosphère, Université du Québec, Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Daniele Pinti

  6. Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), Inst. Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial, Torrejón de Ardoz, Madrid, Spain

    José Cernicharo Quintanilla

  7. Centre National d'Etudes Spatiale (CNES) DPI/E2U, Paris CX, France

    Michel Viso

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Finkel, Z.V., Irwin, A.J. (2020). Phytoplankton. In: Gargaud, M., et al. Encyclopedia of Astrobiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27833-4_5416-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27833-4_5416-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-27833-4

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