(Oceanography Society, 2007-06)
Benfield, Mark C.; Grosjean, Philippe; Culverhouse, Phil F.; Irigoien, Xabier; Sieracki, Michael E.; Lopez-Urrutia, Angel; Dam, Hans G.; Hu, Qiao; Davis, Cabell S.; Hansen, Allen; Pilskaln, Cynthia H.; Riseman, Edward M.; Schultz, Howard; Utgoff, Paul E.; Gorsky, Gabriel
When Victor Hensen deployed the first
true plankton1 net in 1887, he and his
colleagues were attempting to answer
three fundamental questions: What
planktonic organisms are present in
the ocean? How many of each type are
present? How does the plankton’s composition
change over time? Although
answering these questions has remained
a central goal of oceanographers, the
sophisticated tools available to enumerate
planktonic organisms today offer
capabilities that Hensen probably could
never have imagined.
