Tiny little organisms called phytoplankton have a huge impact on Earth’s climate.
They are single celled algae and they can soak up 45 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year!!
They provide half of the Earth’s oxygen supply.
These creatures have trouble growing in parts of the ocean with low iron concentrations, which is about 30% of the ocean, therefore making it hard for the ocean to absorb more carbon dioxide.
Thankfully there are scientists looking into this, and how it can affect climate change.
One of the scientists explained:
“In essence, what we are illustrating is that they have evolved to deal with iron limitation, and we are trying to figure out how they have adapted to take up iron more efficiently.”
Hopefully this might be a key to understanding climate change before it’s too late.
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