Picoeukaryote - Ecology

Ecology

Since the size of these organisms determines how they interact with their environment, it is no surprise that they are not known to form significant sinking organic aggregates. Their contribution to carbon cycling is difficult to assess because they are difficult to separate by techniques such as filtration. Recent fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) experiments have shown that picoeukaryotes are fairly abundant in the deep sea. Increased resolution with the development of better FISH techniques indicates that study and detection should become easier. Research has also shown that picoeukaryotes have a strong correlation with chlorophyll concentrations in both meso-autotrophic reservoirs and hypereutrophic reservoirs. Moreover, nitrogen enrichment experiments suggest that picoeukaryotes have an advantage over larger cells when it comes to acquiring nutrients because of their large surface area per unit volume. They have exhibited more effectiveness in the uptake of photons and nutrient from low-resource environments.