Little critters do make a difference

Often, I do feel it's the smallest critters, and their survival or not, that will make the biggest difference in what other species all the way up to the polar bear and the whale, and eventually us. Can't find a plankton photo right now, so one that eats planton will have to do.

Acidic seas, warmer seas.

Reading this story about acidic seas in The News Tribune did give me pause. So I read it twice. Combined with global warming, this really doesn't look good.

Given the fact I'll be on the beach this weekend (see early posts about night walk), it drives home the fact that when the bottom of the food chain is damaged, very quickly, through the small fish, the salmon, the birds the large mammals it comes to us.

Actually, what most don't realize, I didn't before I started working as a volunteer for the Aquarium, was that plankton, for the most part is a living soup of babies, from fish, from crabs, starfish, squid, octopuses, you name it - all broadcast from their parents. If these guys don't survive, the future of many species we see on the beach and take for granted is in doubt.

Everything comes back to plankton and krill. Everything.

Photo of Image Quest Marine