Dude, Where's My Phyloplankton?

This is normally an apolitical blog, but since President Bush has ruled out any Kyoto-style deal on climate change at the G8 summit, you'll allow me a little soapbox rant.

Marine phyloplankton comprise a quarter of the world's vegetation, and chlorophyll (a biomass indicator of these plants) is the most frequent measured biochemical parameter in aquatic science (and is therefore the key metric in a world concerned about climate change).

More importantly, it's all I (and several billion other shrimp) have to eat.

This left Dave (who was visiting for the weekend) and myself feeling rather depressed, so I fired up the DVD player and gave him his birthday present a week early. 92 gut-munching minutes later, and the multiple perturbations on phyloplankton communities seemed less important, somehow.