Phytoplankton

The phytoplankton serves as the base of the marine food Web. The make up the vast majority of plants in the ocean.

Phytoplankton ranges from those large enough to be collected in fine-mesh nets to those microscopic that can only be collected by filtering or centrifuging sizable volumes of seawater. In shallow areas of the coast also, there may be some phytoplankton that are attached to substrate but not floating in the water column. Their role in the marine environment is of paramount importance since it serves as the base of the food chain. They are the primary producers in the ocean. Some major groups of phytoplankton include the diatoms, dinoflagellate, and the coccolithphorids.