#phytoplankton

Researchers at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa have made an exciting discovery: a virus found in the ocean called FloV-SA2 carries the genetic instructions for making part of a ribosome—a crucial component in cells that turns genetic information into proteins. This is the first time a virus that infects eukaryotic organisms (such as plants, animals, and fungi) has been found to have this capability, according to UH researchers.

Circular ocean currents, called “eddies,” play an important role in supplying nutrients for marine life and can stimulate blooms of phytoplankton, microscopic plant life that lives on the ocean surface, according to new research published by University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa oceanographers.