Jennifer Prairie
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thread 1/12
I was lucky to be able to teach my #PlanktonEcology course this semester to a great group of students. For one of their assignments, they were asked to come up with a meme or a TikTok-style video relating to plankton concepts. So my entry into the #ThreadChallenge is their creations. Here we go!
04:08 PM - May 17, 2023
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Jennifer Prairie
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thread 2/12
First off, here is one highlighting plankton food web dynamics during a spring bloom event, which often see off the coast in temperature regions (i.e. roughly latitudes between 20 and 60 deg) #DiatomsVsZooplankton
04:11 PM - May 17, 2023
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Jennifer Prairie
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thread 3/12
Speaking of zooplankton, many species of zooplankton engage in "diel vertical migration", which means during the day they stay in deeper waters to avoid being seen by fish (predators), and then at night they can swim upwards (up to hundreds of meters) to feed in the more productive surface waters.
04:15 PM - May 17, 2023
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Jennifer Prairie
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thread 4/12
Zooplankton feed in many different ways and on many different things. Some type of zooplankton, including some copepods (i.e. the plankton in Spongebob), are ambush feeders, which mean they wait still in the water, and hydromechanically sense fluid disturbances by motile prey and then pounce!
04:18 PM - May 17, 2023
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Jennifer Prairie
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thread 5/12
But it doesn't mean planktonic prey have no hope... many can display escape behavior if they feel they are getting close to being lunch!

Original image credit for ciliate photo: http://www.microscopy-uk.o...
04:22 PM - May 17, 2023
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Jennifer Prairie
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thread 6/12
Here is another one highlighting escape jump behavior of some copepods!

Original copepod video credit: https://www.youtube.com/wa...
04:24 PM - May 17, 2023
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Jennifer Prairie
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thread 7/12
Because plankton are so small, many live life at low Reynolds numbers, a ratio that describes the relative importance of inertial to viscous forces in a fluid. At low Reynolds numbers, fluid flows in a smooth way (i.e. laminar) instead of being turbulent. It would be like you living in honey!
04:30 PM - May 17, 2023
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Jennifer Prairie
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thread 8/12
Another peculiar property of fluid at low Reynolds numbers is that flow is reversible! That means organisms that swim or feed at low Reynolds numbers need to move in an asymmetrical way... otherwise they don't go anywhere!
04:34 PM - May 17, 2023
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Jennifer Prairie
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thread 9/12
Not all parts of the ocean are productive. Many regions are oligotrophic, meaning they are low in nutrients needed for phytoplankton growth. In these regions smaller phytoplankton outcome larger phytoplankton (like diatoms) because smaller phytoplankton have a higher surface are to volume ratio.
04:39 PM - May 17, 2023
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Jennifer Prairie
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thread 10/12
And here is a meme highlighting the lack of appreciation of many politicians for the importance of plankton. This meme is in response to a tweet from congressman Jim Jordan from January 2023 that I showed my students... needless to say, this tweet did not go over well with plankton ecologists!
04:44 PM - May 17, 2023
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Jennifer Prairie
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thread 11/12
And lastly one of my previous students, Leah, was a meme master. Here is one showing a screenshot of instructions from one of my assignments from when she was in my Mathematical Modeling in Ecology course. I had assigned this in February of 2020, and let's just say the timing was unfortunate.
04:48 PM - May 17, 2023
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Jennifer Prairie
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thread 12/12
Hope you enjoyed and learned some stuff about plankton on the way. Big thanks to my students who are much more clever and creative than I am!
#ThreadChallenge #PlanktonEcology
04:50 PM - May 17, 2023
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Just Judith'n'ALF #VotedYes
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In response to Jennifer Prairie.
Thanks for using #ALT_TEXT
04:16 PM - May 17, 2023
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Jennifer Prairie
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In response to Just Judith'n'ALF #VotedYes.
I am trying to get better at writing useful descriptions. Question: do you know if it is possible to put alt text on videos? I didn't know how.
04:52 PM - May 17, 2023
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