Pease Bay plankton from 4th April 26

I have really got into looking at marine plankton over the last nine months. I’m not sure this will help anyone but here is the kit that I use: a paddleboard and wetsuit etc, a cheap plankton net bought online, a static caravan in the dunes with microscope and guidebooks, lots of time, patience and internet searching to try to nail identifications. Think the paddleboard is quite a niche method of sampling but without a handy pier it is effective. For anyone thinking of doing the same the most expensive bit of kit here is the caravan 😂

Anyway here are some pics from a recent trawl. Generally you’ll see a complete myriad of amazing life. On reviewing these pics I realise I didn’t take pics of some of the more regular and more straightforward things and also the quality of some pics is quite poor - just trying to work quickly taking handheld phone pics through a poorly set up scope etc

There was a major algal bloom of these big spheres of Phaeocystis globosa which I haven’t seen since August. The individual cells are shown in the first three pics and a whole colony in the fourth pic. These colonies were a millimetre or so across and visible to the naked eye - I thought they might be tiny sea gooseberry ctenophores at first glance. The colonies are very gelatinous though this appears to be in a layer so the colony is a hollow ball or more elongated shape. Free swimming cells within the globules were presumably the same species as they have two different morphologies. The pics here are all of gel embedded cells rather than free swimming. 

   

Another new species for me was this diatom Isthmia nervosa - I think it is an epiphyte so is infrequently recorded as plankton. It grows as chains like many of the diatoms. 

Here’s another diatom - presumably a Tieres or similar - I’ll pop the name in when I’ve identified it

And another…

This I’m not at all sure about but it looked pretty cool 

Here’s a marine worm larvae in its own floating burrow!

A whole bunch of rotifers that were superabundant. I’ll try to identify at some point

The empty cup of a tinnitid or similar- probably identifiable and I saw some live ones so I’ll pop a pic here later

A nice large dinoflagellate - a Protoperidinium species no doubt- there are quite a few

And this is a dinoflagellate cyst I think

At last something recognisable! A brittlestar - probably the common species - but microscopic and planktonic- the earlier stages look crazy - like little floating wire sculptures 

A polychaete of some sort

Exceptionally small phytoplankton cells in chains - maybe a Cyanobacteria or a tiny diatom?

I’m in the habit of ignoring most of the crustaceans I see - they are for next year perhaps…

Here’s a cool dinoflagellate Ceratium fusus - the long thin pointed cell in the centre - which was abundant at times last summer and autumn but this was the only one I saw in this sample

Another globular algae - this one smaller and greener and whose name escapes me at the moment but I think I’ve only identified it to genus - edit: Halosphaera

An unidentified foram that I’ve seen a few times

A radiolarian 

An identifiable foram that I’ve seen several times Leptohalysis scottii

A new-for-me diatom Mediopyxis helysia which seems to be rarely recorded

A larva can of the genus Oikopleura - I think this is the species gracilis - but I need better pics I think

 

I have absolutely no idea what this is - maybe just a ball of cells from a developing embryo now that I look at it again

So, that is a small sample from a small sample from a small sample!… if you have never had a look at plankton I would recommend it - I’ve had a lot of fun trying to climb the foothills of a steep learning curve