Abstract:
Growth of phytoplankton can go on reasonably with only very small quantities of nutrients amounting to a: few milligrams of phosphorus as phosphate per cubic meter of sea water and usually a somewhat larger amount (about eight times by weight) of nitrate nitrogen. Their remarkable growth as compared with the growth of land plants at such great dilution is partly explained by t he microscopic size of the phytoplankton cells, which makes for better diffusion of nutrients a s well as a greater surface to volume ratio which promotes absorption (Raymont, 1963).