Biological Pump

• What is CO2 absorbed by?

  marine plants called phytoplankton- photosynthesis
• what are zooplankton?


  microscopic marine animals
• what is phytoplankton?


  marine plants
• what does zooplankton do?

  eat the phytoplankton and provide the basis for the food web for most animal life in the sea
• what happens to most of the CO2 taken up by phytoplankton?

  recycled near the surface (ie returned to atmosphere via respiration)
• what happens to the 30% of the carbon taken up by phytoplankton?

  sinks into the deeper waters before being converted back into CO2 by marine bacteria (decomposition)