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Divers are being asked to help measure plankton!  Scientists are enlisting sailors, divers, anglers and fishermen to help with what they hope will be the world's biggest study of plankton in the oceans.  Researchers at Plymouth University's Marine Institute want seafarers to help measure the quantity of plankton.  The results will help them to understand how life in the oceans is changing.

Scientists fear that the population of phytoplankton in the world's oceans is being affected by rising sea temperatures, with a paper published in the journal Nature in 2010 controversially suggesting that it had declined by as much as 40% since the 1950's due to climate change.  If this is the case it would have damaging consequences for every aspect of marine life, say researchers.

But data on phytoplankton populations is sparse.  The Plymouth team hope that the readings taken by seafarers will ultimately allow them to test the theory.  In order to measure their populations, seafarers are being asked to drop a plain white disk over the side of their boats attached to a measuring tape.

They are asked to record the depth at which it disappears from view, and upload the figure to a mobile app.  This information will help scientists estimate the amount of plankton in the sea and how it varies from place to place and year to year.

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