Antarctic parasite
There is a nasty little parasite that exists in the world’s oceans and lives on phytoplankton (microscopic marine algae).
They infect cells in the algae and will eventually kill them. Those cells will then burst (a bit like Alien) and the parasite will continue on to infect other cells.
The parasite is called syndiniales and wherever it has been found in oceans around the world, it usually only makes up about 1 percent of the marine life in any single sample of ocean water.
However, Tasmanian scientists recently collected samples of Southern Ocean (Antarctic Ocean) water and found that there the syndiniales parasite made up as much as 50 percent of the marine life.
Previous models of the Antarctic ecosystem did not include this parasite as a factor because it was in such low levels elsewhere.
Now that the extent of it in Antarctica is known it has the potential to shake up studies of the Southern Ocean ecosystem.
Because the parasites attack phytoplankton, and phytoplankton is the base of the marine food chain, it could already be impacting larger organisms like krill, fish and whales.
Perhaps the Antarctic food chain is constrained because of the impact of this parasite on the food base. You dont see syndiniales under the microscope because they’re either in small forms, are in cysts or are already inside the organism they are infecting.
Further research is needed to determine exactly how the parasite impacts the food chain.