Abstract
This is a collection of remembrances of those who whetted my interest in biogeochemical cycles in my formative years of the 1960s and 1970s. I used to ask myself “How can anyone justify earning a living by studying phytoplankton?” Colleagues kept pointing out that phytoplankton production for fish food was not a suitable justification. The links between phytoplankton production and fish harvest, at least for local fisheries, were not obvious. In search of more compelling reasons I began to lean on the role of phytoplankton in C and N cycling as justification and to learn, especially from geochemists and micropaleontologists, of the great importance of phytoplankton for all of us for all time.
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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Eppley, R.W. (1992). Toward Understanding the Roles of Phytoplankton in Biogeochemical Cycles: Personal Notes. In: Falkowski, P.G., Woodhead, A.D., Vivirito, K. (eds) Primary Productivity and Biogeochemical Cycles in the Sea. Environmental Science Research, vol 43. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0762-2_1
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