BY THEEVASHINI SUGUMARAN
THE first thing that strikes our mind when we speak about oxygen are trees but the fact is 70% of the Earth’s oxygen is produced by marine plants while rainforests only produce about 28% of the oxygen we breathe.
Who is the hero in the ocean that produces oxygen? The real hero is phytoplankton, a microscopic marine alga that lives in watery environments. The word Phytoplankton derived from the Greek words phyto (plant) and plankton (made to wander or drift). One type of phytoplankton, Prochlorococcus, releases countless tons of oxygen into the atmosphere.
