Planet Ocean Page #3

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The food chain

interconnects the species.

The fish have no leader,

but still know to maneuver

in perfect formation.

Each fish is continually aware

of the presence of its neighbors,

and respects their distance.

This self-organization

is a fundamental law of the group.

It allows them to hunt as a school

and increase the chances

to find an area rich in food.

The first to find one,

may guide the other

with a single movement.

The food chain

takes another turn.

The sailfish is the fastest

fish in the ocean.

It feeds on other fish,

not plankton.

The dorsal offers exceptional stability

to achieve its goal.

A sailfish of 100 pounds consume

in his life 1000 pounds mackerel,

who consumed 10,000 pounds

zooplankton

that grazed 100,000 pounds

phytoplankton.

For every pound of swordfish,

must be 1000 times more of the sea prairie.

The food chain is a relentless hierarchy,

a pyramid structure.

Some species prefer to help each other.

Manta rays only eat plankton.

The wingspan of six meters

provides protection for other fish.

They, in return, rid their host

of smaller fish parasites.

Others opt for the whale shark,

the biggest of all fish.

The traveler travels the entire ocean,

also in search of plankton.

it's the longest fishing trip,

in search for the smallest catch.

Solidarity also plays a role

in this liquid immensity,

4000 meters deep,

that covers two thirds of the planet.

Sometimes this journey

is interrupted by land...

Here at Raja Ampat in Indonesia

land appeared when the ocean

withdrew two billion years ago.

These limestone hills were

once at the bottom of the ocean.

As in Shark Bay, Australia,

they are made of

billions of plankton skeletons

which accumulated in the geographical

era when the ocean covered the planet.

As the water receded,

erosion carved the rock

to a lush sanctuary.

A labyrinth of 1500 islands

of fossilized plankton.

The archipelago of Raja Ampat.

is the heart of a region

rich in biodiversity.

Here lives more than

1400 species of fish,

and a quarter of all marine species.

The source of this extraordinary diversity

is again life itself.

In contact with the land surface,

something wonderful happened.

Part of the plankton left

nomadic life and settled here.

The marine life decided

to create a new world.

That was only 500 million years ago.

A revolution in the ocean.

This family of plankton

created the coral reefs.

Coral is an animal

that we rarely see.

What we see during the day,

is the calcium carbonate skeleton

which serves as shelter,

a skeleton that looks like a tree,

branches or leaves.

To survive in these nutrition-poor,

oligotrophic waters,

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