1K views · 32 reactions | The Great Phytoplankton Race! At Our Open House, our Marine Microbial Ecology group is challenging kids to design a planktonic organism that will neither float like a cork nor sink like a stone..... Why do flotation adaptation or at least a slow rate of sinking be important to plankton? Phytoplankton need to stay near the surface sunlight and zooplankton need to stay near their food-- the phytoplankton. | MBARI | Facebook