Attribution: Bruce Anderson (University of Stellenbosch).Blue Tide. Seasonal winds can cause the upwelling of nutrients which in turn can cause plankton populations to bloom as "red tides." Here, a dinoflagellate population (Noctiluca sp.) turns the ocean a luminous blue colour as the disturbance by the wind triggers a light-generating chemical reaction. The production of light is thought to attract fish predators that prey on potential predators of the dinoflagellates.Highly Commended in the BMC Ecology Image Competition 2012:BMC Ecology 2013, 13:6 doi:10.1186/1472-6785-13-6www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6785/13/6
Codonaria cistellula from the Bay of Villefranche in October 2014. Z-stack of images made using a 20x objective and DIC optics, lugol's-fixed specimen.