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Paul G. Falkowski,1,2*Miriam E. Katz,2Andrew H. Knoll,3Antonietta Quigg,1John A. Raven,4Oscar Schofield,1F. J. R. Taylor5
The community structure and ecological function of contemporarymarine ecosystems are critically dependent on eukaryotic phytoplankton.Although numerically inferior to cyanobacteria, these organismsare responsible for the majority of the flux of organic matterto higher trophic levels and the ocean interior. Photosyntheticeukaryotes evolved more than 1.5 billion years ago in the Proterozoicoceans. However, it was not until the Mesozoic Era (251 to 65million years ago) that the three principal phytoplankton cladesthat would come to dominate the modern seas rose to ecologicalprominence. In contrast to their pioneering predecessors, thedinoflagellates, coccolithophores, and diatoms all contain plastidsderived from an ancestral red alga by secondary symbiosis. Herewe examine the geological, geochemical, and biological processesthat contributed to the rise of these three, distantly related,phytoplankton groups.
1 Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers University, 71 Dudley Road, New Brunswick, NJ 08540, USA. 2 Department of Geological Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA. 3 Department of Organismal and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. 4 Division of Environmental and Applied Biology, University of Dundee at SCRI, Scottish Crop Research Institute, Invergowrie, Dundee DD2 5DA, UK. 5 Department of Earth and Ocean Science, and Department of Botany, University of British Columbia, 6270 University Boulevard, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4.
Present address: Department of Marine Biology, Texas A&MUniversity, Galveston, TX 77551, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: falko{at}imcs.rutgers.edu
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Present address: Department of Marine Biology, Texas A&M University, Galveston, TX 77551, USA. 
