Electron Microscopy Techniques for Imaging Marine Phytoplankton

© 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA. All rights reserved.It is only since the 1950s, when the electron microscope was commercialized, that we have been able to fully appreciate the ultrastructural detail of marine phytoplankton. While there is no single, generic protocol for preparing phytoplankton for electron microscopy, this chapter provides a guide to the general approaches used for high-resolution imaging of species such as coccolithophorids with their calcareous scales, diatoms with silica frustules, and dinoflagellates with and without cellulose armor. Advances in sample collection, algal culturing, and molecular genetics have paved the way toward redefining many new taxa of prokaryotic and eukaryotic micro-, nano-, and picoplankton.