This advanced instrument for particle enumeration and sizing represents a shared used instrument for Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institute's Department of Biology. The roles of small, unicellular microorganisms in the sea have been seen in recent years to be even more important than previously thought; the smallest of size fractions, nanoplankton and ultraplankton have been found to be far more numerous and widely occurring. The microbial processes involving these organisms are of crucial importance in the ocean's trophic pathways and in the decomposition of biogenic materials in the seas. Advanced counting and sizing instruments are now essential to allow rapid quantification of the distribution, abundance, biomass, and categorization of unicellular forms.
