What is barely visible to the unaided eye, helps create a large share of the world’s oxygen, but also has the power to disrupt aquatic food webs and have devastating effects on the natural and human world? Phytoplankton are the worlds tiny responders, helping and hurting environments as they interact with elements surrounding them. In this talk, phytoplankton ecologist Reagan Errera shows why the tiny single-celled life forms deserve a little more respect. In research ecologist Reagan Errera’s opinion, phytoplankton, the microscopic algae and other organisms floating in unfathomable numbers throughout the world’s oceans, don’t get the proper respect they deserve. In reality, these tiny single-celled life forms are just as important as trees, cleaning the air we breathe and impacting the global climate in profound ways. A native of Florida, Reagan developed a fascination for algae blooms as an undergraduate studying abroad at the University of Queensland in Australia. She continued her passion for ocean science at Texas A&M, earning a master’s degree in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences and her PhD in Oceanography. Today she is a research ecologist with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, researching phytoplankton ecology with a special focus on global climate change and harmful algal species that produce a variety of toxins. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx