Antarctic News 2
Look at the frost flower sample taken by the Jeff Bowman team in Antarctica here. One possible life form is the bacteria, polarbacter. What do they look like?
Image source: Gosink, Woese and Staley. Int. J. Syst. Bacteriol. 1998 48:223-235.
How about algae?
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/images/diatoms_in_the_ice.jpg
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/essay_krembsdeming.html
http://spg.ucsd.edu/antarcticareu/Pics/wildintrocss/phyti.jpg
http://spg.ucsd.edu/antarcticareu/wildlife.htm
Answer: And why are these creatures, some of whom are phytoplankton, important?
Antarctica Wildlife
Phytoplankton Info NOAA
eoearth
The phytoplankton are important because they are are eaten by zooplankton who are eaten by krill, whales and larger organisms.
Phytoplankton is very important because they have a responsibility of providing all of the food for the marine ecosystem also another HUGE responsibility is that they provide the air we breath!!!! Without them we would not be alive because there would be no air for us to breath.