Advantages and disadvantages
These are the simplest and cheapest methods available. Netting phytoplankton will lose the smallest algae (nanoplankton); other methods can be used to avoid this. Pipe and net sampling requirestwooperatorsandaboat.Becausealgalcellsvarywidelyinsize(200µm)counting cells does not give a complete picture of the community. You can also estimate cell sizes (Hotzel&Croome1999).