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And in this endless expanse, it appears there's nothing living here and nothing to eat. On the face of it, it's devoid of life. But, of course, it's not. It's home to the world's largest animals. Thanks to connections that lead back to those wetlands, upstream – all the way back to that Apple Snail.

All of the silt, the sediment, and recycled organic material, that's washed down from the wetlands, the mangroves and the coral reef, where has it all gone? Has it just washed out into the open ocean, to be lost for ever? And if it has, what are the animals that live here feeding upon?

Well, potentially, it could have been a great waste of food, if it weren't for the way that the water moves.

All of those valuable nutrients fall like marine snow on the seabed, far below. But they're not lost forever. Deep sea currents of unimaginable power, stir up the oceans on a global scale. It may take centuries, but carried by these upwelling currents, many of those lost nutrients eventually resurface. A sudden bounty of all the ingredients needed to sustain life. And a feast for all the microscopic algae – phytoplankton.

The plankton that live here on the surface are dependent on these upwellings of nutrients. And when they are able to combine them with bright sunlight, their population explodes. These multiplying plankton soon attract millions of small crustaceans, krill, larvae of all kinds and many other creatures. And together, they combine to create the biggest frenzy of life on our planet… a plankton bloom.

And plankton blooms attracts some of the most awe-inspiring creatures. Here, in the Indian Ocean, I've come to witness one of the most enchanting…

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The manta ray. They fly through the water, filtering and feeding on the plankton. They can eat 30kg a day.

And it's not just rays. The plankton bloom has attracted the world's largest fish. This whale shark, may have swum thousands of kilometres, just to feast on this plankton bloom. And this great spectacle of life is all thanks to connections that stretch back, right across our planet.

Although the debris of life on Earth ultimately ends up here, in the ocean. And that's why the marine environment is so dependent on healthy terrestrial ecosystems – places like the Pantanal wetlands and the mangroves in the Sunderbans.

That's why the ray needs snail. A giant fish needs a moderately-sized mollusc, thousands of miles away. Unexpected, and undeniably complex, but a certainly beautiful connection.

But this is really only the beginning. Because the presence of this plankton affects not just life in the ocean, but all life on Earth. And that's because plankton blooms are so dramatic they can even affect the weather. When the blooms reach their peak, they alter the temperature of the ocean's surface, driving weather systems across the whole planet – systems that create rain.