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This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 23 February 2025. Organisms living in water or air that are drifters on the current or wind This article is about the marine organisms. For other uses, see Plankton (disambiguation). Marine microplankton and mesoplankton Part of the contents of one dip of a hand net. The image contains diverse planktonic ...
Some of the largest plankton are krill and feed the largest of animals, baleen whales. My first foray into the scientific world was a job sexing Jassa falcata (a tiny amphipod) under a microscope.
The word "neuston" comes from Greek neustos, meaning "swimming", and the noun suffix-on (as in "plankton"). [2] This term first appears in the biological literature in 1917. [3] The alternative term pleuston comes from the Greek plein, meaning "to sail or float". The first known use of this word was in 1909, before the first known use of ...
A planktivore is an aquatic organism that feeds on planktonic food, including zooplankton and phytoplankton. [1] [2] Planktivorous organisms encompass a range of some of the planet's smallest to largest multicellular animals in both the present day and in the past billion years; basking sharks and copepods are just two examples of giant and microscopic organisms that feed upon plankton.
Phytoplankton (/ ˌ f aɪ t oʊ ˈ p l æ ŋ k t ə n /) are the autotrophic (self-feeding) components of the plankton community and a key part of ocean and freshwater ecosystems.The name comes from the Greek words φυτόν (phyton), meaning 'plant', and πλαγκτός (planktos), meaning 'wanderer' or 'drifter'.
Chlorophyll α is the core photosynthetic pigment that all phytoplankton possess. Concentrations of this pigment, which can be measured remotely, is used as a proxy for phytoplankton biomass in a given location general, the more chlorophyll a, the more phytoplankton biomass, although the CHL a to C ratio May vary between species, and even within the species.
Planktology is the study of plankton, various small drifting plants, animals and microorganisms that inhabit bodies of water. Planktology topics include primary production, energy flow and the carbon cycle. Plankton drive the "biological pump", a process by which the ocean ecosystem transports carbon from the surface euphotic zone to
However, there is a simpler scheme that categorizes plankton based on a logarithmic size scale: Macroplankton (200–2000 μm) Micro-plankton (20–200 μm) Nanoplankton (2–20 μm) This was even further expanded to include picoplankton (0.2–2 μm) and fem-toplankton (0.02–0.2 μm), as well as net plankton, ultraplankton.