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Through their consumption and processing of phytoplankton and other food sources, zooplankton play a role in aquatic food webs, as a resource for consumers on higher trophic levels (including fish), and as a conduit for packaging the organic material in the biological pump.
Many zooplankton are tiny animals found with the phytoplankton in oceanic surface waters, and include tiny crustaceans, and fish larvae and fry (recently hatched fish). Most zooplankton are filter feeders, and they use appendages to strain the phytoplankton in the water. Some larger zooplankton also feed on smaller zooplankton.
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.
The global biomass of gelatinous zooplankton (sometimes referred to as jelly‐C) within the upper 200 m of the ocean amounts to 0.038 Pg C. [21] Calculations for mesozooplankton (200 μm to 2 cm) suggest about 0.20 Pg C. [22] The short life span of most gelatinous zooplankton, from weeks up to 2 to 12 months, [23] [24] suggests biomass ...
Krill convert the primary production of their prey into a form suitable for consumption by larger animals that cannot feed directly on the minuscule algae. Northern krill and some other species have a relatively small filtering basket and actively hunt copepods and larger zooplankton. [44]
In non-bloom conditions, zooplankton consumption by jellyfish was <1% of the annual zooplankton stock. [19] Importantly, jellyfish blooms do not always directly result in depletion of zooplankton and other competing mid-trophic species. Jellyfish blooms can have a more complicated role in food web dynamics and overall estuary health.
Physical factors such as oxygen availability, pH, and light conditions may affect overall oxygen consumption and how much carbon is loss from zooplankton in the form of respired CO 2. The relative sizes of zooplankton and prey also mediate how much carbon is released via sloppy feeding. Smaller prey are ingested whole, whereas larger prey may ...
Another contributing factor to DOM release is respiration rate. Physical factors such as oxygen availability, pH, and light conditions may affect overall oxygen consumption and how much carbon is loss from zooplankton in the form of respired CO 2. The relative sizes of zooplankton and prey also mediate how much carbon is released via sloppy ...