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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.
Examples of meroplankton include the larvae of sea urchins, starfish, crustaceans, marine worms, and most fish. [7] The amount and distribution of plankton depends on available nutrients, the state of water and a large amount of other plankton. [8] The study of plankton is termed planktology and a planktonic individual is referred to as a ...
A few examples of these harmful blooms is the Microcystis bloom in the year 2000 in Swan River estuary, Australia, [44] and the Oostvaarderplassen in the Netherlands in 2003. [45] The detrimental effects of these blooms can range from heart malformation in fish [ 46 ] to constraining copepod reproduction.
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.
As plankton are rarely fished, it has been argued that mesoplankton abundance and species composition can be used to study marine ecosystems' response to climate change. This is because they have life cycles that generally last less than a year, meaning they respond to climate changes between years.
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.
After the tow the plankton is flushed with a hose to the cod end (bottom) of the net for collection. The sample is then placed in preservative fluid prior to being sorted and identified in a laboratory. [5] Plankton pumps: Another method of collecting ichthyoplankton is to use a Continuous Underway Fish Egg Sampler (see illustration).
As an example of how omics data can be used with marine phytoplankton to inform Earth system science, metatranscriptome sequences from natural phytoplankton communities were used to help identify physiological traits (cellular concentration of ribosomes and their rRNAs) underpinning adaptation to environmental conditions (temperature).