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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 ...
Zooplankton sample including several species of copepods (1–5), gastropod larva (6) doliolids (7), fish eggs (8), and decapod larva (9) (Photo by Iole Di Capua). Zooplankton are the heterotrophic component of the planktonic community (the "zoo-" prefix comes from Ancient Greek: ζῷον, romanized: zôion, lit.
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'.
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.
In terms of number of species, dinoflagellates are one of the largest groups of marine eukaryotes, although substantially smaller than diatoms. [8] Some species are endosymbionts of marine animals and play an important part in the biology of coral reefs .
Copepods (/ ˈ k oʊ p ə p ɒ d /; meaning "oar-feet") are a group of small crustaceans found in nearly every freshwater and saltwater habitat.Some species are planktonic (living in the water column), some are benthic (living on the sediments), several species have parasitic phases, and some continental species may live in limnoterrestrial habitats and other wet terrestrial places, such as ...
A reason for the success of salps is how they respond to phytoplankton blooms. When food is plentiful, salps can quickly bud off clones, which graze on the phytoplankton and can grow at a rate which is probably faster than that of any other multicellular animal, quickly stripping the phytoplankton from the sea. But if the phytoplankton is too ...
Their name comes from the Latin for "radius". They catch prey by extending parts of their body through the holes. As with the silica frustules of diatoms, radiolarian shells can sink to the ocean floor when radiolarians die and become preserved as part of the ocean sediment.