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Zooplankton feed on bacterioplankton, phytoplankton, other zooplankton (sometimes cannibalistically), detritus (or marine snow) and even nektonic organisms. As a result, zooplankton are primarily found in surface waters where food resources (phytoplankton or other zooplankton) are abundant. Zooplankton can also act as a disease reservoir.
Plankton can be divided into producers and consumers. The producers are the phytoplankton (Greek phyton = plant) and the consumers, who eat the phytoplankton, are the zooplankton (Greek zoon = animal). Jellyfish are slow swimmers, and most species form part of the plankton. Traditionally, jellyfish have been viewed as trophic dead ends.
Plankton have traditionally been categorized as producer, consumer, and recycler groups, but some plankton are able to benefit from more than just one trophic level. In this mixed trophic strategy—known as mixotrophy—organisms act as both producers and consumers, either at the same time or switching between modes of nutrition in response to ...
This inverts the pyramid. Primary consumers have longer lifespans and slower growth rates that accumulates more biomass than the producers they consume. Phytoplankton live just a few days, whereas the zooplankton eating the phytoplankton live for several weeks and the fish eating the zooplankton live for several consecutive years. [49]
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.
Zooplankton: Called nonconstitutive mixotrophs by Mitra et al., 2016. [40] Zooplankton that are photosynthetic: microzooplankton or metazoan zooplankton that acquire phototrophy through chloroplast retention a or maintenance of algal endosymbionts. Generalists Protists that retain chloroplasts and rarely other organelles from many algal taxa
These plankton are eaten by numerous forms of filter feeders—mussels, clams, barnacles, sea squirts, and polychaete worms—which filter seawater in their search for planktonic food sources. [13] The adjacent ocean is also a primary source of nutrients for autotrophs , photosynthesizing producers ranging in size from microscopic algae (e.g ...
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'.