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As primary consumers, zooplankton are the crucial link between the primary producers (mainly phytoplankton) and the rest of the marine food web (secondary consumers); [191] the ocean's primary producers are mostly tiny phytoplankton which have r-strategist traits of growing and reproducing rapidly, so a small mass can have a fast rate of ...
Phytoplankton are photosynthesizing microscopic protists and bacteria that inhabit the upper sunlit layer of marine and fresh water bodies of water on Earth. Paralleling plants on land, phytoplankton undertake primary production in water, [2] creating organic compounds from carbon dioxide dissolved in the water.
Phytoplankton are the powerhouse of open ocean primary production and they can acquire many nutrients from whale feces. [70] In the marine food web, phytoplankton are at the base of the food web and are consumed by zooplankton & krill, which are preyed upon by larger and larger marine organisms, including whales, so it can be said that whale ...
As the primary consumers of marine phytoplankton, microzooplankton consume ~ 59–75% daily of the marine primary production, much larger than mesozooplankton. That said, macrozooplankton can sometimes have greater consumption rates in eutrophic ecosystems because the larger phytoplankton can be dominant there.
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 ]
However, when primary producers grow rapidly and are consumed rapidly, the biomass at any one moment may be low; for example, phytoplankton (producer) biomass can be low compared to the zooplankton (consumer) biomass in the same area of ocean. [12]
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.
They produce 25–45% of the total primary production of organic material in the oceans, [58] [59] [60] owing to their prevalence in open-ocean regions when total phytoplankton biomass is maximal. [61] [62] Diatoms are enclosed in protective silica (glass) shells called frustules. They are classified by the shape of these glass cages in which ...