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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plankton | 5/7 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plankton | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T07:36:10.175954+00:00 | kb-cron |
Pseudoplankton are organisms that attach themselves to planktonic organisms or other floating objects, such as drifting wood, buoyant shells of organisms such as Spirula, or man-made flotsam. Examples include goose barnacles and the bryozoan Jellyella. By themselves these animals cannot float, which contrasts them with true planktonic organisms, such as Velella and the Portuguese Man o' War, which are buoyant. Pseudoplankton are often found in the guts of filtering zooplankters.
=== Tychoplankton ===
Tychoplankton are organisms, such as free-living or attached benthic organisms and other non-planktonic organisms, that are carried into the plankton through a disturbance of their benthic habitat, or by winds and currents. This can occur by direct turbulence or by disruption of the substrate and subsequent entrainment in the water column. Tychoplankton are, therefore, a primary subdivision for sorting planktonic organisms by duration of lifecycle spent in the plankton, as neither their entire lives nor particular reproductive portions are confined to planktonic existence. Tychoplankton are sometimes called accidental plankton.
=== Mineralized plankton ===
=== By life cycle ===
==== Holoplankton ====
Holoplankton are organisms that are planktic for their entire life cycle. Holoplankton can be contrasted with meroplankton, which are planktic organisms that spend part of their life cycle in the benthic zone. Examples of holoplankton include some diatoms, radiolarians, some dinoflagellates, foraminifera, amphipods, copepods, and salps, as well as some gastropod mollusk species. Holoplankton dwell in the pelagic zone as opposed to the benthic zone. Holoplankton include both phytoplankton and zooplankton and vary in size. The most common plankton are protists.
==== Meroplankton ====
Meroplankton are a wide variety of aquatic organisms that have both planktonic and benthic stages in their life cycles. Much of the meroplankton consists of larval stages of larger organisms. Meroplankton can be contrasted with holoplankton, which are planktonic organisms that stay in the pelagic zone as plankton throughout their entire life cycle. After some time in the plankton, many meroplankton graduate to the nekton or adopt a benthic (often sessile) lifestyle on the seafloor. The larval stages of benthic invertebrates make up a significant proportion of planktonic communities. The planktonic larval stage is particularly crucial to many benthic invertebrates in order to disperse their young. Depending on the particular species and the environmental conditions, larval or juvenile-stage meroplankton may remain in the pelagic zone for durations ranging from hours to months.
== Ecology ==
=== Food webs ===
As well as representing the lower levels of a food chain that supports commercially important fisheries, plankton ecosystems play a role in the biogeochemical cycles of many important chemical elements, including the ocean's carbon cycle. Fish larvae mainly eat zooplankton, which in turn eat phytoplankton The microbial loop: Bacteria play central roles in aquatic food webs. The microbial loop refers to a process in aquatic ecosystems where bacteria consume dissolved organic matter (DOM) and are then consumed by larger microorganisms, effectively cycling nutrients and energy within the ecosystem. The viral shunt: Viruses also play central roles in aquatic food webs. The viral shunt is a process where viruses infect and lyse (burst) host cells, releasing cellular contents (including dissolved organic matter) that can be utilized by other microplankton like bacteria, effectively bypassing the traditional food web pathways. This process plays a significant role in nutrient cycling and carbon flow within aquatic ecosystems. Fungi have a role as well. The mycoloop is a specific aquatic food web pathway where parasitic chytrid fungi infect large, inedible phytoplankton, and their zoospores (a type of spore) become a food source for zooplankton. In this manner, the chytrid fungi transfer nutrients from otherwise unusable phytoplankton to zooplankton.
=== Carbon cycle ===
Primarily by grazing on phytoplankton, zooplankton provide carbon to the planktic foodweb, either respiring it to provide metabolic energy, or upon death as biomass or detritus. Organic material tends to be denser than seawater, so it sinks into open ocean ecosystems away from the coastlines, transporting carbon along with it. This process, called the biological pump, is one reason that oceans constitute the largest carbon sink on Earth. However, it has been shown to be influenced by increments of temperature. In 2019, a study indicated that at ongoing rates of seawater acidification, Antarctic phytoplanktons could become smaller and less effective at storing carbon before the end of the century. It might be possible to increase the ocean's uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2) generated through human activities by increasing plankton production through iron fertilization – introducing amounts of iron into the ocean. However, this technique may not be practical at a large scale. Ocean oxygen depletion and resultant methane production (caused by the excess production remineralising at depth) is one potential drawback.
=== Great Calcite Belt ===
The Great Calcite Belt is a region in the Southern Ocean characterized by high concentrations of coccolithophores, a type of calcite-producing phytoplankton. It plays a significant role in ocean biogeochemistry and the global carbon cycle. Coccolithophores in the belt produce calcium carbonate (calcite or chalk) plates called coccoliths. This process, known as calcification, affects the ocean's carbon cycle by lowering alkalinity and releasing CO2. However, when coccolithophores die, their calcite shells sink, contributing to the biological pump by transporting carbon to the deep ocean, sequestering it for centuries or longer and mitigating atmospheric CO2 levels.
=== Oxygen production ===
Phytoplankton absorb energy from the Sun and nutrients from the water to produce their own nourishment or energy. In the process of photosynthesis, phytoplankton release molecular oxygen (O2) into the water as a waste byproduct. It is estimated that about 50% of the world's oxygen is produced via phytoplankton photosynthesis. The rest is produced via photosynthesis on land by plants. Furthermore, phytoplankton photosynthesis has controlled the atmospheric CO2/O2 balance since the early Precambrian Eon.
=== Absorption efficiency ===