Related topics: ocean

Plankton researchers urge their colleagues to mix it up

Comprising the base of the food web, plankton are extremely important to marine ecosystems. However, there is still much to be discovered about these organisms, and that's especially true for mixoplankton.

Model shows how plankton survive in a turbulent world

How do particles move in turbulent fluids? The answer to this question can be found in a new model presented in a thesis from the University of Gothenburg. The model could help speed up the development of new drugs.

NASA climate science spacecraft PACE arrives for launch

NASA's PACE spacecraft completed its journey Tuesday, Nov. 14, from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, to the Astrotech Spacecraft Operations facility near the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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Plankton

Plankton (singular plankter) are any drifting organisms (animals, plants, archaea, or bacteria) that inhabit the pelagic zone of oceans, seas, or bodies of fresh water. That is, plankton are defined by their ecological niche rather than phylogenetic or taxonomic classification. They provide a crucial source of food to larger, more familiar aquatic organisms such as fish and whales.

Though many planktic (or planktonic—see section on Terminology) species are microscopic in size, plankton includes organisms covering a wide range of sizes, including large organisms such as jellyfish.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA