Facts about Plankton
Bacterioplankton are found at all levels of the ocean, not just near the surface as are most other plankton.
Bacterioplankton are bacteria which mostly live by decomposing the remains of other organisms, although some are parasites.
The name plankton is derived from the Greek word planktos, meaning "wanderer" or "drifter."
By contrast, meroplankton are those organisms that are only planktonic for part of their lives, usually the larval stage of fish and other aquatic organisms.
Studies have shown that the mineral iron (but only in the proper amounts) leads to increased blooms of many (though not all) kinds of phytoplankton.
Ninety percent of the world's photosynthesis is carried out in the oceans by microscopic phytoplankton, providing the energy for this process.
Phytoplankton, like plants, break down carbon dioxide releasing the oxygen and holding on to the carbon.
Some bacterioplankton live near volcanic vents on the ocean bottom where they feed off of chemicals the vent releases into the water.
Within the plankton itself, holoplankton are those organisms that spend their entire life cycle as part of the plankton.
Plankton is the collective name for certain organisms (mostly microscopic) that drift in the oceans, lakes, rivers, and other bodies of water.
The larva of fish and other animals such as coral and marine worms are also included in the zooplankton.
Most of the peasant population that has migrated to Lima speaks primarily Quechua or Aymara, rather than Spanish.
Most species feed on the single-celled phytoplankton and are in turn eaten by fish and other larger animals.
The existence and importance of nano- and even smaller plankton was only discovered during the 1980s, but they are thought to make up the largest proportion of all plankton in number and diversity.
Iron is primarily made available to oceanic phytoplankton through the deposition of atmospheric dust on the sea surface.
At depths where no primary production occurs, zooplankton and bacterioplankton instead make use of organic material sinking from the more productive surface waters above.
Oceanic areas adjacent to arid parts of continents thus typically have abundant phytoplankton (e.g., the western Atlantic Ocean, where trade winds bring dust from the Sahara Desert in North Africa).
Phytoplankton, like plants, obtain energy through photosynthesis, and so must live in the well-lit surface layer (the euphotic zone) of the ocean.
Cyanobacteria are also bacteria, but they are considered to be among the phytoplankton since they use photosynthesis.