The consumption of the bioluminescent POC by fish can lead to the emission of bioluminescent fecal pellets (repackaging), which can also be produced with non-bioluminescent POC if the fish gut is already charged with bioluminescent bacteria.
In the diagram on the right, the sinking POC is moving downward followed by a chemical plume. The plain white arrows represent the carbon flow. Panel (a) represents the classical view of a non-bioluminescent particle. The length of the plume is identified by the scale on the side. Panel (b) represents the case of a glowing particle in the bioluminescence shunt hypothesis. Bioluminescent bacteria are represented aggregated onto the particle. Their light emission is shown as a bluish cloud around it. Blue dotted arrows represent the visual detection and the movement toward the particle of the consumer organisms. Increasing the visual detection allows a better detection by upper trophic levels, potentially leading to the fragmentation of sinking POC into suspended POC due to sloppy feeding.