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For other uses, see Plankton (disambiguation).
Six relatively large variously-shaped organisms with dozens of small light-colored dots all against a dark background. Some of the organisms have antennae that are longer than their bodies.
Photomontage of planktonic organisms

Plankton (singular plankter) are a diverse group of organisms that live in the water column and cannot swim against a current.[1] They provide a crucial source of food to many large aquatic organisms, such as fish and whales.

These organisms include drifting animals, protists, archaea, algae, 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.

Though many planktic (or planktonic—see the next section below) species are microscopic in size, plankton includes organisms covering a wide range of sizes, including large organisms such as jellyfish.[2]


Photo of mostly transparent diatoms of varying shapes: one resembles a bagel, another a short length of tape, others look like tiny kayaks
Some marine diatoms - a key phytoplankton group

The name plankton is derived from the Greek adjective πλαγκτός - planktos, meaning errant, and by extension "wanderer" or drifter.[3] It was coined by Victor Hensen.[4] Plankton typically flow with ocean currents. While some forms are capable of independent movement and can swim hundreds of meters vertically in a single day (a behavior called diel vertical migration), their horizontal position is primarily determined by the surrounding currents. This is in contrast to nekton organisms that can swim against the ambient flow and control their position (e.g. squid, fish, and marine mammals).

Within the plankton, holoplankton spend their entire life cycle as plankton (e.g. most algae, copepods, salps, and some jellyfish). By contrast, meroplankton are only planktic for part of their lives (usually the larval stage), and then graduate to either a nektic or benthic (sea floor) existence. Examples of meroplankton include the larvae of sea urchins, starfish, crustaceans, marine worms, and most fish[citation needed].

Plankton abundance and distribution are strongly dependent on factors such as ambient nutrient concentrations, the physical state of the water column, and the abundance of other plankton.

The study of plankton is termed planktology and a planktonic individual is referred to as a plankter.[5]

The adjective planktonic is widely used in both the scientific and popular literature, and is a generally accepted term. However, from the standpoint of formal grammar the less commonly used planktic is more strictly the correct adjective. When deriving English words from their Greek or Latin roots the gender specific ending (in this case "-on," which indicates the word is neuter) is normally dropped, using only the root of the word in the derivation.[6]

Trophic groups[edit]

Photo of mostly-translucent, many-legged, bug-like creature
An amphipod (Hyperia macrocephala)


This scheme divides the plankton community into broad producer, consumer and recycler groups. However, determining the trophic level of some plankton is not straightforward. For example, although most dinoflagellates are either photosynthetic producers or heterotrophic consumers, many species are mixotrophic depending upon circumstances.

Size groups[edit]

Plankton are also often described in terms of size.[7] Usually the following divisions are used:

Group Size range
Megaplankton > 20 cm metazoans; e.g. jellyfish; ctenophores; salps and pyrosomes (pelagic Tunicata); Cephalopoda; Amphipoda
Macroplankton 2→20 cm metazoans; e.g. Pteropods; Chaetognaths; Euphausiacea (krill); Medusae; ctenophores; salps, doliolids and pyrosomes (pelagic Tunicata); Cephalopoda; Janthinidae (one family gastropods); Amphipoda
Mesoplankton 0.2→2 mm metazoans; e.g. copepods; Medusae; Cladocera; Ostracoda; Chaetognaths; Pteropods; Tunicata; Heteropoda
Microplankton 20→200 µm large eukaryotic protists; most phytoplankton; Protozoa (Foraminifera); ciliates; Rotifera; juvenile metazoans - Crustacea (copepod nauplii)
Nanoplankton 2→20 µm small eukaryotic protists; Small Diatoms; Small Flagellates; Pyrrophyta; Chrysophyta; Chlorophyta; Xanthophyta
Picoplankton 0.2→2 µm small eukaryotic protists; bacteria; Chrysophyta
Femtoplankton < 0.2 µm marine viruses




World distribution of plankton



Despite significant macronutrient concentrations, some ocean regions are unproductive (so-called HNLC regions).[9] The micronutrient iron is deficient in these regions, and adding it can lead to the formation of blooms of many kinds of phytoplankton.[10] Iron primarily reaches the ocean through the deposition of dust on the sea surface. Paradoxically, oceanic areas adjacent to unproductive, arid land thus typically have abundant phytoplankton (e.g., the eastern Atlantic Ocean, where trade winds bring dust from the Sahara Desert in north Africa). While plankton are most abundant in surface waters, they live throughout the water column. At depths where no primary production occurs, zooplankton and bacterioplankton instead consume organic material sinking from more productive surface waters above. This flux of sinking material, so-called marine snow, can be especially high following the termination of spring blooms.

Biogeochemical significance[edit]


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, and as a result it sinks into open ocean ecosystems away from the coastlines, transporting carbon along with it. This process is known as the biological pump, and it is one reason that oceans constitute the largest carbon sink on Earth.

It might be possible to increase the ocean's uptake of carbon dioxide generated through human activities by increasing plankton production through seeding, primarily with the micronutrient iron. 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.[12][13]

Biomass variability[edit]


The effects of anthropogenic warming on the global population of phytoplankton is an area of active research. Changes in the vertical stratification of the water column, the rate of temperature-dependent biological reactions, and the atmospheric supply of nutrients are expected to have important impacts on future phytoplankton productivity.[14] Additionally, changes in the mortality of phytoplankton due to rates of zooplankton grazing may be significant.

Freshly hatched fish larvae are also plankton for a few days as long as they cannot swim against currents.

Importance to fish[edit]


See also[edit]


  1. ^ Lalli, C.; Parsons, T. (1993). Biological Oceanography: An Introduction. Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN 0 7506 3384 0. 
  2. ^ John Dolan (November 2012). "Microzooplankton: the microscopic (micro) animals (zoo) of the plankton". 
  4. ^
  5. ^
  6. ^ Emiliani, C. (1991). "Planktic/Planktonic, Nektic/Nektonic, Benthic/Benthonic". Journal of Paleontology (Journal of Paleontology, Vol. 65, No. 2) 65 (2): 329. JSTOR 1305769. 
  7. ^ Omori, M.; Ikeda, T. (1992). Methods in Marine Zooplankton Ecology. Malabar, USA: Krieger Publishing Company. ISBN 0-89464-653-2. 
  9. ^ Martin, J. H.; Fitzwater, S. E. (1988). "Iron-deficiency limits phytoplankton growth in the Northeast Pacific Subarctic". Nature 331 (6154): 341–343. Bibcode:1988Natur.331..341M. doi:10.1038/331341a0. 
  10. ^ Boyd, P.W., et al.; Watson, AJ; Law, CS; Abraham, ER; Trull, T; Murdoch, R; Bakker, DC; Bowie, AR et al. (2000). "A mesoscale phytoplankton bloom in the polar Southern Ocean stimulated by fertilization". Nature 407 (6805): 695–702. doi:10.1038/35037500. PMID 11048709. 
  11. ^ Falkowski, Paul G. (1994). "The role of phytoplankton photosynthesis in global biogeochemical cycles". Photosyntheis Research 39 (3): 235–258. doi:10.1007/BF00014586. 
  12. ^ Chisholm, S.W., et al.; Falkowski, PG; Cullen, JJ (2001). "Dis-crediting ocean fertilization". Science 294 (5541): 309–310. doi:10.1126/science.1065349. PMID 11598285. 
  13. ^ Aumont, O.; Bopp, L. (2006). "Globalizing results from ocean in situ iron fertilization studies". Global Biogeochemical Cycles 20 (2): GB2017. Bibcode:2006GBioC..20.2017A. doi:10.1029/2005GB002591. 
  14. ^ Steinacher, M., et al. (2010), Projected 21st century decrease in marine productivity: a multi-model analysis, Biogeosciences, 7, 979-1005

Further reading[edit]


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