colloid. 1  a solid, liquid, or gaseous substance made up of very small, insoluble particles (as single large molecules or masses of smaller molecules) that remain in suspension in a surrounding solid, liquid, or gaseous medium of different matter.
Nekton. Nekton are the animals that can move by themselves in the ocean waters. Nekton live in all zones of the ocean. However, just like benthos and plankton, most live in the sunlight zone or shallow twilight zone since there is the most sunlight and it is easy to feed on smaller organisms such as krill and minnows.
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. Bacterioplankton, bacteria and archaea, which play an important role in remineralising organic material down the water column (note that the prokaryotic phytoplankton are also bacterioplankton). 2  Mycoplankton, fungi and fungus-like organisms, which also are significant in nutrient cycling, as bacterioplankton.