Marine life live in the water column of large bodies of water and that cannot swim against a current. They provide a crucial source of food to many large aquatic organisms, such as fish and whales. These organisms include drifting or floating bacteria, archaea, algae, protozoa and animals that inhabit, for example, the pelagic zone of oceans, seas, or bodies of fresh water. Essentially, plankton are defined by their ecological niche rather than any phylogenetic or taxonomic classification. Though many planktonic species are microscopic in size, "plankton" includes organisms covering a wide range of sizes, including large organisms such as jellyfish. The
Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Amendments Act of 2013 accumulation in the population of algae (typically microscopic) in an aquatic system. Algal blooms may occur in freshwater as well as marine environments. Freshwater algal blooms are the result of an excess of nutrients, particularly some phosphates. Harmful algal blooms are algal bloom events involving toxic or otherwise harmful phytoplankton such as dinoflagellates of the genus "Alexandrium" and "Karenia" or diatoms of the genus "Pseudo-nitzschia". is an algal bloom that causes negative impacts to other organisms via production of natural toxins, mechanical damage to other organisms, or by other means. HABs are often associated with large-scale marine mortality events and