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
Freshwater mollusc Phylum Mollusca -the cephalopods, scaphopods, polyplacophorans, etc. - never made the transition from a fully marine environment to a freshwater environment. A few species of freshwater molluscs are among the most notorious invasive species. In contrast, numerous others have become threatened or have become extinct in the face of anthropogenic change. Typical freshwater species (such as many river mussel species in the family Unionidae) have a range which may consist of a series of adjacent river systems, a series of adjacent tributaries, or part of a single large river system. Large rivers and small tributary creeks typically share few species,