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Zooplankton feed on bacterioplankton, phytoplankton, other zooplankton (sometimes cannibalistically), detritus (or marine snow) and even nektonic organisms. As a result, zooplankton are primarily found in surface waters where food resources (phytoplankton or other zooplankton) are abundant. Zooplankton can also act as a disease reservoir.
Many zooplankton are tiny animals found with the phytoplankton in oceanic surface waters, and include tiny crustaceans, and fish larvae and fry (recently hatched fish). Most zooplankton are filter feeders, and they use appendages to strain the phytoplankton in the water. Some larger zooplankton also feed on smaller zooplankton.
Calanus finmarchicus is one of the most commonly found species of zooplankton in the subarctic waters of the North Atlantic. Sometimes confused with C. helgolandicus and C. glacialis , C. finmarchicus is a large planktonic copepod whose chief diet includes diatoms , dinoflagellates , and other microplanktonic organisms.
Freshwater plankton are similar to marine plankton, but are found in lakes and rivers. Mostly, plankton just drift where currents take them, though some, like jellyfish, swim slowly but not fast enough to generally overcome the influence of currents. Although plankton are usually thought of as inhabiting water, there are also airborne versions ...
Calanoida is an order of copepods, a group of arthropods commonly found as zooplankton. The order includes around 46 families with about 1800 species of both marine and freshwater copepods between them. [2]
They are found as zooplankton throughout the global ocean. As zooplankton, radiolarians are primarily heterotrophic, but many have photosynthetic endosymbionts and are, therefore, considered mixotrophs. The skeletal remains of some types of radiolarians make up a large part of the cover of the ocean floor as siliceous ooze.
Jellyfish are slow swimmers, and most species form part of the plankton. Traditionally jellyfish have been viewed as trophic dead ends, minor players in the marine food web, gelatinous organisms with a body plan largely based on water that offers little nutritional value or interest for other organisms apart from a few specialised predators such as the ocean sunfish and the leatherback sea turtle.
Other types of zooplankton include jelly fish and the larvae of fish, marine worms, starfish, and other marine organisms". [63] In turn, the zooplankton are eaten by filter-feeding animals, including some seabirds, small forage fish like herrings and sardines, whale sharks, manta rays, and the largest animal in the world, the blue whale.