Plankton are that drift in Hydrosphere (or atmosphere) but are unable to actively propel themselves against ocean current (or wind).
Marine plankton include drifting organisms that inhabit the
saltwater of
and the
brackish waters of
estuaries.
Fresh water plankton are similar to marine plankton, but are found in lakes and rivers. The individual organisms constituting plankton are called
plankters.
In the ocean plankton provide a crucial source of food, particularly for larger
filter-feeding animals, such as
,
,
forage fish and
.
Plankton includes organisms from many species, ranging in size from the microscopic (such as bacteria, archaea, protozoa and microscopic algae and fungi
Microscopic plankton, smaller than about one millimetre in size, play crucial roles in . They are a diverse group, including phytoplankton (like and ) and zooplankton (such as , foraminifera and some ), and serve as a foundational component of the marine food web. These largely unseen microscopic plankton drive primary production, support local food webs, cycle nutrients, and influence global biogeochemical processes. Their role is essential for maintaining the health and balance of marine ecosystems.
Although plankton are usually thought of as inhabiting water, there are also airborne versions that live part of their lives drifting in the atmosphere. These aeroplankton include , pollen and wind-scattered . They may also include microorganisms swept into the air from terrestrial dust storms and oceanic plankton swept into the air by sea spray.
Overview
Apart from
aeroplankton, plankton inhabits oceans, seas, estuaries, rivers, lakes and ponds. Local abundance varies horizontally, vertically and seasonally. The primary cause of this variability is the availability of light. All plankton ecosystems are driven by the input of solar energy (but see
chemosynthesis), confining primary production to surface waters, and to geographical regions and seasons having abundant light.
A secondary variable is nutrient availability. The amount and distribution of plankton depends on available nutrients, the water column and a large amount of other plankton.
The local distribution of plankton can be affected by wind-driven Langmuir circulation and the biological effects of this physical process. Although large areas of the
tropics and
sub-tropical oceans have abundant light, they experience relatively low primary production because they offer limited nutrients such as
nitrate,
phosphate and
silicate. This results from large-scale
ocean current and water column stratification. In such regions, primary production usually occurs at greater depth, although at a reduced level (because of reduced light).
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 .
Despite significant macronutrient concentrations, some ocean regions are unproductive (so-called HNLC).
Within the plankton, holoplankton spend their entire life cycle as plankton (e.g. most algae, , , and some jellyfish). By contrast, meroplankton are only planktic for part of their lives (usually the stage), and then graduate to either a nektic (swimming) or benthos (sea floor) existence. Examples of meroplankton include the larvae of , starfish, , marine , and most fish.
Microscopic plankton
Plankton is mostly made up of planktonic
less than one millimetre across, most invisible to the naked eye and needing a microscope if they are to be visually examined. Microorganisms have been variously estimated to make up about 70%,
or about 90%,
[ Census Of Marine Life Accessed 29 October 2020.][ Modified text was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.] of the total
ocean biomass. Taken together they form the marine microbiome. Over billions of years this microbiome has evolved many life styles and adaptations and come to participate in the global cycling of almost all chemical elements.
[Bolhuis, H. and Cretoiu, M.S. (2016) "What is so special about marine microorganisms?". In: L. J. Stal and M. S. Cretoiu (Eds.) The Marine Microbiome, pages 3–20, Springer. ]
Microplankton are ecological linchpins in the marine food web. They are crucial to nutrient recycling in the way they act as . They are also responsible for nearly all photosynthesis that occurs in the ocean, as well as the cycling of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and other nutrients and trace elements.
It is estimated marine viruses kill 20% of ocean microplankton biomass every day. Viruses are the main agents responsible for the rapid destruction of harmful which often kill other marine life. The number of viruses in the plankton decreases further offshore and deeper into the water, where there are fewer host organisms.
Terminology
The name
plankton was coined by German marine biologist
Victor Hensen in 1887 from shortening the word
halyplankton from
Greek language ᾰ̔́λς
háls "sea" and πλανάω
planáō to "drift" or "wander".
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 water movement, and plankton typically flow with
. This is in contrast to
nekton organisms, such as
fish,
squid and
, which can swim against the ambient flow and control their position in the environment.
The study of plankton is termed planktology and a planktonic individual is referred to as a plankter.
By habitat
Marine plankton
Marine plankton includes
marine protists (
algae and
protozoa), drifting and floating animals (particularly
), marine prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea), and
that inhabit the saltwater of oceans and the brackish waters of estuaries.
Freshwater plankton
Freshwater plankton parallel marine plankton, but are found inland in the freshwaters of lakes and rivers.
Aeroplankton
Aeroplankton are tiny lifeforms that float and drift in the air, carried by the
Air current of the
wind; they are the
atmospheric analogue to oceanic plankton. Most of the living things that make up aeroplankton are very small to
Microscope in size, and many can be difficult to identify because of their tiny size. Scientists can collect them for study in traps and sweep nets from
aircraft, kites or balloons.
[A. C. Hardy and P. S. Milne (1938) Studies in the Distribution of Insects by Aerial Currents. Journal of Animal Ecology, 7(2):199-229] Aeroplankton is made up of numerous
Microorganism, including
, about 1000 different species of
bacteria, around 40,000 varieties of
Fungus, and hundreds of species of
,
algae,
and
Marchantiophyta that live some part of their life cycle as aeroplankton, often as
,
pollen, and wind-scattered
. Additionally, peripatetic microorganisms are swept into the air from terrestrial dust storms, and an even larger amount of airborne marine microorganisms are propelled high into the atmosphere in sea spray. Aeroplankton deposits hundreds of millions of airborne viruses and tens of millions of bacteria every day on every square meter around the planet. This means similar mixes of microscopic plankton
taxon can be found in open bodies of water around the world.
[ Living Bacteria Are Riding Earth's Air Currents Smithsonian Magazine, 11 January 2016.]
The sea surface microlayer, compared to the sub-surface waters, contains elevated concentration of bacteria and viruses.
[Blanchard, D.C., 1983. The production, distribution and bacterial enrichment of the sea-salt aerosol. In: Liss, P.S., Slinn, W.G.N. ŽEds.., Air–Sea Exchange of Gases and Particles. D. Reidel Publishing Co., Dordrecht, Netherlands, pp. 407–444.] These materials can be transferred from the sea-surface to the atmosphere in the form of wind-generated aqueous
due to their high vapour tension and a process known as
volatilisation.
[Wallace Jr., G.T., Duce, R.A., 1978. Transport of particulate organic matter by bubbles in marine waters. Limnol. Oceanogr. 23 Ž6., 1155–1167.] When airborne, these
microbes can be transported long distances to coastal regions. If they hit land they can have an effect on animal, vegetation and human health.
[WHO, 1998. Draft guidelines for safe recreational water environments: coastal and fresh waters, draft for consultation. World Health Organization, Geneva, EOSrDRAFTr98 14, pp. 207–299.] Marine aerosols that contain viruses can travel hundreds of kilometers from their source and remain in liquid form as long as the humidity is high enough (over 70%).
[Klassen, R. D., & Roberge, P. R. (1999). Aerosol transport modeling as an aid to understanding atmospheric corrosivity patterns. Materials & Design, 20, 159–168.][Moorthy, K. K., Satheesh, S. K., & Krishna Murthy, B.V. (1998). Characteristics ofspectral optical depths and size distributions of aerosols over tropical oceanic regions. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar–Terrestrial Physics, 60, 981–992.
][Chow, J. C., Watson, J. G., Green, M. C., Lowenthal, D. H., Bates, B., Oslund, W., & Torre, G. (2000). Cross-border transport and spatial variability of suspended particles in Mexicali and California's Imperial Valley. Atmospheric Environment, 34, 1833–1843.] These aerosols are able to remain suspended in the atmosphere for about 31 days.
[Aller, J., Kuznetsova, M., Jahns, C., Kemp, P. (2005) The sea surface microlayer as a source of viral and bacterial enrichment in marine aerosols. Journal of aerosol science. Vol. 36, pp. 801–812.] Evidence suggests that bacteria can remain viable after being transported inland through aerosols. Some reached as far as 200 meters at 30 meters above sea level.
[ The process which transfers this material to the atmosphere causes further enrichment in both bacteria and viruses in comparison to either the SML or sub-surface waters (up to three orders of magnitude in some locations).][Marks, R., Kruczalak, K., Jankowska, K., & Michalska, M. (2001). Bacteria and fungi in air over the GulfofGdansk and Baltic sea. Journal of Aerosol Science, 32, 237–250.]
At the ocean surface
Plankton are also found at the ocean surface. Organisms that live at or just below the air-sea interface are called neuston. They float either on the water’s surface (epineuston) or swim in the top few centimeters (hyponeuston). Many neuston qualify to be categorised as part of the broader plankton community, because they drift largely as currents or wind dictate, lacking strong enough swimming ability to counter them.
Neustonic animals are primarily adapted to float upside-down on the ocean surface, similar to an inverted benthos,[ Material was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.]
In deep ocean
In 2025, researchers discovered microbial communities inhabiting the ocean conveyor belt, even at great depths in the ocean.[
]
Water samples were taken along the full depth of the water column in the South Pacific Ocean, from Easter Island to Antarctica. They found marked increases in microbial diversity about deep, in a layer they call the prokaryotic phylocline. This zone, similar to the pycnocline, represents a shift from less diverse surface waters to abundant microbial ecosystems in the deep ocean. For instance, a group they called the Antarctic Bottom Water contains microbes suited to cold and high pressure, while another group they called the Ancient Water Group, located in slowly circulating water isolated from the surface for over a millennium, contains microbes with genes adapted to low oxygen.[
]
Geoplankton
Many animals live in terrestrial environments by thriving in transient often microscopic bodies of water and moisture, these include and which lay resilient eggs capable of surviving years in dry environments, and some of which can go dormant themselves. Nematodes are usually microscopic with this lifestyle. Water bears, despite only having lifespans of a few months, famously can enter suspended animation during dry or hostile conditions and survive for decades. This allows them to be ubiquitous in terrestrial environments despite needing water to grow and reproduce. Many microscopic crustacean groups like and Amphipoda (of which Talitridae are members) and Ostracod are known to go dormant when dry and live in transient bodies of water too[
]
By taxon
Plankton contains representatives from all major divisions of life. By taxon, it can be divided into the following broad groups:
-
Zooplankton: – mostly predators (zooplankton) of smaller plankton. Examples are , sea butterfly, , and . There are also planktonic typically smaller than one mm, such as , , , and larval stages of various and .
-
planktonic protists: – single-celled eukaryote microorganisms, mostly invisible to the naked eye, such as , , , foraminifera, , and . Planktonic protists include algae (phytoplankton), protozoa (zooplankton), and many mixoplankton.
-
Marine fungus: – known also as mycoplankton, play important roles in remineralisation and nutrient cycling.
-
planktonic prokaryotes: – (bacteria and archaea – planktonic bacteria are known also as bacterioplankton) can play important roles as primary producers, or in remineralising organic material like mycoplankton down the water column. Photosynthetic cyanobacteria are important members of the phytoplankton. The unusually small Pelagibacter ubique, perhaps the most abundant bacterium on Earth, makes up about one third of microbial cells in the surface ocean,
[" Candidatus Pelagibacter ubique." European Bioinformatics Institute. European Bioinformatics Institute, 2011. Web. 08 Jan. 2012. http://www.ebi.ac.uk/2can/genomes/bacteria/Candidatus_Pelagibacter_ubique.html ] and plays important roles recycling nutrients in the microbial loop. The Roseobacter clade are significantly connected to phytoplankton.
-
Marine virus: – known also as virioplankton, are more abundant in the plankton than bacteria and archaea, though much smaller.
By size
Plankton are also often described in terms of size. Usually the following divisions are used:
- :>
However, some of these terms may be used with very different boundaries, especially on the larger end. The term microplankton is sometimes used more broadly to cover plankton that cannot really be seen without using a microscope, say plankton less than about one millimetre across. The existence and importance of nano- and even smaller plankton was only discovered during the 1980s, but they are thought to make up the largest proportion of all plankton in number and diversity. It is the largely unseen microplankton that are the main drivers of the marine food web.
Microplankton and smaller groups are that operate at low , where the viscosity of water is more important than its mass or inertia.
File:Plankton size.png| |alt=Plankton sizes by taxonomic groups
File:Diatoms through the microscope.jpg|Some marine — a key phytoplankton group
File: Pelagibacter.jpg| Pelagibacter ubique, the most common bacteria in the ocean, plays a major role in global
File:Noctiluca scintillans varias.jpg|The sea sparkle dinoflagellate glows in the night to produce the milky seas effect
File:Dinoflagellates and a tintinnid ciliate.jpg|Microzooplankton are major grazers of the plankton: two and a tintinnid ciliate.
File:hyperia.jpg | Macrozooplankton: the amphipoda Hyperia macrocephala
File:Mnemiopsis leidyi 2.jpg|The sea walnut ctenophore has a transient anus which forms only when it needs to defecate
By trophic mode
By trophic mode, plankton fall into three broad functional groups:
-
Phytoplankton (from Greek phyton, or plant) are prokaryote or eukaryote algae that live near the water surface where there is sufficient light to support photosynthesis. Among the more important groups are the , cyanobacteria, , and .
-
Zooplankton (from Greek zoon, or animal) are small or (e.g. and other ) that feed on other plankton. Some of the and of larger nektonic animals, such as fish, crustaceans, and , are included here.
-
Mixoplankton (from Greek mixis, or mixture) have a mixed trophic strategy. In recent years, there has been a growing recognition that perhaps the majority of plankton can act in both the above modes.
Traditionally, plankton were divided into just the first two broad trophic groups: plant-like phytoplankton which make their own food, usually by photosynthesis, and animal-like zooplankton that eat other plankton. In recent years, there has been a recognition that many plankton, perhaps over half, are mixotrophic.
As a result of these findings, many plankton formally categorized as phytoplankton, including Coccolithophore and Dinoflagellate, are longer included as strictly phytoplankton, as they not only produce their own food through phototrophy but can also eat other organisms.
Mixotrophs can be divided into two groups; constitutive mixotrophs which are able to perform photosynthesis on their own, and non-constitutive mixotrophs which use phagocytosis to engulf phototrophic prey that are either kept alive inside the host cell, which benefits from its photosynthesis, or they digested, except for the , which continue to perform photosynthesis (kleptoplasty).
File:Clupeaharenguslarvaeinsitukils.jpg|Herring larva imaged with the remains of the yolk and the long gut visible in the transparent animal
File:Icefishuk.jpg|Notothenioidei larvae from Antarctica have no haemoglobin
File:LeptocephalusConger.jpg|Eel larva drifting with the gulf stream
File:Copepodkils.jpg|Copepod from Antarctica, a translucent ovoid microanimal with two long antennae
File:Krill666.jpg|A krill larva is zooplankton, though an adult (shown) is nekton
By life cycle
Holoplankton
Holoplankton are organisms that are planktic for their entire life cycle. Holoplankton can be contrasted with meroplankton, which are planktic organisms that spend part of their life cycle in the benthic zone. Examples of holoplankton include some , , some , foraminifera, , , and , as well as some gastropod mollusk species. Holoplankton dwell in the pelagic zone as opposed to the benthic zone.
Meroplankton
Meroplankton are a wide variety of aquatic organisms that have both planktonic and Benthic zone stages in their life cycles. Much of the meroplankton consists of stages of larger organisms.[
]
Other groups
Gelatinous zooplankton
Gelatinous zooplankton are fragile animals that live in the water column in the ocean. Their delicate bodies have no hard parts and are easily damaged or destroyed.[ (2001) Biological Oceanography. Butterworth-Heinemann.] Gelatinous zooplankton are often transparent.[ (2000) Transparent Animals. Scientific American 282: 62–71.] All jellyfish are gelatinous zooplankton, but not all gelatinous zooplankton are jellyfish. The most commonly encountered organisms include , Jellyfish, salps, and Chaetognatha in coastal waters. However, almost all marine phyla, including Annelida, Mollusca and Arthropoda, contain gelatinous species, but many of those odd species live in the open ocean and the deep sea and are less available to the casual ocean observer.[ (2007) The Deep. University of Chicago Press.]
Ichthyoplankton
Ichthyoplankton are the Fish eggs and larvae of fish. They are mostly found in the sunlit zone of the water column, less than 200 metres deep, which is sometimes called the epipelagic or photic zone. Ichthyoplankton are planktonic, meaning they cannot swim effectively under their own power, but must drift with the ocean currents. Fish eggs cannot swim at all, and are unambiguously planktonic. Early stage larvae swim poorly, but later stage larvae swim better and cease to be planktonic as they grow into Juvenile fish. Fish larvae are part of the zooplankton that eat smaller plankton, while fish eggs carry their own food supply. Both eggs and larvae are themselves eaten by larger animals.[ What are Ichthyoplankton? Southwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA. Modified 3 September 2007. Retrieved 22 July 2011.]
Pseudoplankton
Pseudoplankton are organisms that attach themselves to planktonic organisms or other floating objects, such as drifting wood, buoyant shells of organisms such as Spirula, or man-made flotsam. Examples include and the bryozoan Jellyella. By themselves these animals cannot Buoyancy, which contrasts them with true planktonic organisms, such as Velella and the Portuguese Man o' War, which are buoyant. Pseudoplankton are often found in the guts of filtering Zooplankton.
Tychoplankton
Tychoplankton are organisms, such as free-living or attached Benthos and other non-planktonic organisms, that are carried into the plankton through a disturbance of their benthic habitat, or by winds and currents.
Mineralized plankton
File:Diatom Helipelta metil.jpg| have glass shells () and produce much of the world's oxygen.
File:Haeckel Spumellaria detail.png| The elaborate silica shells of microscopic marine radiolarians can eventually produce opal.
File:Coccolithus pelagicus.jpg| have chalk plates called coccoliths, and produced the Cliffs of Dover.
File:Planktic Foraminifera of the northern Gulf of Mexico.jpg| have calcium carbonate shells and produced the limestone in the Great Pyramids.
Ecological processes
Food web
As well as representing the lower levels of a food chain that supports commercially important Fishery, plankton play a role in the biogeochemical cycles of many important , including the ocean's carbon cycle.
Microbial loop: Bacteria play central roles in aquatic food webs. The microbial loop refers to a process in aquatic ecosystems where bacteria consume dissolved organic matter (DOM) and are then consumed by larger microorganisms, effectively cycling nutrients and energy within the ecosystem.[
]
Viral shunt: Viruses also play central roles in aquatic food webs. The viral shunt is a process where viruses infect and Lysis (burst) host cells, releasing cellular contents (including dissolved organic matter) that can be utilized by other microplankton like bacteria, effectively bypassing the traditional food web pathways. This process plays a significant role in nutrient cycling and carbon flow within aquatic ecosystems.[
]
Mycoloop: Fungi have a role as well. The mycoloop is a specific aquatic food web pathway where parasitic chytrid infect large, inedible phytoplankton, and their (a type of spore) become a food source for zooplankton. In this manner, the chytrid fungi transfer nutrients from otherwise unusable phytoplankton to zooplankton.[
]
Carbon cycle
Primarily by grazing on phytoplankton, zooplankton provide carbon to the planktic foodweb, either respiring it to provide metabolism energy, or upon death as biomass or detritus. Organic material tends to be density than seawater, so it sinks into open ocean ecosystems away from the coastlines, transporting carbon along with it. This process, called the biological pump, is one reason that oceans constitute the largest carbon sink on Earth science. However, it has been shown to be influenced by increments of temperature.
It might be possible to increase the ocean's uptake of carbon dioxide () generated through human activities by increasing plankton production through iron fertilization – introducing amounts of iron into the ocean. However, this technique may not be practical at a large scale. Ocean oxygen depletion and resultant methanogen (caused by the excess production remineralisation at depth) is one potential drawback.
Oxygen production
Phytoplankton absorb energy from the Sun and nutrients from the water to produce their own nourishment or energy. In the process of photosynthesis, phytoplankton release molecular oxygen () into the water as a waste byproduct. It is estimated that about 50% of the world's oxygen is produced via phytoplankton photosynthesis.[ Furthermore, phytoplankton photosynthesis has controlled the atmospheric / balance since the early Precambrian Eon.]
Absorption efficiency
The absorption efficiency (AE) of plankton is the proportion of food absorbed by the plankton that determines how available the consumed organic materials are in meeting the required physiological demands.
Biomass variability
The growth of phytoplankton populations is dependent on light levels and nutrient availability. The chief factor limiting growth varies from region to region in the world's oceans. On a broad scale, growth of phytoplankton in the oligotrophic tropical and subtropical gyres is generally limited by nutrient supply, while light often limits phytoplankton growth in subarctic gyres. Environmental variability at multiple scales influences the nutrient and light available for phytoplankton, and as these organisms form the base of the marine food web, this variability in phytoplankton growth influences higher trophic levels. For example, at interannual scales phytoplankton levels temporarily plummet during El Niño periods, influencing populations of zooplankton, fishes, sea birds, and .
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.
Planktonic relationships
Fish and plankton
Zooplankton are the initial prey item for almost all as they switch from their to external feeding. Fish rely on the density and distribution of zooplankton to match that of new larvae, which can otherwise starve. Natural factors (e.g., current variations, temperature changes) and man-made factors (e.g. river dams, ocean acidification, rising temperatures) can strongly affect zooplankton populations, which can in turn strongly affect fish larval survival, and therefore breeding success.
It has been shown that plankton can be patchy in marine environments where there aren't significant fish populations and additionally, where fish are abundant, zooplankton dynamics are influenced by the fish predation rate in their environment. Depending on the predation rate, they could express regular or chaotic behavior.
A negative effect that fish larvae can have on planktonic algal blooms is that the larvae will prolong the blooming event by diminishing available zooplankton numbers; this in turn permits excessive phytoplankton growth allowing the bloom to flourish .[
]
The importance of both phytoplankton and zooplankton is also well-recognized in extensive and semi-intensive pond fish farming. Plankton population-based pond management strategies for fish rearing have been practiced by traditional fish farmers for decades, illustrating the importance of plankton even in man-made environments.
Whales and plankton
Of all animal fecal matter, it is whale feces that is the 'trophy' in terms of increasing nutrient availability. Phytoplankton are the powerhouse of open ocean primary production and they can acquire many nutrients from whale feces.
Humans and plankton
Plankton have many direct and indirect effects on humans.
Around 70% of the oxygen in the atmosphere is produced in the oceans from phytoplankton performing photosynthesis, meaning that the majority of the oxygen available for us and other organisms that respire aerobically is produced by plankton.
Plankton also make up the base of the marine food web, providing food for all the trophic levels above. Recent studies have analyzed the marine food web to see if the system runs on a top-down or bottom-up approach. Essentially, this research is focused on understanding whether changes in the food web are driven by nutrients at the bottom of the food web or predators at the top. The general conclusion is that the bottom-up approach seemed to be more predictive of food web behavior.
In some cases, plankton act as an intermediate host for deadly parasites in humans. One such case is that of cholera, an infection caused by several pathogenic strains of Vibrio cholerae. These species have been shown to have a symbiotic relationship with chitinous zooplankton species like . These bacteria benefit not only from the food provided by the chiton from the zooplankton, but also from the protection from acidic environments. Once the copepods have been ingested by a human host, the chitinous exterior protects the bacteria from the stomach acids in the stomach and proceed to the intestines. Once there, the bacteria bind with the surface of the small intestine and the host will start developing symptoms, including extreme diarrhea, within five days.
See also
Further reading
-
Kirby, Richard R. (2010). Ocean Drifters: A Secret World Beneath the Waves. Studio Cactus Ltd, UK. .
-
Dusenbery, David B. (2009). Living at Micro Scale: The Unexpected Physics of Being Small. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts .
-
Kiørboe, Thomas (2008). A Mechanistic Approach to Plankton Ecology. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. .
-
Dolan, J.R., Agatha, S., Coats, D.W., Montagnes, D.J.S., Stocker, D.K., eds. (2013). Biology and Ecology of Tintinnid Ciliates: Models for Marine Plankton. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK .
External links
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Plankton, planktic, planktonic – Essays on nomenclature
