zooplankton
the aggregate of animal or animallike organisms in plankton, as protozoans.
Origin of zooplankton
1- Compare phytoplankton.
Words Nearby zooplankton
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use zooplankton in a sentence
It’s so large, he notes, that whale sharks and the zooplankton that they also eat seem to occupy similar rungs on the marine food chain, both just one rung above the phytoplankton they both feast upon.
Millions of salmon travelled up to 60 miles a day, fending off predators and feeding on zooplankton and small fish.
Like other tiny zooplankton, copepods use light as a cue to plunge en masse to the dark deep, seeking safety from surface predators.
Night lights make even the seas bright | Carolyn Gramling | April 27, 2022 | Science News For StudentsThey are food for the zooplankton, which are food for the krill, the fish and the whales.
Sylvia Earle Doesn't Just Want to Save the Oceans. She Wants to Make Them Accessible to All | Aryn Baker | November 6, 2021 | TimeWe could soon see the loss of zooplankton and small fish crucial to our seafood supply, a subject that Washington-based researcher Sonya Dyhrman has explored while showing how vulnerable our food chain is to climate change.
British Dictionary definitions for zooplankton
/ (ˌzəʊəˈplæŋktən) /
the animal constituent of plankton, which consists mainly of small crustaceans and fish larvae: Compare phytoplankton
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for zooplankton
[ zō′ə-plăngk′tən ]
Plankton that consists of tiny animals, such as rotifers, copepods, and krill, and of microorganisms once classified as animals, such as dinoflagellates and other protozoans.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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