the.com/plankton
the drifters that can't swim against the current yet rule the entire ocean food web
means Plankton are the tiny organisms — plants, animals, and microbes — that drift along in the water without the power to swim against currents, forming the foundation of aquatic food webs.
from From the Greek 'planktos,' meaning 'wandering' or 'drifting,' itself from 'plazesthai,' to wander or be carried about. The German scientist Victor Hensen brought it into scientific use in the late 19th century to name these creatures that go wherever the water takes them — fittingly, a word for drifters that itself drifted from ancient Greek into modern biology.
- oxygen factory
- Produces roughly half of Earth's oxygen
- name origin
- Greek for wanderer or drifter
- size range
- Spans viruses to jellyfish meters wide
- carbon sink
- Sinking plankton buries carbon for millennia
- glowing tides
- Some species light up waves bright blue
copepods — most abundant zooplankton on earth, comprising ~40% of ocean biomass
krill antarctic ocean — euphausia superba, foundation species supporting 150+ million tons of ocean life in antarctic