plankto-, plankt-, -plankton
(Greek: passively drifting, wandering, or roaming)
An individual component, usually a plankton, that has been snarled up in a mass of vegetation near the shoreline: While James and Diana were enjoying their walk along the seaside, they saw tychoplanktonts all entangled together in the accumulation of plants at the side of the lake.
Another term for nanoplankton which are very tiny plankton: Ultraplankton, also termed picoplankton, are so minute that they can pass through a fine mesh net because they are only 2 to 20 micrometers in size.
A collective term for the wide variety of microscopic animal organisms that float or drift freely in water because they have little or no ability to determine their own movement: Zooplankters are found worldwide in both aquatic or marine environments, and they represent the basic level of many feeding relationships in the oceans.
The biological study of tiny creatures that exist in oceans: Since Peter was so interested in small lifeforms of the sea, he decided to study zooplanktology and work later as a scientist.
1. Floating animal organisms collectively: Tiny creatures, or zooplankton, consist of rotifers, copepods, and krill, or microorganisms once classified as animals, such as dinoflagellates and other protozoans.
2. A small animal organism present in natural waters: The majority of zooplankton are little crustaceans, for example, copepods and krill, arrowworms, and gelatinous creatures that feed primarily on phytoplankton.
3. Microscopic animals that move passively in aquatic ecosystems, such as, protozoans: To the zooplankton belong the protozoa, the sea anemones, the corals, and the incredibly shaped jellyfishes.
4. Microscopic drifting lifeforms much of which live on or near the surface of the water, but some are at greater depths: The zoologist was studying zooplankton and the nutritional requirements and efficiencies of food conversion of marine animals, or zooplankters, feeding on marine phytoplankters or on other small animals.
2. A small animal organism present in natural waters: The majority of zooplankton are little crustaceans, for example, copepods and krill, arrowworms, and gelatinous creatures that feed primarily on phytoplankton.
3. Microscopic animals that move passively in aquatic ecosystems, such as, protozoans: To the zooplankton belong the protozoa, the sea anemones, the corals, and the incredibly shaped jellyfishes.
4. Microscopic drifting lifeforms much of which live on or near the surface of the water, but some are at greater depths: The zoologist was studying zooplankton and the nutritional requirements and efficiencies of food conversion of marine animals, or zooplankters, feeding on marine phytoplankters or on other small animals.
zooplanktonic (adjective) (not comparable)
Pertaining to animals that float in aquatic environments, such as oceans: Zooplanktonic creatures are kept in suspension by water turbulence and dispersed more by such water movements than by their own efforts.
For more details about planktonic life, see Plankton Varieties.
Inter-related cross references, directly or indirectly, involving the "sea" and the "ocean" bodies of water: abysso- (bottomless); Atlantic; batho-, bathy- (depth); bentho- (deep, depth); halio-, halo- (salt or "the sea"); mare, mari- (sea); necto-, nekto- (swimming); oceano-; pelago- (sea, ocean); thalasso- (sea, ocean).
