ZOOPLANKTON

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does zooplankton mean? 

• ZOOPLANKTON (noun)
  The noun ZOOPLANKTON has 1 sense:

1. animal constituent of plankton; mainly small crustaceans and fish larvae

  Familiarity information: ZOOPLANKTON used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ZOOPLANKTON (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Animal constituent of plankton; mainly small crustaceans and fish larvae

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("zooplankton" is a kind of...):

animal; animate being; beast; brute; creature; fauna (a living organism characterized by voluntary movement)

Holonyms ("zooplankton" is a member of...):

plankton (the aggregate of small plant and animal organisms that float or drift in great numbers in fresh or salt water)

 Context examples 

Most studies of zooplankton's role have assumed that behavior of particular zooplankton groups is representative of all zooplankton in the sea.

(Research provides new view of the critical role of plankton in marine carbon storage, National Science Foundation)

Marine zooplankton that passively float or weakly swim, and have calcium carbonate skeletons that are present in large numbers on the surface of the ocean.

(Planktonic Foraminifera, NOAA Paleoclimate Glossary)

A zooplankton that consumes a microscopic piece of microplastic filled with PAHs may be eaten by a larger organism, which in turn feeds others of increasing size until the pollutant reaches larger predators fished and consumed by humans.

(Microplastic pollution adds to oceans’ problems, scidev.net)

Hungry zooplankton hundreds of meters below the surface often consume carbon-rich particles sinking toward the ocean floor, interrupting the transport process.

(Research provides new view of the critical role of plankton in marine carbon storage, National Science Foundation)

"However, some zooplankton also feed on those sinking particles, thus decreasing the efficiency of that pump."

(Research provides new view of the critical role of plankton in marine carbon storage, National Science Foundation)

In three studies of the biological carbon pump — the process by which carbon dioxide is produced by photosynthetic algae in the surface ocean and transferred to the seafloor and stored for millennia — biological oceanographer Mike Stukel and his collaborators found that microscopic zooplankton play critical, often underappreciated roles in transporting and holding carbon.

(Research provides new view of the critical role of plankton in marine carbon storage, National Science Foundation)