why study zooplankton?
Before I answer “why”, I must define the term “zooplankton”. Marine organisms can be categorized as benthic, planktonic or nektonic depending on their physical habitat and their mode of motility. Planktonic organisms are those that live suspended in the water column and that are sufficiently small and/or slow so as to be incapable of directed swimming. Thus, their distribution is considered to be controlled by physical processes, such as water currents and turbulent mixing. In addition, plankton can be divided further based on their nutritional modality. Autotrophic phytoplankton depend on light and chlorophyll to fix carbon dioxide into organic molecules, whereas heterotrophic zooplankton ultimately depend on the phytoplankton for their dissolved or particulate foodstuffs. Marine organisms form a continuous size distribution from single-celled bacteria, ca. 5-10-1 mm in diameter, to multi-cellular whales, with an equivalent spherical diameter of 8.6 x 106 mm. This protocol will focus
