Zooplankton Facts: The Incredible Influencers Of The Marine Ecosystem

Zooplankton is an organism that is sensitive to outside environmental factors. 

These microscopic plants are small animals that live in the water column of all water bodies. Those water bodies include oceans, ponds, and lakes, but zooplanktons cannot survive in streams. 

Zooplankton range in different sizes and includes the different larval stages of animals like fish and mussels. In fact, zooplankton species can occupy the center of the marine food web.

They prey upon insects, predator fish, arrow worms, and other plankton organisms. Planktons are the marine drifter's organisms, often the unseen heroes of water ecosystems that provide food to various species.

There are two types of plankton named phytoplankton: plants and zooplankton. Other small marine organisms and zooplankton feed on phytoplankton, and then they themselves become food for crustaceans, fish, and other larger species of the water.

This is one of the major threats they face and have their own feeding strategies to help keep them safe. If you thought you knew a little about phytoplankton and zooplanktons, then this article will give you in-depth information about some extra information you might not be aware of.

If you found this article interesting then you may also like to read about Baltic sea facts and the Greenland sea.

Importance And Role Of Zooplankton

Zooplankton populations and phytoplankton populations of the entire world both are important elements of the aquatic food chain. They are the intermediary species in the marine food web and transfer energy from planktonic algae to larger invertebrate predators.

Zooplanktons are also very sensitive to distinct changes in aquatic ecosystems. Besides that, they also play a very vital role by acting as a trophic bridge between primary producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, and other organisms of the marine ecosystem and freshwater ecosystems.

Both phytoplankton and zooplankton are the main foundation of the aquatic food web. The growth of phytoplankton depends upon the availability of carbon dioxide, and zooplanktons are dependent on phytoplankton as their food source.

Every zooplankton also plays an important role in recycling nutrients into fresh water lakes.

They support larger animals by supplying the energy from primary production to fish, birds, and mammals. They're not harvested, meaning they have little control over their movement which impacts their life spans.

When we talk of herbivorous zooplankton, they are efficient grazers of the phytoplanktons, and thus they have been referred to as the living machines that transform plant material into animal tissue.

Apart from this, they're also used as indicator organisms, as they can tell the condition of the water for the aquatic ecosystem's chemical, physical, and biological processes. Zooplankton, therefore, plays an important role in marine life, including larger animals.

Holoplankton And Meroplankton

You may have heard of holoplankton and meroplankton. Meroplankton is plankton that lives only during the larval stage, while holoplankton is plankton that lives through all the stages of their lives.

They can either be zooplankton or phytoplankton. The key difference between them is that they are from two other zooplankton groups. Sometimes these two organic species are also referred to two other names, where meroplankton is called temporary zooplankton, and holoplankton is named as permanent zooplanktons.

Meroplankton remains as plankton only for a part of their lives. They develop the ability to swim and qualify as nekton and are thus called the temporary residents of the water column.

Examples of meroplankton are known as mollusc larvae, shrimp, starfish, urchins, fish larvae, polychaete worms, etc. On the other hand, as previously mentioned, holoplankton remain planktonic throughout their entire lifecycle.

Because of the character of these tiny animals, they tend to remain in the water column their whole life. Some examples of holoplankton are jellyfish, mollusks, and arrow warms.

Zooplankton Body Shapes

Zooplankton is a heterotrophic plankton species that ranges from microscopic organisms to different large species. There are different types of zooplankton, and every zooplankton has its own body and transparent body shape that differentiates it from one another.

Most of these small animals are rounded and single-celled, so this is the reason they can float. Some organisms like jellyfish have soft transparent bodies that are more than a foot long.

One interesting thing about their body shape is that most of them have a flat body and spines that help them resist sinking by increasing the surface area of their bodies and minimizing the volume. As they are microscopic animals, not much can say about their body shape.

But the size of zooplankton is a maximum of 5000 micrometers which is 0.2 in (5 mm).

Due to their unique body shape and inner links with the surrounding environment, they can demonstrate as well as suspect environmental disturbances in their population when an issue occurs in biological conditions like eutrophication. This is the reason why they're known as the potential indicators of water chemistry and changes.

Again when we talk of holoplankton, then one of their unique traits, like body mass, makes the reproduction process in the water possible for them. Besides that, these tiny animals are not strong swimmers.

They have developed special defenses to protect themselves from predators, typically larger fish. Unlike meroplankton, which is mostly in larval stages and thus they are an important part of freshwater lakes and freshwater ecosystems.

Zooplankton Reproduction And Behavior

Zooplankton species are an organism that can reproduce both sexually and asexually depending on the other species. Holoplankton generally reproduces through asexual reproduction by cell division, where one cell divides itself into two halves in order to produce two cells, and the process goes on.

When we talk of reproduction in plankton, then sexual reproduction is generally found in a wide range of planktonic organisms.

Some of the planktonic organisms actually release sperm into the pond lake or any other area. The adult females take those sperm to fertilize their eggs.

In some cases, these animals or organisms develop reproductive body parts that break off and swim into the column. Sexual reproduction does occur in planktonic form, but it is very unlikely to be possible in marine invertebrates.

When we talk of behavior, they exhibit small-scale motile behaviors associated with feeding and different mating activities. Zoo plankton also shows light dependant behavior as the climate changes. They adapt to various mechanisms to float in the water column and also to protect themselves from predation.

For example, some planktons develop skies that protect them and allow better surface area for flotation. This is also the reason why zooplankton is known as the most abundant group of animals in the world's oceans.

Ethics And Deep-Sea Mining

Deep-sea mining first began during the '60s. This is because miners discovered the deep sea as a potential active alternative source for the extraction of metals and various other minerals.

Deep-sea mining is the term used to talk about the process of collection of metal-rich resources from the deep seafloor using different technologies. This process of mineral extraction is still in the developmental stage and there is currently no commercial activity.

We also know that there is no way of extracting metals from the deep sea with no harsh, harmful effects on marine ecosystems.

That's also the reason why there have been ethical and moral discussions with regard to sea mining so that harm isn't done to our marine population and our ecosystem remains protected.

Various seabed authorities responsible for different regions first have to approve the environmental management and monitoring plan keeping in mind that any deep-sea activity will not be responsible for the harm of the marine life. There are also many series of studies that actually identify how the environment will be impacted by deep-sea mining.

To avoid negative impacts to the environment thorough research and apt calculations need to occur in order to bring out effective management of the industry.

Using ethical reasoning, informed decision processes and scientific knowledge-based approach is important for the protection of the environment when it comes to sea-mining in the long term.

We hope you learnt a lot from this article about microscopic plants and animals species, how do they live in different environmental conditions, their biological condition, their importance in the food chain, and lots more of other zooplankton facts. Finally, we can say zooplankton or filter-feeding organism is one critical element of our environment, especially for the food chain.

We should aim to protect them given how important they are to the marine ecosystem.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for zooplankton facts, then why not take a look at the fastest sea animal or the difference between ocean and sea.