Plankton Vocabulary

4. Level: The position an organism occupies in a food chain, indicating its feeding relationship
5. Free-swimming aquatic organisms, such as fish and squid, capable of active movement.
7. The depth in the water column where the rate of photosynthesis equals the rate of
8. Tide: A bloom of harmful, often toxic, phytoplankton that can lead to the discoloration of water.
12. Zooplankton that remain in the planktonic phase throughout their entire life cycle. Critical
14. other organisms.
16. Unicellular algae that can be both phytoplankton and sometimes bioluminescent.
17. Small animals that feed on phytoplankton or other zooplankton.
18. Planktonic organisms that spend only a part of their life cycle as plankton.
19. Microscopic organisms that drift or float in aquatic environments.
20. Pertaining to the bottom of a body of water; organisms living on or in the substrate.

1. Organisms that produce their own food through processes like photosynthesis.
2. A close and long-term interaction between different biological species.
3. Larger-sized plankton, visible under a microscope.
5. Extremely small-sized plankton, smaller than microplankton.
6. Organisms that obtain their energy by consuming other organisms.
9. A type of phytoplankton with a silica-based cell wall, often shaped like a glass shell.
10. Microscopic, photosynthetic organisms that form the base of the aquatic food chain.
11. Small crustaceans that are a common type of zooplankton.
13. Planktonic organisms that spend their entire life cycle in the planktonic phase.
15. A rapid increase in the population of planktonic organisms, often causing discoloration of the