OCE 1001

Chapter 13
Pelagic Communities - Plankton
Study Guide
This study guide will assist you in concentrating on the areas that may be on your exam.
It is NOT a replacement for knowing the information contained in your notes or in the
chapters in your textbook.
You should know

The definition of and difference between a community, population, habitat, and

niche
Pelagic vs benthic
o Where the pelagic zone is in the ocean
o Where the benthic zone is in the ocean
o The difference between pelagic and benthic environments enough to be
able to identify whether an organism is pelagic or benthic given an
organism or a list of organisms
The definition for plankton
The general name given to algae plankton versus animal plankton
Phytoplankton
o What phytoplankton are
o The relationship of phytoplankton to marine algae
o Whether they are autotrophs or heterotrophs
o Whether they are considered vascular or non-vascular
o What size they mostly are
o Their relative importance to the marine food web
o Which part of the water column of the ocean they typically live in
o How they contribute to the atmospheric oxygen levels
o Picoplankton
What picoplankton are
How their size compares to the other groups of phytoplankton
o Diatoms
What diatoms are
What their rigid cell walls are composed of
o Dinoflagellates
What dinoflagellates are
What kind of tropical organism dinoflagellates live within the
tissue of
What a HAB is and how dinoflagellates contribute to them
What bioluminescence is and what these species have to do with
bioluminescence

o Coccolithophores
What coccolithophores are
What theyre covered with that makes them important to ocean
floor sediments
What color the water appears to be when large quantities of these
are blooming
Zooplankton
o What zooplankton are
o Whether they are considered animals or plants
o The name for zooplankton that live their whole life cycle as plankton
o The name for zooplankton that live as plankton only during their juvenile
stage
o Copepods
What copepods are
How their abundance and distribution compares to other
zooplankton
o Krill
What krill are
Where they are found
Why they are considered the keystone to the Antarctic ecosystem