Nekton

Nekton or necton (from the

The term was first proposed and used by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel in 1891 in his article Plankton-Studien where he contrasted it with plankton, the aggregate of passively floating, drifting, or somewhat motile organisms present in a body of water, primarily tiny algae and bacteria, small eggs and larvae of marine organisms, and protozoa and other minute consumers. Today it is sometimes considered an obsolete term because it often does not allow for the meaningful quantifiable distinction between these two groups. The colonization of water column is extremely crucial and important for the evolution of marine animals. During the Devonian Nekton Revolution (DNR) well known as the ‘age of fishes’ accounted more than eighty-five percent of nekton were widespread during the Carboniferous period, that took place during the Paleozoic era. Some biologists no longer use it.^[1][2]

Definition

As a guideline, nekton are larger and tend to swim largely at biologically high

Oceanic nekton comprises animals largely from three clades:

• Vertebrates form the largest contribution; these animals are supported by either bones or cartilage
  .
• Mollusks are animals such as squids and scallops.
• lobsters and crabs
  .

• Neuston (organisms, including microscopic, living at the surface of the water)
• Plankton (organisms, including microscopic, floating and drifting within water)
• Benthos (organisms, including microscopic, living at the bottom of a body of water)
• Pelagic fish (fish living in the pelagic zone of ocean or lake waters – living neither close to the bottom nor near the shore)

References

External links

Look up nekton in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Stefan Nehring and Ute Albrecht (1997): "Hell und das redundante Benthon: Neologismen in der deutschsprachigen Limnologie". In: Lauterbornia H. 31: 17-30, Dinkelscherben, December 1997 E-Text (PDF-Datei)