How to Use plankton in a Sentence

plankton

noun
Definition of planktonnext
  • The abundance of certain types of plankton and krill, at the base of the ocean food chain, is linked with the Antarctic sea ice.
    — Jonathan M. Gitlin, Ars Technica, 6 July 2023
  • Will a plankton bloom help bring Delta smelt back from the brink?
    — Ryan Sabalow, sacbee, 13 Feb. 2018
  • Many fish are drawn to light with the promise of plankton, and spring right from the water to land in the boat.
    — Matt Hrodey, Discover Magazine, 29 May 2023
  • The blooms, in turn, attract plankton, a favorite prey of manta rays.
    — Christopher Pala, Science | AAAS, 21 Sep. 2017
  • Krill eat the plankton, whales eat the krill, the whales poop, the phytoplankton bloom and the cycle continues.
    — Ben Guarino, Anchorage Daily News, 4 Nov. 2019
  • As the rest of the world’s oceans warm as well, coldwater fish, crustaceans and plankton are moving north to the Arctic.
    — Wired, 4 Dec. 2019
  • Krill is sort of a plankton soup – the primary food of humpbacks and other baleen whales.
    — Sacbee, sacbee.com, 11 May 2017
  • The comb jellies, also called ctenophores, munch on tiny plankton along with fish eggs and larvae.
    — Theresa MacHemer, Smithsonian Magazine, 11 May 2020
  • His business gets as many as 9,000 customers a year for kayak tours to see manatees and glow-in-the-dark plankton.
    — Jason Dearen and Mike Schneider, The Christian Science Monitor, 4 May 2017
  • The idea here is to fertilize the oceans with iron to stimulate algae and plankton blooms.
    — USA Today, 24 Dec. 2019
  • The daily vertical migration of plankton from the ocean depths to the surface to feed may be the largest of its kind—at least in terms of biomass.
    — National Geographic, 17 June 2017
  • The daily vertical migration of plankton from the ocean depths to the surface to feed may be the largest of its kind—at least in terms of biomass.
    — National Geographic, 17 June 2017
  • The team sampled three types of coral, two species of fish and plankton from 99 reefs across 32 Pacific islands.
    — Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine, 26 June 2023
  • When waves sweep plankton onto reefs, the fish devour them and in turn are eaten by larger fish.
    — Popular Science, 10 Dec. 2019
  • The shad usually gather in open water at this time of year, coming to the surface at dawn and dusk to feed on plankton.
    — Frank Sargeant, AL.com, 30 Aug. 2017
  • The ocean was never that acidic, however, so the plankton shells would have dissolved much slower, and there would have been no fizz.
    — National Geographic, 16 Jan. 2020
  • Magni had explained to the class that clothes can retain traces of plankton, sediment and soil.
    — Jordan Michael Smith, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 Jan. 2024
  • The ocean is becoming more acidic, which threatens some plankton.
    — James Gorman, New York Times, 22 Mar. 2018
  • The mussels feed on microscopic plankton - the base of the food chain that supports forage species such as threadfin shad.
    — Shannon Tompkins, Houston Chronicle, 3 Mar. 2018
  • Domoic acid travels up the food chain — from the plankton that eat the algae to squid and shellfish to the larger marine mammals that then eat them.
    — Emily Alvarenga, San Diego Union-Tribune, 5 Aug. 2023
  • But not to worry – the strange creature eats tiny plankton and has no interest in human faces.
    — Matt Hrodey, Discover Magazine, 18 Aug. 2023
  • The pigments, which come from algae and plankton, imbue his slabs and chunks of wood with an otherworldly light best viewed in the dark.
    — Cate McQuaid, BostonGlobe.com, 11 July 2018
  • The element is a fundamental part of DNA and is present in the bones of mammals, cell membranes and ocean-dwelling plankton.
    — Simrin Singh, CBS News, 14 June 2023
  • But other salmon, like sockeye, need streams that lead up to lakes, and food in the water that feeds their babies, like plankton or insects.
    — Lesley Evans Ogden, Discover Magazine, 7 Apr. 2023
  • Humpbacks are baleen whales, feeding on tiny crustaceans, like krill, along with plankton and small fish, trapping them in the filters in their mouths.
    — Dana Hedgpeth, Washington Post, 28 Apr. 2017
  • Blast fishing kills the entire food chain, including plankton, fish both large and small, and the juveniles that do not grow old enough to spawn.
    — Aurora Almendral, New York Times, 15 June 2018
  • Despite their size — up to around 25 feet across — manta rays only eat plankton, shellfish and small fish.
    — NBC News, 12 July 2019
  • To measure the movement of the plankton, Fram used bioacuoustic sonar equipment that is stationed off the Oregon coast.
    — Deborah Netburn, latimes.com, 24 Aug. 2017
  • For over a decade, Shedd has cultured plankton in-house to feed and nourish tens of thousands of animals on site daily.
    — Adriana Pérez, Chicago Tribune, 7 July 2023
  • Diffusion spread the iron beyond the monitored test zone, and the patch was so small that plankton grazers swooped in freely from the sides, gobbling up the green buffet.
    — Charles Graeber, WIRED, 1 Nov. 2000

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'plankton.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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