How to Use plankton in a Sentence

plankton

noun
  • That said, the plankton don't just get stuck against the teeth.
    — New Atlas, 5 Dec. 2025
  • 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
  • The comb jellies, also called ctenophores, munch on tiny plankton along with fish eggs and larvae.
    — Theresa MacHemer, Smithsonian Magazine, 11 May 2020
  • The ocean is becoming more acidic, which threatens some plankton.
    — James Gorman, New York Times, 22 Mar. 2018
  • The zooids start as a single larva floating in the water among the plankton.
    — Ashley MacKin Solomon, San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 Oct. 2025
  • Krill is sort of a plankton soup – the primary food of humpbacks and other baleen whales.
    — Sacbee, sacbee.com, 11 May 2017
  • When waves sweep plankton onto reefs, the fish devour them and in turn are eaten by larger fish.
    — Popular Science, 10 Dec. 2019
  • The idea here is to fertilize the oceans with iron to stimulate algae and plankton blooms.
    — USA Today, 24 Dec. 2019
  • But not to worry – the strange creature eats tiny plankton and has no interest in human faces.
    — Matt Hrodey, Discover Magazine, 18 Aug. 2023
  • Ocean bivalves, for instance, help clean up toxic spills, and even tiny ocean plankton help form rain-bearing clouds.
    — The Economist, 30 Dec. 2019
  • The guides use specialized lights to attract plankton, which draw in manta rays for a closer look.
    — Kait Hanson, Travel + Leisure, 16 May 2026
  • 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 fish eat the toxic plankton, and the marine mammals and birds eat the poisonous fish, say experts.
    — Susanne Rust, Los Angeles Times, 26 Mar. 2025
  • Yet science knows little about the complex dynamics of plankton on ocean-wide scales.
    — Matt Simon, WIRED, 22 Mar. 2018
  • 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
  • The blob is responsible for toxic algae blooms that kill plankton, a key food source for marine life.
    — Jonathan Vigliotti, CBS News, 16 Sep. 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
  • Despite their size — up to around 25 feet across — manta rays only eat plankton, shellfish and small fish.
    — NBC News, 12 July 2019
  • The creatures are scavengers feeding on the seafloor and plankton as well as algae and waste particles.
    — Ashley J. Dimella, FOXNews.com, 22 Oct. 2025
  • Food, according to the plot, is by then nominally plankton-based.
    — Daniel Moss, Twin Cities, 12 Apr. 2026
  • 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
  • This process starts with adding food for the feeder fish including algae, plankton and aquatic insects.
    — Matthew Cupelli, Cincinnati Enquirer, 19 Mar. 2026
  • These giant, but harmless, creatures are attracted by the lights, which in turn attract the plankton the rays dine on.
    — Ben Davidson, Mercury News, 16 Mar. 2026
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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

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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