How to Use zooplankton in a Sentence

zooplankton

noun
  • But the zooplankton that adult right whales eat does not grow much in these places.
    — Lela Nargi, Washington Post, 4 July 2022
  • Copepods, a type of zooplankton that eats algae, will lose their source of food.
    — Washington Post, 14 Aug. 2017
  • Bugs and zooplankton that provide a feast for the young salmon feed on abundant algae there.
    — Carolyn Wilke, sacbee.com, 23 June 2017
  • Throngs of zooplankton and krill would gather to feast on the nutrients.
    — Nicholas St. Fleur, New York Times, 24 May 2017
  • But if these morsels are missing, jellyfish can eat tiny zooplankton — or even just feed on ooze.
    — Carl Zimmer, The Seattle Times, 26 Oct. 2018
  • The team also used sonar to measure the amount of zooplankton in the area following a blast.
    — National Geographic, 23 June 2017
  • And then the larger predators like fish that eat the zooplankton will be impacted, on up the food chain.
    — Matt Simon, WIRED, 8 Feb. 2024
  • Long roots create shelter for fish and insects and provide a home for zooplankton.
    — Jacob Wycoff, CBS News, 17 Apr. 2026
  • There are more salt-tolerant zooplankton species now than there were before road salt was widely used.
    — Jamie Summers, Philly.com, 8 Dec. 2017
  • This should allow researchers to see how much the sun has to dim to affect changes in the zooplankton’s movements.
    — Deborah Netburn, The Seattle Times, 13 Aug. 2017
  • Loud noise can flat out kill zooplankton, tiny creatures that help support the global marine-food web.
    — Marguerite Holloway, The New Yorker, 31 Aug. 2021
  • Their short, fine tentacles help capture prey such as zooplankton and small crustaceans.
    — Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 20 Aug. 2025
  • During the day vulnerable zooplankton hide from predators such as squid and fish in the dark depths.
    — Katherine Harmon Courage, Scientific American, 1 Aug. 2022
  • The team hypothesized that the zooplankton might play a role in clearing up dirty water.
    — Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 3 Oct. 2024
  • Those blooms feed zooplankton, which feed small fish, which feed larger fish like the walleye Feiner hopes to find.
    — Berly McCoy, NPR, 2 Mar. 2026
  • For the zooplankton, eating glowing bacteria is a tricky trade-off.
    — Ed Yong, Discover Magazine, 26 Dec. 2011
  • Another idea is to boost the numbers of zooplankton in ponds where amphibians breed.
    — Erik Stokstad, Science | AAAS, 19 July 2017
  • Because acidification of the ocean harms the zooplankton in the food chain, which feeds salmon.
    — Alaska Dispatch News, 23 Oct. 2017
  • Seabirds feed on small, cold-water fish and zooplankton — small organisms that play a vital role in marine food chains.
    — Jennifer Walter, Discover Magazine, 29 May 2019
  • Fram said zooplankton typically move toward the surface of the ocean at night.
    — Andrew Theen, OregonLive.com, 20 Aug. 2017
  • But as the distribution of copepods, the zooplankton that are the whales’ main food source, shifted north, so too did the whales.
    — Nick Hawkins, National Geographic, 11 July 2019
  • Roughly the size of a starling, the little auk is a seabird that feasts almost entirely on tiny zooplankton.
    — Discover Magazine, 24 July 2017
  • Bighead carp also eat zooplankton too, thinning the diet of native fish.
    — Keenan Thomas, The Tennessean, 25 Mar. 2024
  • But Damman knew the local waters had abundant insect life and zooplankton to provide food for fish.
    — Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 16 Dec. 2017
  • In the study, all immature krill were killed, and some zooplankton species decreased in number above 95%.
    — Gabriella Sotelo, Treehugger, 14 July 2023
  • From the largest whales to the smallest zooplankton, everything is eating plastic.
    — Rowan Jacobsen, Outside Online, 8 Aug. 2019
  • And the adventurous zooplankton are not alone in the nightly commute.
    — Katherine Harmon Courage, Scientific American, 1 Aug. 2022
  • All of their stomachs contained traces of gelatinous zooplankton, and three had bellies full of jellyfish.
    — Brigit Katz, Smithsonian, 31 Mar. 2017
  • The young sockeye grow for two or three years in the Bering Sea, eating zooplankton and krill, earning their deep red flesh.
    — Andrew Watman, Forbes.com, 11 Sep. 2025
  • In oxygen-thin water, lower parts of the food web, such as zooplankton and small fish like sardines and anchovies, suffer the most.
    — Max Bearak, Washington Post, 27 Nov. 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'zooplankton.' 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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