Talk:Plankton

message: Hi JesseW.  I'm responsible for the recent reorganisation of the images to the right hand side of the article.  Although I wasn't particularly happy with my own work, I think the new arrangement is a bit messy.  I think part of the problem is that the article itself is too short to support the number of images we have (though I may try to extend it - I should really, plankton are my bread and butter).  Anyway, I hope you won't be offended if I re-edit.
On another note, the pictures aren't terribly representative of plankton in the first place - I think they're all zooplankton.  Ideally we'd have some phytoplankton and bacterioplankton (not that the latter make for good pictures!).  Does anyone have anything to hand?  Alternatively, we could scour existing pages for some images.  I've worked extensively on the diatom page and it's got a nice image heading it up.  Cheers, --Plumbago 07:57, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the layoput looks pretty good right now.  You could substitute some phytoplankters for zooplankters, although I'd try and move the zooplankters somewhere else first, like amphipods or Wikimedia so they do not get "lost" - Marshman 18:14, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Images

message: I suggest moving the Cultural references section in order to separate biological information from everything else. We've been doing this for other biology articles, it helps readers focus on what's interesting for them. If there are no objections in the next 4 days I'll do it. Lejean2000 13:53, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough.  It's "cultural" in a rather loose sense!  (I say that as someone who added a paragraph.)  Where will it be moved to?  Lower down the same article, or a separate article?  Perhaps "Plankton (cultural)" or similar?  Cheers, --Plumbago 15:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I suggest creating a separate article. For Frogs we did Frogs in popular culture, so perhaps Plankton in Popular Culture? Since you added the paragraph, it's fair that you decide. Lejean2000 15:43, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cultural references

message: When I went on a whale watch from Boston, we saw a giant disc-shaped creature that had what looked like a fin. They told us it was a megaplankton. It must have been at least a meter wide. Does anyone know what that's called, and if there's a Wikipedia article for them? If I ever get out there again, I'm going to bring an image-stabilizing camera and get me a picture of one of those things for this page. -Harmil 16:23, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd be interested to know what kind of creature they thought it was.  I tend to think of things like the Portuguese Man o' War as being the largest plankters.  "Megaplankton" is more a description of lifestyle than kind of organism.  Cheers, --Plumbago 16:49, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You use the word "plankters."  The article says "[i]ndividual plankton are referred to as plankters." I'm writing from ignorance here, but this looks wrong. It looks plural.  If it is, and the singular is "plankter", then isn't the plural once again "plankton"? -Polymath69 15:51, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Looks like Harmil isn't active any longer, and it's also been sixteen years since this comment, but I'll put in my two cents and propose that the "plankton" was actually an Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola) which are often incorrectly described as plankton by the general population due to the fact that they aren't the best swimmers. They also do this thing where they will lie on their side to allow birds and other fish to eat parasites from their skin. Cynthia-Coriníon (talk) 22:21, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Megaplankton 

message: "The myriad of floating and drifting life in the upper layers of the ocean, mostly of very small size and collectively called "plankton", has been found to be rich in food material and if properly prepared, fit for human consumption. The main problem involved is concentrating this plankton in large amounts and separating the inedible from the edible parts. Fishes at the present time do this more efficiently than man can, and by eating the flesh of ocean fish, we indirectly get the benefit of the plankton. In the book "Kon-Tiki", the explorers tell how they strained plankton from the sea and found it bitter at first, but quite palatable after certain undesirable organisms were removed from it. During the last war German scientists also experimented with plankton as a possible source of food, though without particular success. One possible way of preparing plankton would be to press it into compact "planktonburgers", which could be fried and eaten on bread."
http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/support/lib/seas/seasQA/QAs/p/plankton.html#number4
I don't know the best way to include the above, but it should be in there. AThousandYoung (talk) 17:35, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: From a taxonomic perspective, cyanobacteria are prokaryotes (bacteria), so they can be classified with the bacterioplankton.  However, they are also autotrophic, capable of converting light energy into chemical energy through photosynthesis, as with the algae and multicellular plants.  So functionally they are generally classified in with the phytoplankton.  Part of the issue here is that the phytoplankton and zooplankton are primarily functional classifications, while bacterioplankton is a taxonomic classification (albeit a very broad one), so there can be some overlap.68.148.96.160 (talk) 18:20, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

text: I do not see any mention of possibility of Plankton farming in the article. We need material on the subject as, such farming provides cheap food to fish farming. Eating planktons directly or after processing may not be acceptable to all and so, converting that into a more acceptable form of food (fish) would be A BETTER IDEA. Today as population is growing alarmingly world over, we consider plankton or such, as an answer to the issue. Pathare Prabhu (talk) 13:21, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Human Consumption

message: Plankton is a type of invertebrate.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.234.4.17 (talk • contribs) 
:Technically, no.  Some plankton are invertebrate animals (or the larvae of such animals), but there are plenty of other species that aren't even animals, let alone ones without a vertebral column.  Arguably, the majority of planktonic species are protists, algae, bacteria or archaea.  But there are a lot of invertebrate animals in the mix too.  Cheers, --PLUMBAGO 21:00, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yeah, so based on what I've read in this article, plankton are basically anything that floats in the ocean, that's not a fish or a mammal.  I mean, it's essentially that.  Plants, animals, whatever.  Why not just call it flotsam and jetsam?  The word "plankton" has no useful meaning. 98.194.39.86 (talk) 01:24, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  Fish eggs and fish larvae are also plankton. Plankton refers to any live organisms that drift in ocean currents because they can't swim against the current. They are usually small organisms, often microscopic, and they form the base of the ocean food webs. Plankton is completely different from flotsam and jetsam, which refer to marine debris dropped overboard from a ship. --Epipelagic (talk) 02:06, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plankton 

message: ... What?60.231.4.91 (talk) 09:22, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Sea foam is produced by plankton, Photo of many, differently-sized bubbles with image of man

message: I'm finding this a definite lack on a lot of biology pages -- how many species of this sort of creatures are there?  I've been searching the web like mad, trying to find out how many species of a number of things are known, and plankton is one.
If anyone out there knows this, even a rough estimate, it would be an excellent addition to the article. Dismalscholar (talk) 05:41, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of species[[User:Dismalscholar|Dismalscholar]] ([[User talk:Dismalscholar|talk]]) 05:41, 14 March 2011 (UTC) 

message: It says that plankton "are any drifting organisms (animals, plants, archaea, or bacteria)", which is a strange way of writing and not entirely correct, since there are protist plankton as well, right? Like EHUX? I would suggest that the parenthesis read "(eukaryotes, archea, or bacteria)" which also makes more sense since these classes are on the same level. I am very ignorant of the topic though so I would rather not change it myself. Bob130.238.239.80 (talk) 08:53, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I second this recommendation.  A knowledgeable biologist/taxonomist needs to fix this wording.--Foobarnix (talk) 21:38, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  I added a definition from an Open Uni textbook, which seems a reputable source, though I'm fairly unsure about accepted sources for such things. The wording seems less controversial, in any case PJFraser (talk) 12:59, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protists 

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thread_title: File:Plancton.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

message: Should the Plankton template contain a link to Noctiluca scintillans? I was going round in circles a bit getting confused between that and Milky seas effect but I'm not an expert. Akerbeltz (talk) 20:53, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Addition to template? 

message: Hello! I just wanted to let you know that I added a hyperlink for Amphiprion ocellaris into your article. I am a part of a Behavioral Ecology Class (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Program:Washington_University_in_St._Louis/Behavioral_Ecology_%28Fall_2013%29) Washington University and our assignment was to create hyperlinks from our articles to other articles as examples. Best of luck with your article!!
Gseehra123 (talk) 22:23, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Edit 

message: new news that needs to be added to the article.  http://theweek.com/article/index/266730/speedreads-scientists-shocked-to-discover-plankton-on-exterior-of-international-space-station  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gizziiusa (talk • contribs) 19:41, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmmm.  I can't find anything over at NASA about this.  I strongly suspect that it's going to come to nothing - either something mistaken as plankton cells (remember the Martian bacteria?), old Earth-side contamination that was never spotted before, or recent contamination from space-side ISS experiments.  The addition to the article here is far too early IMHO.  Devoid of any context it may give the impression that there are - somehow! - plankton in space.  Furthermore, it's been added to the lead which, given its uncertainty, is precisely the wrong place to add it.  I'm going to remove it for now per WP:RECENT.  If something else comes up, fine, add it back, but it's misleading at the moment.  I'd also suggest that, if there really is evidence of plankton in space, a better source of references would be a science journal, not a Russian news agency (... even one quoted by CNET).  --PLUMBAGO 09:49, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: YES - Agreed - If interested, several related references (seem current - for now) are here => < ref>http://www.quora.com/International-Space-Station/Plankton-and-microorganisms-have-been-found-living-on-exterior-surfaces-of-the-ISS-What-are-they-and-how-did-they-get-there</ref> AND < ref>http://link.springer.com/article/10.1134%2FS0012496609030223#page-1</ref> AND < ref>http://www.researchgate.net/publication/26712688_The_Biorisk_experiment_13-month_exposure_of_resting_forms_of_organism_on_the_outer_side_of_the_Russian_Segment_of_the_International_Space_Station_preliminary_results</ref> AND < ref name="CNET-20140820"></ref> - In any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 14:28, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: BRIEF Followup - recent related (and better WP:RS?) references include the following => < ref name="SP-20140820"></ref> AND SIMILAR < ref name="DS-20140821"></ref> - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 14:57, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: @ - MORE Possibly Relevant References => < ref name="PHYS-20140821"></ref>< ref name="ITAR-20140819"></ref> - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 11:56, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for these!  The Phys.org reference is, I think, the key one.  Firstly, it notes that it's TASS that's reporting the finding rather than anything approaching a scientific publication.  Secondly, it goes on to note that a NASA scientist - admittedly out of the loop - pins any plankton down as some sort of contamination.  As such, I stand by my suggestion that we wait until it's clearer what's going on before adding anything about this to the article.  The last thing that we need to do is add fuel to some internet meme about there being plankton in space.  Cheers, --PLUMBAGO 15:07, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plankton discovered in space 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I've noticed that the Mesoplancton section in the 'Size Groups' table lists 'Heteropoda', which links to the (terrestrial) spider genus, as an example. I guess this is a typo?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:9F27:3C01:14BA:82E:AF6:2A4E (talk) 18:44, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes - well spotted! Thanks. I think this is fixed now. Cheers, --PLUMBAGO 07:12, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spiders??  

message: What are the types of plankton? Also are there different types of willow tarmagins in Alaska? 2601:1C2:0:64D0:3C81:2AF3:851D:ABCD (talk) 02:04, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ocean 🌊 Plankton 

message: The entirety of the text in subsection Plankton#Geoplankton is highly similar (almost identical) to the entirety of the text of its “see also” target, Terrestrial animal#Geoplankton (redirected from ).
The topic could potentially one day be its own article, but for now, I think it’s probably a good idea to keep the blurb on geoplankton in one of the two places where it’s currently found, and make the other place where it’s currently found a section transclusion.
Thoughts? Mifield  05:10, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  subsection [[Plankton#Geoplankton|Geoplankton]]