Aside from representing the bottom few levels of a food chain that supports commercially important fisheries, plankton ecosystems play a role in the biogeochemical cycles of many important chemical elements, including the ocean's carbon cycle.
除了代表支持具有重要商业价值的渔业的食物链最底层水平之外，浮游生物生态系统还在包括海洋碳循环在内的许多重要化学元素的生物地球化学循环中发挥作用。