Plankton Dynamics Understanding Check

Check your understanding: Efficiency of nutrient cycling in the surface ocean is a function of plankton sizes.

true

Check your understanding: Which most accurately describes a phytoplankton bloom?

• when zooplankton numbers are low

• when phytoplankton reproduce sexually using flowers

• time and place in the ocean with elevated phytoplankton concentrations

• periods of rapid growth in phytoplankton biomass

• time and place in the ocean with elevated phytoplankton concentrations

Check your understanding: The critical depth and critical turbulence hypotheses are top-down models meaning that they focus on resources such as light and nutrients.

false

Check your understanding: The disturbance recovery hypothesis is a top-down model where bloom dynamics are controlled by predator-prey interactions.

true

Check your understanding: What limits production in polar regions?

light

An organism that has the ability to grow on the basis of light‐mediated energy transformation as the principal source of energy is best described as

Select one:

phototrophic

planktonic

photosensitive

photosynthetic

phototrophic

Which of the following plankton is not eukaryotic?

Select one:

Dinoflagellates

Trichodesmium

Diatom

Cryptomonads

Trichodesmium

All zooplankton are multicellular heterotrophic organisms that cannot swim against ocean currents.

Select one:

True

False

false

Productivity in polar regions is limited by

light

When the pycnocline is below the compensation depth

Select one:

phytoplankton may be mixed below a depth where they get adequate light for growth.

phytoplankton will sink rapidly to a depth where zooplankton can consume them rapidly.

phytoplankton will suffer from photoinhibition.

phytoplankton will be guaranteed access to enough light for growth.

phytoplankton may be mixed below a depth where they get adequate light for growth.