GLOSSARY

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benthic - Describing organisms that live on or near the sea bottom, irrespective of the depth. Benthic organisms may may crawl, burrow or remain attached to a substrate.

endemic - Describing organisms that are restricted to a particular geographical region. The term may be applied at any taxonomic level (eg. species, family,etc) and varying region sizes.

pelagic - Describing organisms that drift or swim in the water column, as distinct from those that live on the bottom (see benthic)

phytoplankton - The photosynthesizing plankton (drift in the water currents, consisting mostly of microscopic algae, such as diatoms, and dinoflagellates.

plankton - Aquatic organism that drift with water movements. Made up of the phytoplankton, which are the photosynthesizing plankton, and zooplankton, which are small animals.

symbiosis - The situation where two dissimilar organisms live together in close association.

zooplankton - Small animals that drift in the open water