PELAGIC ZONE

ecological realm that includes the entire ocean water column. Of all the inhabited Earth environments, the pelagic zone has the largest volume, 1,370,000,000 cubic kilometres (330,000,000 cubic miles), and the greatest vertical range, 11,000 metres (36,000 feet). Pelagic life is found throughout the water column, although the numbers of individuals and species decrease with increasing depth. The regional and vertical distributions of pelagic life are governed by the abundance of nutrients and dissolved oxygen; the presence or absence of sunlight, water temperature, salinity, and pressure; and the presence of continental or submarine topographic barriers. Pelagic life consists of three categories. The phytoplankton, which constitute the food base of all marine animals, are microscopic organisms that inhabit only the sunlit uppermost oceanic layer, using sunlight to photosynthetically combine carbon dioxide and dissolved nutrient salts. Zooplankton are the marine animals that rely mainly upon water motion for transport, although some forms such as jellyfish are feeble swimmers. Zooplankton subsist on phytoplankton and smaller zooplankton and are dominated in their numbers by small crustacean copepods and euphasiids. Nekton, the free swimmers, are dominated by the bony and cartilaginous fishes, molluscans, and decapods, with rarer mammals and reptiles.