Underwater observations on the swimming of marine zooplankton

Abstract

Many experiments have been made in the laboratory by different workers to study the swimming behaviour of plankton animals in relation to light and other factors. At the present time the special apparatus described by Hardy & Bainbridge (1951) is being used for a study of vertical migration, and other experimental work on the inter-relationships of zooplankton and phyto-plankton (Bainbridge, 1949) is also in progress. Both this type of work and current theories (see Cushing, 1951) on the migrations of zooplankton make it of some consequence to learn the actual nature of the movements of these animals in the sea itself; and it is of special importance to compare their swimming behaviour in the different types of apparatus with their behaviour in the sea.