The Evolution of Floating
Scientists love their terminology—too much, I think. The terminology at play today includes plankton (floating critters mostly at the mercy of the current), benthos (critters hanging on the bottom), neuston (hanging in the air-water interface), and maybe some others like nekton (swimmers), but mostly neuston. Neuston critters are also called pleuston, just to keep things messy. Sometimes, there is a subtle difference: Pleuston is used for critters that live within the air-water interface, and neuston is used for those hanging below (via surface tension) or standing above (also using surface tension). However, generally, pleuston is not used, so we can safely just use neuston. After all, don’t we have too many terms anyway? Wikipedia, of course, has a great summation image. I’m going to steal it: Classifications of the living zones of aquatic and marine animals. Water striders; a familiar air-water interface denizen. A recent paper by Anthony et al. (2024...