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Bentho- Words: “abyssobenthic” to “zoobenthos”

Words that include: bentho-, benth-
(Greek: deep; the fauna and flora of the bottom of the sea; sea bottom; depth [by extension, this element includes lake, river, and stream bottoms]).

Nearly seventy-five percent of the surface of the earth is covered by the sea. Of the 197 million square miles of the earth’s area, 139 million are the world ocean—the great interconnected complex of the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Indian and the Arctic oceans, the Mediterranean, and the Baltic, the Red, Black, and the White seas; and all the rest. Seventy-one percent of the world is ocean. Of that, ninety-seven percent is more than 200 meters (656 feet), in depth. This is the abyss or benthos, the “deep sea”, that covers almost two-thirds of the earth’s surface.

The greatest part of the world of water is the deep sea. The inhabitable land is a thin film of living space for creatures who run on its surface—or less often fly above it or burrow underground; but the sea creatures swim and crawl and drift through the whole enormous mass of the ocean water, making the deep sea by far the most extensive environment in our planet.

All the rich life familiar to humans, the bustling and buzzing crowds of mammals, birds, and insects and the trees, grass, and flowers of the land, as well as the crabs, snails, fish, and algae of the shallow seas, are crowded into a relatively minor portion of the earth’s living space.

The far vaster, unseen—and, until recently, unapproachable—area of the deep sea has its own fauna, and assemblage representing nearly all branches of the animal kingdom from the simplest one-celled protozoans to the higher vetebrates. The darkness, cold, and pressure of the abyssal regions have left their imprint on the creatures that have become a part of that ecosystem.

All the vegetation on all the continents is estimated to produce 40 billion tons of carbohydrates per year, while the plants of the sea produce from 80 to 120 billion tons, but the meadows of the sea are not so conspicuous as those of the land—first, because inhabitants of the sea are rarely as easy to observe as those on land, and, second, because with few exceptions the plants of the sea are too small to be seen without a microscope. These uncounted myriads of little plants, together with the great numbers of tiny animals that feed on them and on each other, form the plankton.

Plankton is the name applied in 1887 by Victor Hensen, a German professor of zoology, to the great company of marine creatures that drift at the mercy of the currents, as distinguished from the nekton, animals like fish and whales that are able to swim against the moving waters, and from the benthos, the plants and animals attached to the bottom or crawling upon it.

There is no clear-cut dividing line between planktonic and nektonic creatures; some of the fish and other marine animals belong to the plankton phase during the early stages of their lives and later are transformed into the nekton status.

—Based on information found in Abyss, The Deep Sea and the
Creatures That Live in It
by D. P. Idyll; published by Thomas Y. Crowell Company;
New York; 1976 edition.

Living on or in the ocean floor in the abyssal zone or the great depths in the oceans or lakes into which light does not penetrate; commonly used in oceanography of depths between 4 000 and 6 000 meters.
archibenthal zone, archibenthic zone:
The continental slope; the sea floor from the edge of the continental shelf to the continental rise.
archibenthos, archibenthic, archibenthal, archibental:
Belonging to or inhabiting the depths of the primitive (paleozoic) ocean.
Of or pertaining to ocean-depths exceeding 1 000 fathoms or happening on the bottom under a body of water.
benthic, benthonic:
Pertaining to the sea bed, river bed, or lake floor; benthonic.
Derived from or produced from the benthos.
The aggregate of organisms that live on or in the benthos [benth(os) + -on, extracted from plankton; according to Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1987].
Spanning the deepest to the highest levels, or areas, of oceans, seas, lakes, etc.
Thriving in the lowest areas of oceans, seas, lakes, etc.
A plant living at the bottom of a body of water or in the bed of a river.
Any large plant resting freely on the floor of a lake but capable of drifting slowly with the currents.
Living on the bed of a river or stream.
1. Those organisms attached to, living on, in or near the sea bed, river bed, or lake floor.
2. The biogeographic region at the bottom of a sea or ocean (or, more broadly, at the soil-water interface of an ocean, sea, or lake). The organisms living in such a region include the permanently attached or immobile forms (e.g., sponges, corals, oysters), creeping forms (e.g., crabs, snails), and the burrowing animals (e.g., worms). Barnacles, the larger seaweeds, and sea squirts are also members of this group.
A modified bathysphere (a strong steel diving sphere that can be lowered by cable to depths of 3 000 feet/900 meters).
endobenthos, endobenthic:
Organisms living within the sediment on the sea bed or lake floor; infauna.
epibenthos, epibenthic:
The community of organisms living at the surfce of the sea bed or lake floor.
eurybenthic, eurybenthos:
Living on the sea or lake bed over a wide range of depth.
1. The sum total of all terrestrial life.
2. That part of the bottom of a stream or lake not covered by vegetation.
Those aquatic organisms that live closely applied to, or growing on, submerged surfaces.
Those organisms growing or moving through muddy sediments.
holobenthos, holobenthic:
Living in the depths of the sea at all stages of the life cycle.
hyperbenthos, hyperbenthic:
Living above but close to the substratum.
macrobenthos, macrobenthic:
The larger organisms of the benthos, exceeding one mm in length.
meiobenthos, meiobenthic:
1. That section of the benthos that includes animals neither small enough to be grouped with the microfauna nor large enough to be grouped with the macrofauna.
2. Small benthic organisms that pass through 1 mm mesh sieve but are retained by a 0.1 mm mesh.
mesobenthos, mesobenthic:
Those organisms inhabiting the sea-bed in the archibenthal zone, between 200 and 1 000 meters in depth.
microbenthos, microbenthic:
Microscopic benthic organisms less than 0.1 mm in length.
nectobenthos, nectobenthic:
Swimming off the sea bed.
nektobenthos, nektobenthic:
Organisms typically associated with the benthos that swim actively in the water column at certin periods.
The aquatic flora of the region at or near the bottom of the sea.
rhizobenthos, rhizobenthic:
Those organisms rooted in the substratum.
stenobenthos, stenobenthic:
Living within a narrow range of depth on the sea bottom or lake bed.
zoobenthos, zoobenthic:
Those animals living in or on the sea bed or lake floor.