Neuston:
Neuston, also called pleuston, are organisms that live at the surface of a body of water, such as an ocean, estuary, lake, river, or pond. Neuston can live on top of the water surface or may be attached to the underside of the water surface. They may also exist in the surface microlayer that forms between the top side and the underside. Neuston have been defined as “organisms living at the air/water interface of freshwater, estuarine, and marine habitats or referring to the biota on or directly below the water’s surface layer.” [Wikipedia]
Noted in “Is cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch worth the effort?” Andrew Kersley, NewScientist (13 January 2024, paywall):
In 2022, researchers including Rebecca Helm, then at the University of North Carolina, Asheville, studied samples gathered by [swimmer and conservation activist Benoît Lecomte] during one of his epic swims. They found that the patch is teeming with aquatic life – mostly tiny floating “neustons”, surface-dwelling aquatic organisms ranging from snails to jellyfish. “One of the tragedies of naming the North Pacific Gyre [NPG] the garbage patch is that it erases the reality that it is, and always has been, an ecosystem,” says Helm, now at Georgetown University in Washington DC.
But is it wise to keep the NPG around as it artificially endangers so many other creatures? The article doesn’t really address the issue in any depth. It’s one thing to discuss allocation of scarce resources in addressing this issue, it’s quite another to make a claim that the NPG is actually a positive development for non-human life forms.
