Biomass of upper-interzonal copepod filter feeders in the Kurile-Kamchatka region

These species comprise 55 per cent of total plankton biomass in the 0-4000 m layer. The major part (90% of the population) of C. cristatus inhabit depths are above 3000 m, and of the other species - above 750-1000 m.

Feeding of juveniles proceeds in the surface euphotic zone, and then adolescent animals descend to deep water. At depth 1000-2000 m they make up >40%, and at 2000-3000 m, about 20% of total biomass of plankton inhabiting these depths. Interzonal species serve as a food reserve for predatory deep-sea animals and as a close connection between the surface and deep-water communities that makes it possible to regard these communities as parts of a single biocoenosis.