The obstacles confronted by biological oceanographers in determining the distributional patterns of zooplankton and micronekton are formidable. Populations of these animals are patchily distributed in a three-dimensional fluid medium and continuously subjected to the physical processes of turbulent mixing and advection. Furthermore, zooplankton and micronekton are active swimmers, and thus behavior can interact with physical processes to alter their distributional patterns over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. Overcoming such formidable obstacles is essential in pursuing one of the primary goals of biological oceanography—understanding the processes regulating the distribution of oceanic populations in time and space.

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