Diel vertical migration

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Diel vertical migration (DVM), also known as diurnal vertical migration, is a pattern of movement used by some organisms, such as copepods, living in the ocean and in lakes. The adjective "diel" (IPA: , ) comes from Latin: diēs, lit. 'day', and refers to a 24-hour period. The migration occurs when organisms move up to the uppermost layer of the water at night and return to the bottom of the daylight zone of the oceans or to the dense, bottom layer of lakes during the day. DVM is important to the functioning of deep-sea food webs and the biologically-driven sequestration of carbon. In terms of biomass, DVM is the largest synchronous migration in the world. It is not restricted to any one taxon, as examples are known from crustaceans (copepods), molluscs (squid), and ray-finned fishes (trout). The phenomenon may be advantageous for a number of reasons, most typically to access food and to avoid predators. It is triggered by various stimuli, the most prominent being changes in light-intensity...

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