benthon

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benthon (plural benthons)

1. (ecology, biology) The habitat at the bottom of a body of water.
   • 1961, Challenger Society for the Promotion of the Study of Oceanography, Annual Report and Proceedings of the Challenger Society‎, volumes 13-20, The Society, →OCLC, page 28:

     The simple trophic relations in the plankton do not demand such a wide variety of adaptations as do the complex relations in the benthon where, in addition to microphagous herbivores, there are also macrophagous ones and an^[sic] unique of detritus feeders which build up animal protoplasm on the sea floor.

• benthos
• benthic