Diatom-based food webs are fairly unstable and their
dynamics resemble that of a batch culture. Cell abundance
and chlorophyll increase rapidly and then drop back, once
zooplankton has developed enough to graze efficiently.
Such a food web structure leads to rapid export of
photosynthetic carbon to the deep ocean because considerable
losses occur at each step, for example through
sedimentation of copepod faecal pellets.