Wiktionary
n. The tiny lifeforms that float and drift in the air, carried by the current of the wind.
Wikipedia
Aeroplankton (or aerial plankton) are tiny lifeforms that float and drift in the air, carried by the current of the wind; they are the atmospheric analogue to oceanic plankton.
Most of the living things that make up aeroplankton are very small to microscopic in size, and many can be difficult to identify because of their tiny size. Scientists can collect them for study in traps and sweep nets from aircraft, kites or balloons.
The aeroplankton comprises numerous microbes, including viruses, about 1000 different species of bacteria, around 40,000 varieties of fungi, and hundreds of species of protists, algae, mosses and liverworts that live some part of their life cycle as aeroplankton, often as spores, pollen, and wind-scattered seeds.
A large number of small animals, mainly arthropods (such as insects and spiders), are also carried upwards into the atmosphere by air currents and may be found floating several thousand feet up. Aphids, for example, are frequently found at high altitudes.
Many species of spiders deliberately use the wind to propel themselves. The spider will find a vantage point (such as a branch, fence or surface) and, pointing its abdomen upward, eject fine threads of silk from its spinnerets. At some point, the force exerted by moving air upon the silk threads is great enough to launch the spider into the air. This is called ballooning. Such ballooning spiders (e.g. Linyphiidae) are capable of drifting many miles away from where they started. The flexibility of their silk draglines can aid the aerodynamics of their flight, causing the spiders to drift an unpredictable and sometimes long distance.
Usage examples of "aeroplankton".
Did the tractors clog with aeroplankton in their air filters and carburetors?
And now with the warmer weather, the aeroplankton had become more of a threat than it had ever been at any one time.
Himalayas, the aeroplankton now drifted hundreds of kilometers thick in enormous fronts all over the world due to a jet stream knocked off course by a Chinese nuclear test.
And thanks to the aeroplankton, everyone now had to own, and wear during the aeroplankton storms, filter-masks conveniently designed to filter out the microorganism and forty-seven varieties of industrial pollutants.
Outside poured in the gray light of the early morning sun as it tried to pierce the smog and aeroplankton flurry.
Oceans would be full of the lost herds of whales, and aeroplankton would only be a memory.
The morning sun, through the smog and residual aeroplankton, cast an amber glow about him.
It was something like an airlock, and it had been installed when the pollution and aeroplankton had gotten out of hand some time ago.
Much of the pollution was aeroplankton shells ballooning on their cubic millimeters of hydrogen.
Despite the severe winters, he realized that, with so many people escaping the warmer climates where the aeroplankton throve, real estate swindles would keep him with plenty to do.