| Micro-organisms and microfauna feed on organic waste, taking from it the energy and the nutrients they need to live. |
| Unlike the fusulinides, lagenides survived both the end-Guadalupian and end-Permian mass extinctions to become dominant elements of the Mesozoic calcareous benthic microfauna. |
| The Antarctic microfauna includes heliozoans, rotifers, tardigrades, nematodes, and ciliate protozoans. |
| It is different for most land-based creatures, though spiders may drift in air as well as microfauna, and sea eagles, frigate birds, and glider pilots. |
| Nematodes and other microfauna help boost soil fertility by accelerating decomposition and decay, recycling the nutrients and making them available to plants. |
| In other words, much of metazoan evolution was cryptic, bound up in tiny animals devoid of skeletons and perhaps surviving as interstitial benthic microfauna. |
