Fig 3. Proposed revision to the classical dilution method.

Whilst the classical dilution method (see Fig 1) uses a filter excluding phytoplankton and microzooplankton, the proposed method instead uses an alternative filter, able to exclude microzooplankton, but through which phytoplankton can pass. Thus constituent levels of microzooplankton and phytoplankton within each bottle, shown by red and blue bars respectively, differ to those in the classical dilution experiment.