Introduction to Marine Ecosystems

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Introduction to Marine Ecosystems
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Ocean Ecosystem

• An ecosystem is a level of organization that
  includes living things and their environment
• Living things cannot exist without their
  environment
• Most of our planet is covered by the ocean or
  marine ecosystem

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Structure and Function of an Ecosystem
What the ecosystem is made up of and how it works
are linked and influence each other
STRUCTURE Amount of non living materials How
living conditions vary with time and
space Characteristics of living things
FUNCTION Interactions between living
things Cycling
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LAND vs OCEAN

• Ocean is wetter than land
• Materials can be dissolved in ocean water
• Gametes can be dispersed more easily
• Harder for smaller things to move through water
• Ocean is more vast than land
• Harder to find mates and food
• Ocean is more supportive than land
• Body structure will be different than land
  animals
• Living in aquatic environment will shape biology
  and adaptations of marine life

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ABIOTIC and BIOTIC FX

• Physical or non-living parts of the environment
  that influence living things are called abiotic
  factors
• examples
• Living factors which influence living things are
  called biotic factors
• examples

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Abiotic Factors in the Ocean

• Inorganic nutrients like C,N,H,P,S,Fe,Si
• Motion in the ocean upwelling, currents, tides
• Dissolved materials like gases and salts
• Climate temperature, light, pressure
• Variations in time and space

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Inorganic Nutrients

• Most of the ocean is nutrient poor
• Only 10 percent of the surface area of the global
  ocean supports half the worlds fisheries
• Nitrogen, phosphorus, iron and silica are like
  fertilizer for ocean plants

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• Source of nutrients
• Runoff from land, animal feces and decomposition
• all this material sinks out of reach
• Surface nutrients get used up (by plants to make
  plant tissue) they become a limiting factor for
  the growth of new plants which are only found in
  surface waters
• Nutrients are returned to surface waters by a
  special type of current called 'upwelling'

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Other Ways Nutrients are Replaced

• Winter storms, after the thermocline has
  disappeared
• Deep water currents can be deflected by
  underwater island chains

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Motion-Upwelling

• Upwelling is a vertical current, bringing
  nutrient rich water from the bottom to the
  surface.
• Upwelling areas support a lot of life
• Occur off the west coasts of continents or in the
  middle of the equatorial parts of oceans.
• Upwelling is often seasonal

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Why Upwelling Happens

• Earth's rotation and strong seasonal winds push
  surface water away from coasts
• Deep water rises on the edges of continents to
  replace it.

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uwgb.edu
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Motion-Tides

• Alternating rise and fall of sea level
• Produced by gravitational attraction to moon and
  sun as well as the rotation of the Earth
• Tides produce strong currents up to 5 m/s
• http//www.oc.nps.edu/nom/day1/partc.html

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Motion-Tides

• Area on the beach exposed between high and low
  tide is intertidal zone
• Organisms must deal with breaking waves, exposure
  above water, and daily variations in water
  temperature and salinity
• Adaptations, such as firm attachment to rocks
  and shells to hold in moisture, to deal with
  these conditions.

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http//geosci.sfsu.edu/courses/geol102/ex9.html
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Marine Life and Tides

• Some marine life time their feeding and
  reproduction to the high or low tide cycle
• Horseshoe crabs come ashore to mate on the night
  of a high tide in May
• Eggs hatch 2 wks later on a high tide and are
  washed into the ocean

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Motion-Currents
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Motion-Currents

• Ocean currents move heat around the globe and
  affect local climate
• Driven by atmospheric winds and Earths rotation
• Found in upper 400m and speeds around 1 m/s
• Pollution, marine life and food can be stuck in
  currents and moved around the globe

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Dissolved Materials

• Seawater is fresh water plus dissolved materials
  like salts, minerals and gases
• Amount of material dissolved depends on
  temperature of water

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Dissolved Gases

• Oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen
• Dissolve into the ocean from the atmosphere
  through wave action also released at the surface
  back into atmosphere
• Dissolve better in cold water
• Animal life and plant life can change the
  chemistry of ocean gases

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Dissolved Gases

• Plants photosynthesize, animals respire, bacteria
  decompose
• Plants use CO2 and produce O2
• Animals use O2 and produce CO2
• Decomposition uses O2 and produces CO2

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• Around 500 m water runs out of oxygen
• Bacteria and other animals are using it during
  decomposition and respiration
• No photosynthesis at this depth
• Animals in this region and lower have large
  gills, modified hemoglobin or are inactive

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Gas Exchange and Carbon Cycle

• Oceans absorb and store large amounts of CO2
• Contain about 50 X the amount found in the
  atmosphere
• biological pump -some of the absorbed CO2 is used
  in the food web by phytoplankton, or used to make
  shells and then consumed and pooped out
• gas is trapped in the deep ocean (sequestered)
  until brought to surface by currents

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Ocean Acidification

• CO2 is changed to carbonic acid as it dissolves
  in seawater
• More CO2 dissolving, more acidic ocean is
  becoming
• 30 increase in acidity since IR
• Marine life that produce calcium carbonate shells
  are negatively impacted by increasing acidity
  (coral, clams, mussels, oysters, some algae)

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• The photos below show what happens to a
  pteropods shell when placed in sea water with pH
  and carbonate levels projected for the year 2100.
  The shell slowly dissolves after 45 days.  Photo
  credit Used with permission, National Geographic
  Images

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Dissolved Salts

• Dissolved salts/ minerals come from land and
  underwater volcanic activity
• Average salinity is 35 parts per thousand
• Salts change water density and differences in
  density contribute to the creation of water
  masses and deep ocean circulation
• Thermohaline circulation, also called the Global
  Ocean Conveyor, moves water between the deep and
  surface ocean worldwide

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Figure 1 Relative proportions of dissolved
salts in seawater. (Source PhysicalGeography.net)

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• Thermohaline circulation, also called the Global
  Ocean Conveyor, moves water between the deep and
  surface ocean worldwide.Click on image for full
  sizeImage courtesy Argonne National Laboratory
• Image courtesy Argonne National Laboratory

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Marine vertebrates control internal salt and
water concentration by osmoregulation
http//marinebio.org/oceans/ocean-chemistry.as
p
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Climate temperature, light, pressure

• Ocean conditions vary with depth and with
  latitude

http//climate.lanl.gov/
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http//geosci.sfsu.edu/courses/geol102/ex9.html
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Animal Adaptations and Pressure

• Ocean life has adapted to deep ocean and 1000x
  our pressure with lightweight skeletons, little
  musculature, and reduced metabolic, growth and
  reproductive rates.
• Diving mammals have rib cages that collapse and
  expand in result to changing pressure

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                                              Y
elloweye rockfish with barotrauma. Shows
esophagus protruding from mouth and bulging eyes
(exophthalmia). (Credit Image courtesy of Oregon
State University)
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Water Depth vs Light

• Photosynthetic organisms use light to make
  sugars.
• Sunlit area (top 100 meters) contains 90 of
  marine life
• Colors of penetrate thru water differently
• Red light filters out first and blue light goes
  the furthest
• Red animals are essentially invisible in deep
  waters

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Animal Adaptations and Temperature

• Average ocean temp is 3 ? C
• Colder temps reduce the metabolic rate
• In very cold waters fish have a special protein
  like antifreeze to keep tissues from freezing
• Lighter colored animals stay cooler than darker
  colored animals and are found in warmer waters
• Some marine life have thick layers of fat to
  insulate their bodies

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Variations in Time and Space

• Characteristics of ocean water change with depth
  and season
• Many marine organisms migrate daily or seasonally
  because of these variations

Openlibrary.org
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Biotic Factors in the Ocean

• Characteristics of living things
• Diversity How many and what types of things
  live there
• Interactions between living things competition,
  predation, symbiosis

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Characteristics of Life

• Made of cells
• Getting energy
• Growth and development
• Reproducing
• Respond to environment
• Maintaining homeostasis

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Naturalseasponge.com
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Diversity of Living Things

• Systematics- Groups organisms for classification
  and study
• Describes the evolutionary relationships between
  orgs
• Earliest life forms evolved in the ocean

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Diversity of Living Things

• Two main division are based on cell structure
• Prokaryotes Kingdom Moneran / bacteria group
• Lack a nucleus and membrane bound organelles
• Eukaryotes- All other kingdoms
• Have a nucleus and membrane bound organelles

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co.gif http//www.biol.tsukuba.ac.jp/inouye/ino/e
tc/dinoflagellates.jpg
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Diversity of Living Things

• The broadest category of life starts at the top
  and includes one or more of the succeeding
  categories
• Domain of life
• Kingdom
• Phylum
• Class
• Order
• Family
• Genus and
  species

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Diversity of Living Things

• Every organism has a two part name unique to
  itself-Binomial Nomenclature
• Can only interbreed with other organisms of its
  kind
• Genus species or Genus species
• Prevents confusion if a species is known by many
  common names
• Example Common dolphin is known as Delphinus
  delphis

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Interaction Between Living Things

• Competition
• A habitat can only support a fixed number of
  individuals
• Limits on space, nutrients, mates etc..
• May result in extinction of a species or niche
  segregation ( both species become more
  specialized and can then coexist)
• Winners and losers change based on varoius
  factors like stability of ecosystem, predation

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Interaction Between Living Things

• Predation- one organism hunts, kills and eats
  another organism
• Over time prey evolve adaptations to avoid
  predation which prey must adapt to as well
• Arms race between two organisms
• Important in culling weak or sick animals from
  the population
• Some are keystone species which promote the
  diversity of species in a habitat

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Interactions between living things

• Symbiosis- living together of unlike organisms
• Mutualistic- Both species benefit from the
  relationship
• Remora and shark remora gets food scraps, shark
  has parasites removed

michaelmcfadyenscuba.info
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• Commensal- one species benefits and the other has
  no benefit or harm
• Hermit crab and a snail (shell)

myfishtanks.info
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• Parasitic- one species benefits but the other is
  harmed
• Female and male anglerfish

http//www.marineparasites.com/gallery.html44
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