Marine Environment

1
Marine Environment

• Organisms
• Distribution
• Environment

2
Life in the Ocean

• Plankton floaters
• Nekton swimmers
• Benthos bottom dwellers

3
Plants vs. animals

• Phytoplankton
• Carry on photosynthesis
• Diatoms, coccolithophores, dinoflagellates
• Zooplankton
• Consumers
• Radiolarians, forams, others

4
PHYTOPLANKTON
5
ZOOPLANKTON
6
Time as a planktonic organism

• Meroplankton
• Part of life as a plankton rest as nekton or
  benthos
• Holoplankton
• All of life as plankton

7
Nekton

• Many varieties
• Consider commercial fisheries

8
Benthos

• Rocky shores
• Tide pools
• Sand and mud
• Deep sea
• Coral reefs
• Just a few examples

9
Where benthic organisms live

• Epifuana
• Live on top of sediments
• Infauna
• Live within sediments
• Nektobenthos
• Walk or swim along bottom

10
Epifauna
11
Infauna (a, b, c, e)
12
Why these patterns?
Land 86 Sea 14
Benthic 98 Pelagic 2
DISTRIBUTION OF LIFE
13
Environments

• Pelagicthe water
• Neritic over continental shelf
• Oceanic
• Epipelagic down to 200 m
• Mesopelagic 200-1000 m
• Bathypelagic 1000-4000 m
• Benthic..the bottom

14
Neritic
200 m
15
Oceanic
Epipelagic Mesopelagic Bathypelagic
200 m
1000 m
4000 m
16
Light zones in ocean

• Photic
• Light for photosynthesis
• Usually 0-100 m
• Aphotic
• Without light
• Deeper than 1000 m

17
Benthic Environment

• Similar zones as pelagic
• Omit details and new names

18
Making a living in the ocean

• Primary productivity, respiration, decomposition
• Depth zone differences

19
Oxygen with depth (red) Nutrients with depth (
green)
Relate pattern to photosynthesis, respiration,
decay and other processes