Marine Ecosystem
Sasha Thomas, Aadit Mehta, Tanya Raghu, Ethan Benenson
Atlantic Ocean (Border of Texas)
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MARINE ECOSYSTEM
Made of saline water, 72% of the Earths water is made up of salt water
The ocean currents can greatly affect the Earth's climate by transferring heat.
Decomposers include seaweeds and crustaceans.
The biodiversity is very high in the coastal environments of the marine ecosystem. However, in some places of the ocean such as very deep sea, the knowledge of biodiversity is limited because of the lack of information.
The average temperature of the marine ecosystem is around 39 degrees Celcius.
Marine Ecosystem has a diverse variety of habitats from deep sea to near shore. Different physical features affect habitats such as temperature, salinity level, wind, location etc.
Communities include several species interacting with each other
Abiotic factors are: Temperature, salinity, Ph level, tides, winds and sediments etc.
Biotic Factors are: Plants, crustaceans, mollusks, fish, mammals etc.
Relationships
Predator and Prey:
The predator is an organism that eats another organism for food and energy. Both the prey and predator evolve together and rely on each other to keep their populations in check. The relation between predator and prey is called "predation." Examples of predator and prey- Orcas and seals, dolphins and tuna and sharks and squids.
Producer/Consumer:
The producer is an organism which can make food for themselves using energy from the sun. The consumer is any other organism which cannot make food from the same process, causing them to eat the producer for needed nutrition and energy. Examples of relationships- seaweed and seals, algae and sea turtles and plankton and whales.
Food Chain: A part of the Whole
A food chain is a biological sequence describing which organism eats another to obtain nutrition.
This is one of the many food chains of the marine environment. As seen from the picture, the producer here is the phytoplankton. The phytoplankton gets their energy from the sun through the process of photosynthesis. In this food chain, there are four distinct consumers. The zooplankton is the primary consumer whereas the Herring fish is the secondary consumer. Then we have the tuna fish which eats the Herring fish. Finally, we have the dolphin who is at the top of the food chain.
Food Web: Diversity
A network of many interlocking food chains creates a food web.
In this food web the quaternary consumers are the large sharks, because hardly anything in this ecosystem eats it. The tertiary consumers are the small sharks, large fishes and the squid. These animals are near the top, but can still be eaten by other animals in the ecosystem. The secondary consumers in this diagram are the small fishes and the amphipods.The primary consumers include the shrimp, copepods, and pteropods. They get their food from the producers. Finally, we have the producers, which are the dinoflagellates, and diatoms. They don't hunt anything, but they get their energy from the sun.
Energy Pyramid
This picture here is an energy pyramid. This shows how the energy flows through the trophic levels. All of the energy at first comes from the sun. The energy is used by the producers which in this case could be seaweed and phytoplankton. Then, the primary consumers get their energy from the producers. The primary consumers here are the zooplankton or cockles. Soon the energy passes through the crustaceans and large fish. then it goes to the squid in this case. Finally, it goes to the dolphin, but once it dies, the decomposers get their energy from the dolphin.
Only 10% of the energy is transferred at each level because much of the energy is given off as heat or respiration or the production of body waste .
