Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The six aforementioned elements are used by organisms in a variety of ways. Hydrogen and oxygen are found in water and organic molecules, both of which are essential to life. Carbon is found in all organic molecules, whereas nitrogen is an important component of nucleic acids and proteins.
Marine fish also excrete calcium carbonate during osmoregulation. [15] Some of the inorganic carbon species in the ocean, such as bicarbonate and carbonate, are major contributors to alkalinity, a natural ocean buffer that prevents drastic changes in acidity (or pH). The marine carbon cycle also affects the reaction and dissolution rates of ...
Keystone species are species that have large effects, disproportionate to their numbers, within ecosystem food webs. [157] An ecosystem may experience a dramatic shift if a keystone species is removed, even though that species was a small part of the ecosystem by measures of biomass or productivity. [158]
Liquid water is essential for carbon-based life. Chemical bonding of carbon molecules requires liquid water. [30] Water has the chemical property to make compound-solvent pairing. [31] Water provides the reversible hydration of carbon dioxide. Hydration of carbon dioxide is needed in carbon-based life. All life on Earth uses the same ...
The equilibria reactions between these species result in the buffering of seawater in terms of the concentrations of hydrogen ions present. [8] The following chemical reactions exhibit the dissolution of carbon dioxide in seawater and its subsequent reaction with water: CO 2 (g) + H 2 O(l) ⥨ H 2 CO 3 (aq) H 2 CO 3 (aq) ⥨ HCO 3 − (aq) + H ...
General characteristics of a large marine ecosystem (Gulf of Alaska). Marine life, sea life or ocean life is the collective ecological communities that encompass all aquatic animals, plants, algae, fungi, protists, single-celled microorganisms and associated viruses living in the saline water of marine habitats, either the sea water of marginal seas and oceans, or the brackish water of coastal ...
Hydrogen and oxygen are found in water and organic molecules, both of which are essential to life. Carbon is found in all organic molecules, whereas nitrogen is an important component of nucleic acids and proteins. Phosphorus is used to make nucleic acids and the phospholipids that comprise biological membranes. Sulfur is critical to the three ...
Diel vertically migrating krill, smaller zooplankton such as copepods, and fish can actively transport carbon to depth by consuming particulate organic carbon (POC) in the surface layer at night, and metabolising it at their daytime, mesopelagic residence depths. Depending on species life history, active transport may occur on a seasonal basis ...