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The pelagic food web, showing the central involvement of marine microorganisms in how the ocean imports nutrients from and then exports them back to the atmosphere and ocean floor. A marine food web is a food web of marine life. At the base of the ocean food web are single-celled algae and other plant-like organisms known as phytoplankton.
The base or basal species in a food web are those species without prey and can include autotrophs or saprophytic detritivores (i.e., the community of decomposers in soil, biofilms, and periphyton). Feeding connections in the web are called trophic links. The number of trophic links per consumer is a measure of food web connectance.
The burrowing of marine polychaetes, which may constitute up to a third of all species in near-shore environments, encourages the development of ecosystems by enabling water and oxygen to penetrate the sea floor. In addition to improving soil fertility, annelids serve humans as food and as bait. Scientists observe annelids to monitor the ...
[6] [12] In terms of a food web, a cycle or loop is defined as "a directed sequence of one or more links starting from, and ending at, the same species." [ 13 ] : 185 An example of this is the microbial food web in the ocean, where "bacteria are exploited, and controlled, by protozoa, including heterotrophic microflagellates which are in turn ...
Circular dendrogram of feeding behaviours A mosquito drinking blood (hematophagy) from a human (note the droplet of plasma being expelled as a waste) A rosy boa eating a mouse whole A red kangaroo eating grass The robberfly is an insectivore, shown here having grabbed a leaf beetle An American robin eating a worm Hummingbirds primarily drink nectar A krill filter feeding A Myrmicaria brunnea ...
The human population exploits and depends on many animal and plant species for food, mainly through agriculture, but also by exploiting wild populations, notably of marine fish. [10] [11] [12] Livestock animals are raised for meat across the world; they include (2011) around 1.4 billion cattle, 1.2 billion sheep and 1 billion domestic pigs. [12 ...
The aquatic microbial loop is a marine trophic pathway which incorporates dissolved organic carbon into the food chain.. The microbial loop describes a trophic pathway where, in aquatic systems, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is returned to higher trophic levels via its incorporation into bacterial biomass, and then coupled with the classic food chain formed by phytoplankton-zooplankton-nekton.
Osedax is a genus of deep-sea siboglinid polychaetes, commonly called boneworms, zombie worms, or bone-eating worms. Osedax is Latin for "bone-eater". The name alludes to how the worms bore into the bones of whale carcasses to reach enclosed lipids, on which they rely for sustenance.