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A marine coastal ecosystem is a marine ecosystem which occurs where the land meets the ocean. Worldwide there is about 620,000 kilometres (390,000 mi) of coastline. Coastal habitats extend to the margins of the continental shelves, occupying about 7 percent of the ocean surface area.
Altogether, the pelagic zone occupies 1,330 million km 3 (320 million mi 3) with a mean depth of 3.68 km (2.29 mi) and maximum depth of 11 km (6.8 mi). [2] [3] [4] Pelagic life decreases as depth increases. The pelagic zone contrasts with the benthic and demersal zones at the bottom of the sea. The benthic zone is the ecological region at the ...
Alternatively, marine habitats can be divided into pelagic and demersal zones. Pelagic habitats are found near the surface or in the open water column, away from the bottom of the ocean. Demersal habitats are near or on the bottom of the ocean. An organism living in a pelagic habitat is said to be a pelagic organism, as in pelagic fish.
The WWF Global 200 work also identifies a number of major habitat types that correspond to the terrestrial biomes: polar, temperate shelves and seas, temperate upwelling, tropical upwelling, tropical coral, pelagic (trades and westerlies), abyssal, and hadal (ocean trench).
Non-flowering plants range from microscopic plants through to seaweed or kelp up to 5 meters in height. Many animals feed on kelp and kelp provides sheltered habitats for yet others. Sea grass is the only type of flowering plant that grows in British seas, but it nonetheless forms vast beds.
[105] [106] In the pelagic ocean, flyingfishes (13) channel energy and nutrients from zooplankton to pelagic predators such as mahi-mahi (14) and billfish (15), both of which utilize slicks as nursery habitat. Larvae of mesopelagic fishes like lanternfish (16) and bathydemersal tripod fishes (17) utilize these surface hotspots before descending ...
The stipe is analogous to a plant stalk, extending vertically from the holdfast and providing a support framework for other morphological features. The fronds are leaf- or blade-like attachments extending from the stipe, sometimes along its full length, and are the sites of nutrient uptake and photosynthetic activity.
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.