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The marine carbon cycle is a central to the global carbon cycle and contains both inorganic carbon (carbon not associated with a living thing, such as carbon dioxide) and organic carbon (carbon that is, or has been, incorporated into a living thing). Part of the marine carbon cycle transforms carbon between non-living and living matter.
Marine biology studies species that live in marine habitats. Most of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, which is the home to marine life. Oceans average nearly four kilometers in-depth and are fringed with coastlines that run for about 360,000 kilometres. [4] [5] Marine biology can be contrasted with biological oceanography.
Today, marine species range in size from the microscopic phytoplankton, which can be as small as 0.02–micrometres; to huge cetaceans like the blue whale, which can reach 33 m (108 ft) in length. [5] [6] Marine microorganisms have been variously estimated as constituting about 70% [7] or about 90% [8] [1] of the total marine biomass.
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.
In the North Pacific, 80% of the loggerhead turtle diet consists of neuston prey, [10] and nearly 30% of the Laysan albatross's diet is neuston. [11] Diverse pelagic and reef fish species live at the surface when young, [12] including commercially important fish species like the Atlantic cod, salmon, and billfish. Neuston can be concentrated as ...
Thraustochytrids play a large role in marine food webs with a significant contribution being in their synthesization of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs): docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) which are essential for marine crustaceans. [11] [12] [13] Their main contributions of these fatty acids to the marine ...
According to Jesse Ausubel, Senior Research Associate of the Program for the Human Environment of Rockefeller University and science advisor to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the idea for a "Census of Marine Life" originated in conversations between himself and Dr. J. Frederick Grassle, an oceanographer and benthic ecology professor at Rutgers University, in 1996. [3]
Counter-illumination is a method of active camouflage seen in marine animals such as firefly squid and midshipman fish, and in military prototypes, producing light to match their backgrounds in both brightness and wavelength. Marine animals of the mesopelagic (mid