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In the deep ocean, marine snow (also known as "ocean dandruff") is a continuous shower of mostly organic detritus falling from the upper layers of the water column.It is a significant means of exporting energy from the light-rich photic zone to the aphotic zone below, which is referred to as the biological pump.
Marine snow comprises macroscopic organic aggregates >500 μm in size and originates from clumps of aggregated phytoplankton (phytodetritus), discarded appendicularian houses, fecal matter and other miscellaneous detrital particles, [56] Appendicularians secrete mucous feeding structures or "houses" to collect food particles and discard and ...
Another more widely used method of feeding, which also incorporates filter feeding, is a system where an organism secretes mucus to catch the detritus in lumps, and then carries these to its mouth using an area of cilia. Many organisms, including sea slugs and serpent's starfish, scoop up the detritus which has settled on the water bed.
Marine snow also includes fish fecal pellets and other organic detritus, and steadily falls thousands of meters below active plankton blooms. [ 133 ] Of the carbon-rich biomass generated by plankton blooms, half (or more) is generally consumed by grazing organisms ( zooplankton , krill , small fish, etc.) but 20 to 30% sinks below 200 meters ...
This is a major process in the ocean and without vertical migration it wouldn't be nearly as efficient. The deep ocean gets most of its nutrients from the higher water column when they sink down in the form of marine snow. This is made up of dead or dying animals and microbes, fecal matter, sand and other inorganic material.
These short bursts of nutrients reaching the seafloor can exceed years of marine snow, and are rapidly consumed by animals and microbes. The waste products becomes part of the deep-sea sediments, and recycled by animals and microbes that feed on mud for years to come. [31]
About 10 billion snow crabs disappeared from Bering Sea waters between 2018 and 2021, ... In 2018 and 2019, marine heat waves in the Bering Sea rendered the cold pool virtually nonexistent.
Organisms can survive in the deep sea through a number of feeding methods including scavenging, predation and filtration, with a number of organisms surviving by feeding on marine snow. [6] Marine snow is organic material that has fallen from upper waters into the deep sea. [7]