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Marine microorganisms have been variously estimated to make up about 70%, [4] or about 90%, [5] [6] of the biomass in the ocean. Taken together they form the marine microbiome. Over billions of years this microbiome has evolved many life styles and adaptations and come to participate in the global cycling of almost all chemical elements. [7]
The fastest accumulation rates of siliceous ooze occur in the deep waters of the Southern Ocean (0.1 mol Si m −2 yr −1) where biogenic silica production and export is greatest. [7] The diatom and radiolarian skeletons that make up Southern Ocean oozes can take 20 to 50 years to sink to the sea floor. [6]
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 wetlands, lagoons ...
Many physical processes over ocean surface generate sea salt aerosols. One common cause is the bursting of air bubbles, which are entrained by the wind stress during the whitecap formation. Another is tearing of drops from wave tops. [19] The total sea salt flux from the ocean to the atmosphere is about 3300 Tg (3.3 billion tonnes) per year. [20]
The ocean represents the largest continuous planetary ecosystem, hosting an enormous variety of organisms, which include microscopic biota such as unicellular eukaryotes (protists). Despite their small size, protists play key roles in marine biogeochemical cycles and harbour tremendous evolutionary diversity.
For example, Candidatus Kentron (a clade of Gammaproteobacteria found in association with ciliates) nourish their ciliate hosts in the genus Kentrophoros and recycle acetate and propionate, which are low-value cellular waste products from their hosts, into biomass. [27] Another example is the anaerobic marine ciliate Strombidium purpureum. [28]
"The findings break from the traditional interpretation of marine ecology found in textbooks, which states that nearly all sunlight in the ocean is captured by chlorophyll in algae. Instead, rhodopsin-equipped bacteria function like hybrid cars, powered by organic matter when available—as most bacteria are—and by sunlight when nutrients are ...
Together, phytoplankton and zooplankton make up most of the plankton in the sea. Plankton is the term applied to any small drifting organisms that float in the sea (Greek planktos = wanderer or drifter). By definition, organisms classified as plankton are unable to swim against ocean currents; they cannot resist the ambient current and control ...