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Human activities affect marine life and marine habitats through overfishing, habitat loss, the introduction of invasive species, ocean pollution, ocean acidification and ocean warming. These impact marine ecosystems and food webs and may result in consequences as yet unrecognised for the biodiversity and continuation of marine life forms. [58]
For the deep-sea ecosystem, the death of a whale is the most important event. A dead whale can bring hundreds of tons of organic matter to the bottom. Whale fall community progresses through three stages: [32] Mobile scavenger stage: Big and mobile deep-sea animals arrive at the site almost immediately after whales fall on the bottom.
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.
A freshwater aquatic food web. The blue arrows show a complete food chain (algae → daphnia → gizzard shad → largemouth bass → great blue heron). A food web is the natural interconnection of food chains and a graphical representation of what-eats-what in an ecological community.
Most deep sea pelagic fishes belong to their own orders, suggesting a long evolution in deep sea environments. In contrast, deep water benthic species, are in orders that include many related shallow water fishes. [71] The umbrella mouth gulper is a deep sea eel with an enormous loosely hinged mouth. It can open its mouth wide enough to swallow ...
The pelagic ecosystem is based on phytoplankton. Phytoplankton manufacture their own food using a process of photosynthesis. Because they need sunlight, they inhabit the upper, sunlit epipelagic zone, which includes the coastal or neritic zone. Biodiversity diminishes markedly in the deeper zones below the epipelagic zone as dissolved oxygen ...
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Viruses influence biogeochemical cycling through the role they play in marine food webs. [ 42 ] [ 43 ] [ 44 ] Their overall abundance can be up to two orders of magnitude lower than the mesopelagic zone , however, there is often high viral abundance found around deep-sea hydrothermal vents . [ 45 ]