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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.
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. The second trophic level (primary consumers) is occupied by zooplankton which feed off the phytoplankton. Higher order consumers complete the web.
Marine life, sea life, or ocean life is the plants, animals, and other organisms that live in the salt water of seas or oceans, or the brackish water of coastal estuaries. At a fundamental level, marine life affects the nature of the planet. Marine organisms, mostly microorganisms, produce oxygen and sequester carbon.
Life histories connect disparate ecosystems; species that live at the surface during one life history stage may occupy the deep sea, benthos, reefs, or freshwater ecosystems during another. A diversity of fish species utilize the ocean's surface, [119] either as adults or as nursery habitat for eggs and young. In contrast, species floating on ...
Deep-sea chimaera photographed by the NOAAS Okeanos Explorer.Visible on its snout are tiny pores which lead to electroreceptor cells.. Chimaeras are soft-bodied, shark-like fish with bulky heads and long, tapered tails; measured from the tail, they can grow up to 150 cm (4.9 ft) in length.
Due to the lack of food in the deep sea environment, a majority of siphonophore species function in a sit-and-wait tactic for food. [22] The gelatinous body plan allows for flexibility when catching prey, but the gelatinous adaptations are based on habitat. [23] They swim around waiting for their long tentacles to encounter prey.
The slender snipe eel (Nemichthys scolopaceus), also known as the deep sea duck, is a fish that can weigh only a few ounces, yet reach 5 feet or 1.5 m in length.Features include a bird-like beak with curving tips, covered with tiny hooked teeth, which they use to sweep through the water to catch shrimp and other crustaceans.
DVM is important to the functioning of deep-sea food webs and the biologically-driven sequestration of carbon. [3] In terms of biomass, DVM is the largest synchronous migration in the world. [4] [2] It is not restricted to any one taxon, as examples are known from crustaceans , [5] molluscs , [6] and ray-finned fishes . [7]