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These plants have adapted to the high salinity of the ocean environment. Light is only able to penetrate the top 200 metres (660 ft) so this is the only part of the sea where plants can grow. [77] The surface layers are often deficient in biologically active nitrogen compounds.
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 ocean, they provide a crucial source of food to many small and large aquatic organisms, such as bivalves, fish, and baleen whales. Marine plankton include bacteria , archaea , algae , protozoa , microscopic fungi , [ 4 ] and drifting or floating animals that inhabit the saltwater of oceans and the brackish waters of estuaries .
Seagrasses are flowering plants from one of four plant families which grow in marine environments. They are called seagrasses because the leaves are long and narrow and are very often green, and because the plants often grow in large meadows which look like grassland.
Aquaculture can also be defined as the breeding, growing, and harvesting of fish and other aquatic plants, also known as farming in water. It is an environmental source of food and commercial products that help to improve healthier habitats and are used to reconstruct the population of endangered aquatic species.
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.
A small proportion of marine microorganisms are pathogenic, causing disease and even death in marine plants and animals. [9] However marine microorganisms recycle the major chemical elements , both producing and consuming about half of all organic matter generated on the planet every year.
Phytoplankton (/ ˌ f aɪ t oʊ ˈ p l æ ŋ k t ə n /) are the autotrophic (self-feeding) components of the plankton community and a key part of ocean and freshwater ecosystems.The name comes from the Greek words φυτόν (phyton), meaning 'plant', and πλαγκτός (planktos), meaning 'wanderer' or 'drifter'.