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Above the neritic zone lie the intertidal (or eulittoral) and supralittoral zones; below it the continental slope begins, descending from the continental shelf to the abyssal plain and the pelagic zone. Within the neritic, marine biologists also identify the following: [citation needed] The infralittoral zone is the algal-dominated zone down to ...
The benthic zone consists of substrates below water where many invertebrates live. The intertidal zone is the area between high and low tides. Other near-shore (neritic) zones can include mudflats , seagrass meadows , mangroves , rocky intertidal systems , salt marshes , coral reefs , lagoons .
The oceanic zone is typically defined as the area of the ocean lying beyond the continental shelf (e.g. the neritic zone), but operationally is often referred to as beginning where the water depths drop to below 200 metres (660 ft), seaward from the coast into the open ocean with its pelagic zone.
Ocean stratification is the natural separation of an ocean's water into horizontal layers by density.This is generally stable stratification, because warm water floats on top of cold water, and heating is mostly from the sun, which reinforces that arrangement.
The fish in the different pelagic and deep water benthic zones are physically structured, and behave in ways, that differ markedly from each other. Groups of coexisting species within each zone all seem to operate in similar ways, such as the small mesopelagic vertically migrating plankton-feeders, the bathypelagic anglerfishes , and the deep ...
A marine coastal ecosystem is a marine ecosystem which occurs where the land meets the ocean. Worldwide there is about 620,000 kilometres (390,000 mi) of coastline. Coastal habitats extend to the margins of the continental shelves, occupying about 7 percent of the ocean surface area.
The littoral zone, also called litoral or nearshore, is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. [1] In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely inundated), to coastal areas that are permanently submerged — known as the foreshore — and the terms are often used interchangeably.
Most food in this zone comes from dead organisms sinking to the bottom of the lake or ocean from overlying waters. The depth of the aphotic zone can be greatly affected by such things as turbidity and the season of the year. The aphotic zone underlies the photic zone, which is that portion of a lake or ocean directly affected by sunlight.