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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 .
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.
Ocean or marine biomass, in a reversal of terrestrial biomass, can increase at higher trophic levels. In the ocean, the food chain typically starts with phytoplankton, and follows the course: Phytoplankton → zooplankton → predatory zooplankton → filter feeders → predatory fish
Decomposers are often left off food webs, but if included, they mark the end of a food chain. [6] Thus food chains start with primary producers and end with decay and decomposers. Since decomposers recycle nutrients, leaving them so they can be reused by primary producers, they are sometimes regarded as occupying their own trophic level.
There are two major food chains: The primary food chain is the energy coming from autotrophs and passed on to the consumers; and the second major food chain is when carnivores eat the herbivores or decomposers that consume the autotrophic energy. [16] Consumers are broken down into primary consumers, secondary consumers and tertiary consumers.
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'.
Plants form the base of the food chain and need sunlight and nutrients to grow. In the ocean, these plants are mainly microscopic phytoplankton which drift in the water column . They need sunlight for photosynthesis , which powers carbon fixation , so they are found only relatively near the surface, but they also need nutrients.
The marine neuston, organisms living at the ocean surface, are one of the least studied planktonic groups. Neuston occupies a restricted ecological niche and is affected by a wide range of endogenous and exogenous processes while also being a food source to zooplankton and fish migrating from the deep layers and seabirds.