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Bacteria. In the microbial food web, bacteria play a crucial role in breaking down organic materials and recycling nutrients. They transform DOC into bacterial biomass so that protists and other higher trophic levels can consume it. Additionally, bacteria take part in the nitrogen and carbon cycles, among other biogeochemical cycles. [4] Algae
Bacteria were among the first life forms to appear on Earth, and are present in most of its habitats. Bacteria inhabit soil, water, acidic hot springs, radioactive waste, [61] and the deep portions of Earth's crust. Bacteria also live in symbiotic and parasitic relationships with plants and animals.
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.
Marine protists are defined by their habitat as protists that live in marine environments, that is, in the saltwater of seas or oceans or the brackish water of coastal estuaries. Life originated as marine single-celled prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) and later evolved into more complex eukaryotes. Eukaryotes are the more developed life forms ...
This applies particularly to bacteria and archaea, and is due to a lack of knowledge or ability to supply the required growth conditions. [271] [272] The term microbial dark matter has come to be used to describe microorganisms scientists know are there but have been unable to culture, and whose properties therefore remain elusive. [271]
The bacteria are found naturally in warm seawater, and can cause a severe and potentially life-threatening illness in humans called vibriosis. Some experts warn it could pose a growing threat.
[55] [56] [57] Bacteria that live in detrital sediments create and cycle nutrients and biominerals. [58] Food web models and nutrient cycles have traditionally been treated separately, but there is a strong functional connection between the two in terms of stability, flux, sources, sinks, and recycling of mineral nutrients. [59] [60]
The bacteria, typically found in brackish waters — the product of salt and fresh water mixed together, as in estuaries — with surface temperatures above 13 °C, causes necrotizing fasciitis ...