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A lake ecosystem or lacustrine ecosystem includes biotic (living) plants, animals and micro-organisms, as well as abiotic (non-living) physical and chemical interactions. [1]
Plants, along with other primary producers, produce the energy that other living beings consume, and the oxygen that they breathe. [3] It is thought that the first organisms on Earth were primary producers located on the ocean floor. [3] Autotrophs are fundamental to the food chains of all ecosystems in the world. They take energy from the ...
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'.
The health of an aquatic ecosystem is degraded when the ecosystem's ability to absorb a stress has been exceeded. A stress on an aquatic ecosystem can be a result of physical, chemical or biological alterations to the environment. Physical alterations include changes in water temperature, water flow and light availability.
Neustons can be informally separated into two groups: the phytoneuston, which are autotrophs floating at the water surface including cyanobacteria, filamentous algae and free-floating aquatic plant (e.g. mosquito fern, duckweed and water lettuce); and the zooneuston, which are floating heterotrophs such as protists (e.g. ciliates) and metazoans ...
Autotrophs are vital to all ecosystems because all organisms need organic molecules, and only autotrophs can produce them from inorganic compounds. [1] Autotrophs are classified as either photoautotrophs (which get energy from the sun, like plants) or chemoautotrophs (which get energy from chemical bonds, like certain bacteria).
Finally, there are nekton (animals that can propel themselves, like fish, squids, and crabs), which are the largest and the most obvious animals in the photic zone, but their quantity is the smallest among all the groups. [4] Phytoplankton are microscopic plants living suspended in the water column that have little or no means of motility.
Autotrophic protists that make their own food without needing to consume other organisms, usually by photosynthesis (sometimes by chemosynthesis) Green algae, Pyramimonas: Red and brown algae, diatoms, coccolithophores and some dinoflagellates. Plant-like protists are important components of phytoplankton discussed below. Animal-like