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Biological oceanography is the study of how organisms affect and are affected by the physics, chemistry, and geology of the oceanographic system.Biological oceanography may also be referred to as ocean ecology, in which the root word of ecology is Oikos (oικoσ), meaning ‘house’ or ‘habitat’ in Greek.
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.
The ocean is known to be the habitat of over 230,000 species, but may hold considerably more – perhaps over two million species. [18] Yet, the ocean faces many environmental threats, such as marine pollution, overfishing, and the effects of climate change. Those effects include ocean warming, ocean acidification and sea level rise.
Marine life, sea life or ocean life is the collective ecological communities that encompass all aquatic animals, plants, algae, fungi, protists, single-celled microorganisms and associated viruses living in the saline water of marine habitats, either the sea water of marginal seas and oceans, or the brackish water of coastal wetlands, lagoons ...
From shallow waters to the deep sea, the open ocean to rivers and lakes, numerous terrestrial and marine species depend on the surface ecosystem and the organisms found there. [28] The ocean's surface acts like a skin between the atmosphere above and the water below, and harbours an ecosystem unique to this environment.
Portal:Oceans/Facts/21 . Ocean Wind, a planned offshore wind farm in the U.S., may use infrastructure at a closed nuclear power plant to access the electrical grid. Clover grass used to grow in the Pacific Ocean, but has not been seen there since a severe storm in 1996.
The ocean contains 97% of Earth's water and is the primary component of Earth's hydrosphere and is thereby essential to life on Earth. The ocean influences climate and weather patterns, the carbon cycle, and the water cycle by acting as a huge heat reservoir. (Full article...) Waves in Pacifica, California. A sea is a large body of salt water.
A habitat is an ecological or environmental area inhabited by one or more living species. [1] The marine environment supports many kinds of these habitats. Marine habitats can be divided into coastal and open ocean habitats.