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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.
Nitrogen and phosphorus are particularly important. They are regarded as limiting nutrients in many marine environments, because primary producers, like algae and marine plants, cannot grow without them. They are critical for stimulating primary production by phytoplankton. Other important nutrients are silicon, iron, and zinc. [90]
Green algae then invaded the land and started evolving into the land plants we know today. Later, in the Cretaceous, some of these land plants returned to the sea as mangroves and seagrasses. [72] Plant life can flourish in the brackish waters of estuaries, where mangroves or cordgrass or beach grass might grow.
As with temperature and nutrients, different algae have different rates of metabolic response to increasing light and also different optimal light conditions for growth, as some algae are more adapted for darker environments while others can outcompete in lighter conditions.
Algae In aquatic ecosystems, single-celled photosynthetic organisms like cyanobacteria and diatoms are the main producers. Through the process of photosynthesis, they transform sunlight into chemical energy and create organic matter, which is the foundation of the food chain.
These algae photosynthesize and produce nutrients, some of which are passed to the coral. The coral in turn will emit ammonium waste products which the algae uptake as nutrients. There has been an observed tenfold increase in calcium carbonate formation in corals containing algal symbionts compared with corals that do not have this symbiotic ...
Algae can be used to capture fertilizers in runoff from farms. When subsequently harvested, the enriched algae can be used as fertilizer. Aquaria and ponds can be filtered using algae, which absorb nutrients from the water in a device called an algae scrubber, also known as an algae turf scrubber. [130] [131]
Algae are a very important source of food for aquatic life, but at the same time, if they become over-abundant, they can cause declines in fish when they decay. [29] Similar over-abundance of algae in coastal environments such as the Gulf of Mexico produces, upon decay, a hypoxic region of water known as a dead zone .