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Pelagic marine systems regulate the global climate, contribute to the water cycle, maintain biodiversity, provide food and energy resources, and create opportunities for recreation and tourism. [48] Economically, marine systems support billions of dollars worth of capture fisheries, aquaculture, offshore oil and gas, and trade and shipping.
Marine biologists divide the intertidal region into three zones (low, middle, and high), based on the overall average exposure of the zone. [2] The low intertidal zone, which borders on the shallow subtidal zone, is only exposed to air at the lowest of low tides and is primarily marine in character.
The following is a list of marine ecoregions, as defined by the WWF and The Nature Conservancy. The WWF/Nature Conservancy scheme groups the individual ecoregions into 12 marine realms, which represent the broad latitudinal divisions of polar, temperate, and tropical seas, with subdivisions based on ocean basins.
A marine ecoregion is an ecoregion, or ecological region, of the oceans and seas identified and defined based on biogeographic characteristics. Introduction [ edit ]
The pelagic zone refers to the open, free waters away from the shore, where marine life can swim freely in any direction unhindered by topographical constraints. The oceanic zone is the deep open ocean beyond the continental shelf , which contrasts with the inshore waters near the coast , such as in estuaries or on the continental shelf.
The WWF identifies terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecoregions. The terrestrial scheme divides the Earth's land surface into 8 biogeographic realms, containing 867 smaller ecoregions. Each ecoregion is classified into one of 14 major habitat types, or biomes.
A marine coastal ecosystem is a marine ecosystem which occurs where the land meets the ocean. Worldwide there is about 620,000 kilometres (390,000 mi) of coastline. Coastal habitats extend to the margins of the continental shelves, occupying about 7 percent of the ocean surface area.
Within the neritic, marine biologists also identify the following: [citation needed] The infralittoral zone is the algal -dominated zone down to around five metres below the low water mark. The circalittoral zone is the region beyond the infralittoral, which is dominated by sessile animals such as oysters .