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While an ecosystem often has no clear boundary, as a working model it is practical to consider the functional community where the bulk of matter and energy transfer occurs. [89] Nutrient cycling occurs in ecosystems that participate in the "larger biogeochemical cycles of the earth through a system of inputs and outputs."
In recent decades, the ocean has acted as a sink for anthropogenic CO 2, absorbing around a quarter of the CO 2 produced by humans through the burning of fossil fuels and land use changes. [9] By doing so, the ocean has acted as a buffer, somewhat slowing the rise in atmospheric CO 2 levels.
The benthic layer is more efficient with low flow of methane, and efficiency decreases as methane flow or the speed of flow increases. [8] Oxygen demand for cold seep ecosystems is much higher than other benthic ecosystems, so if the bottom water does not have enough oxygen, then the efficiency of aerobic microbes in removing methane is reduced ...
Integrated ocean modeling systems is helpful for specific regions: for example, the ESPreSSO model is used to study the Mid-Atlantic Bight region. Integrated ocean modeling systems often use data from buoys and weather stations for atmospheric forcing and boundary conditions. Two examples of integrated ocean modeling systems are:
The ocean biological pump is the ocean's biologically driven sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere and land runoff to the deep ocean interior and seafloor sediments. [79] The biological pump is not so much the result of a single process, but rather the sum of a number of processes each of which can influence biological pumping.
Energy flow is the flow of energy through living things within an ecosystem. [1] All living organisms can be organized into producers and consumers , and those producers and consumers can further be organized into a food chain .
Ocean chlorophyll concentration as a proxy for marine primary production. Green indicates where there are a lot of phytoplankton, while blue indicates where there are few phytoplankton. – NASA Earth Observatory 2019. [1] Marine primary production is the chemical synthesis in the ocean of organic compounds from atmospheric or dissolved carbon ...
The aquatic microbial loop is a marine trophic pathway which incorporates dissolved organic carbon into the food chain.. The microbial loop describes a trophic pathway where, in aquatic systems, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is returned to higher trophic levels via its incorporation into bacterial biomass, and then coupled with the classic food chain formed by phytoplankton-zooplankton-nekton.