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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.
Pelagic food web and the biological pump. Links among the ocean's biological pump and pelagic food web and the ability to sample these components remotely from ships, satellites, and autonomous vehicles. Light blue waters are the euphotic zone, while the darker blue waters represent the twilight zone. [80]
Dead diatoms drift to the ocean floor where, over millions of years, the remains of their frustules can build up as much as half a mile deep. [64] Diatoms have relatively high sinking speeds compared with other phytoplankton groups, and they account for about 40% of particulate carbon exported to ocean depths. [60] [65] [62]
Globally the ocean and the land each produce about the same amount of primary production, but in the ocean primary production comes mainly from cyanobacteria and algae, while on land it comes mainly from vascular plants. Marine algae includes the largely invisible and often unicellular microalgae, which together with cyanobacteria form the ...
The sea surface microlayer (SML) at the air-sea interface is a distinct, under-studied habitat compared to the subsurface and copepods, important components of ocean food webs, have developed key adaptations to exploit this niche. [40] The ocean-spanning SML forms the boundary between the atmosphere and the hydrosphere.
The microbial food web refers to the combined trophic interactions among microbes in aquatic environments. These microbes include viruses, bacteria, algae, heterotrophic protists (such as ciliates and flagellates). [1] In aquatic ecosystems, microbial food webs are essential because they form the basis for the cycling of nutrients and energy.
These plankton are eaten by numerous forms of filter feeders—mussels, clams, barnacles, sea squirts, and polychaete worms—which filter seawater in their search for planktonic food sources. [13] The adjacent ocean is also a primary source of nutrients for autotrophs, photosynthesizing producers ranging in size from microscopic algae (e.g ...
Phytoplankton perform three crucial functions: they generate nearly half of the world atmospheric oxygen, they regulate ocean and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, and they form the base of the marine food web. When conditions are right, blooms of phytoplankton algae can occur in surface waters.