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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.
A schematic of Antarctic currents. Movement of surface water away from the continent pulls water up from depth. The Southern Ocean is the largest HNLC region in the global ocean. The surface waters of the Southern Ocean have been widely identified as being rich in macronutrients despite low phytoplankton stocks.
Some of these processes take place in deep water so that where there is an upwelling of cold waters, and also near estuaries where land-sourced nutrients are present, plant growth is higher. This means that the most productive areas, rich in plankton and therefore also in fish, are mainly coastal. [79]: 160–163
Since phytoplankton need the sun’s rays to produce energy, they are usually found close to the surface of the water. Now, zooplankton are animals. They feed on nutrients in the water ...
Recent studies of marine microzooplankton found 30–45% of the ciliate abundance was mixotrophic, and up to 65% of the amoeboid, foram and radiolarian biomass was mixotrophic. [5] Phaeocystis is an important algal genus found as part of the marine phytoplankton around the world.
The tiny (0.6 μm) marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus, discovered in 1986, forms today an important part of the base of the ocean food chain and accounts for much of the photosynthesis of the open ocean [140] and an estimated 20% of the oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere. [141]
The plankton found in this zone play a crucial role in the food web of the habitat and support the diet of many important organisms. The deepest zone is the profundal zone, with very little light, colder temperatures, and higher density than the previous layers. [7]
Mycoplankton are often found in higher abundances near the surface, as well as in shallow waters. This is indicative of a connection between mycoplankton and the upwelling of organic matter. Phytoplankton communities are also abundant in the euphotic zone, which provides further evidence for the role of Mycoplankton in consumption of organic ...