5 Aquatic Biomes & Niches Flashcards
What are marine biomes?
Saltwater
1. Open ocean (pelagic)
2. Deep ocean (benthic)
3. Kelp forests & coral gardens
4. Intertidal (littoral)
5. Salt marshes & mangroves (estuaries)
What are the aquatic biomes?
Freshwater
1. Lakes (lentic)
2. Rivers & streams (lotic)
3. Wetlands, bogs, muskegs & fens
What are the 3 distinctions marine biomes relative to distance from land?
- Littoral: intertidal, shallow shoreline
- Neritic: coast to margin of continental shelf
- Pelagic: oceanic, beyond the continental shelf
What are the 5 vertical zones of the pelagic (oceanic) zone?
- Epipelagic: 0m-200m
- Mesopelagic: 200m-1,000m
- Bathypelagic: 1,000m-4,000m
- Abyssal: 4,000m-6,000m
- Hadal: 6,000+m
What are the 2 marine zones by habitat?
- Benthic: the ocean floor
- Pelagic: open water
What are the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the pelagic (open ocean) zone?
Physical
• Light & temperature is dependent on depth
• Affected by gyres
Chemical
• High salinity, depends on precipitation & evaporation
• Oxygen concentration depends on depth
Biological
• Low diversity
• Photic zone is most inhabited
• Low density
What are the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the benthic (deep ocean & thermal vents) zone?
Physical/Chemical
• No light
• High pressure
Biological
• Highly adapted organisms
• Chemosynthetic organisms
What are the characteristics of the kelp forests?
• Exist ar 30° latitude or higher
• Cooler temperatures
• Areas of coastal upwelling
What are the characteristics of the coral reefs/gardens?
• 30° latitude or lower
• Warmer temperatures
What is an Elkman spiral?
How the Coriolis effecf and wind move large water masses in a vertical fashion
• Force diminishes and changes direction with increasing depth due to water friction
• Net transportation direction of water is 90° different from the surface wind direction
What is coastal upwelling?
• Wind-driven off-shore movement of water
• Deeper, nutrient rich waters replace displaced water near shoreline
What are the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the littoral (intertidal) zone?
Physical/Chemical
• Highly variable & dynamic
• Tides
• High light
• Temperature is closer to air temp
Biological
• Amphibious (part marine, part terrestrial)
What are the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of salt marshes & mangroves?
Physical/Chemical
• Highly variable and dynamic
• Salinity fluxes
Biological
• Marshes = grass
• Mangroves = trees
• Low diversity
• High productivity
What are the lotic ecosystems?
•Rivers & streams: natural channels of moving water, differing in size
•Canals: human made channels of flowing water
What are the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of lotic (river) ecosystems?
Physical/Chemical
•Moving water
•Turbid, lots of suspended sediment
•Temperature is similar to air temp
Biological
•Fish
•Macroinvertibrates (benthic inversibrates)
What are the lentic ecosystems?
•Lakes: relatively deep (>3m) and large (>1 ha)
•Ponds: smaller, often fishless
•Wetlands: shallow, dominated by waterlogged soils and aquatic vegetation
What are the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of lakes?
Physical/Chemical
•Like mini-oceans
-Littoral zone: near land
-Limnetic zone: far from land
-Epilimnion: top (sunlight penetrates, warmer water)
-Metalimnion: middle (rapidly varying with depth)
-Hypolimnion: bottom (cold, dark, low oxygen)
•Dynamic
Biological
•Organisms vary by layer & light level
-Planktonic: free floating
-Nektonix: free swimming
What are the characteristics of the wetlands, bogs, and fens?
Physical/Chemical
• Decomposition<Production
•Still water
•Low O2
Biological
•Structurally comprised of slowly decomposinf organic matter
What are the 2 forms of wetland?
Those that form peat (accumulated partially decomposed vegetation and organic matter) and those that don’t
What are the 2 kinds of peatland?
- Bogs: found in landscape depressions
- Fens: Receive water frim groundwater or surface water
What are the basic regulatory factors of marine ecosystems?
•Oceanic currents
•Solar irradiance
•Nutrients
What are the basic regulatory factors of freshwater ecosystems?
•Landscape factors
•Solar irradiance
•Nutrients
•Still vs flowing water
Fundamental niche
Physical conditions that a species can live in (no interaction with other species)
Realized niche
Conditikns a species can live in when restricted by interactions with other species
What are the 3 dimensions of the Hutchinsonian hypervolume
3 environmental factors important fo survival and reproduction
Competitive exclusion
No 2 species can occupy the same realized niche, eventually one will out-compete the other
Niche partitioning
When species use limiting factors in different ways they occupy different realized niches
