5 Aquatic Biomes & Niches

Question 1

What are marine biomes?

Answer 1

Saltwater
1. Open ocean (pelagic)
2. Deep ocean (benthic)
3. Kelp forests & coral gardens
4. Intertidal (littoral)
5. Salt marshes & mangroves (estuaries)

Question 2

What are the aquatic biomes?

Answer 2

Freshwater
1. Lakes (lentic)
2. Rivers & streams (lotic)
3. Wetlands, bogs, muskegs & fens

Question 3

What are the 3 distinctions marine biomes relative to distance from land?

Answer 3

1. Littoral: intertidal, shallow shoreline
2. Neritic: coast to margin of continental shelf
3. Pelagic: oceanic, beyond the continental shelf

Question 4

What are the 5 vertical zones of the pelagic (oceanic) zone?

Answer 4

1. Epipelagic: 0m-200m
2. Mesopelagic: 200m-1,000m
3. Bathypelagic: 1,000m-4,000m
4. Abyssal: 4,000m-6,000m
5. Hadal: 6,000+m

Question 5

What are the 2 marine zones by habitat?

Answer 5

1. Benthic: the ocean floor
2. Pelagic: open water

Question 6

What are the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the pelagic (open ocean) zone?

Answer 6

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

Question 7

What are the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the benthic (deep ocean & thermal vents) zone?

Answer 7

Physical/Chemical
• No light
• High pressure

Biological
• Highly adapted organisms
• Chemosynthetic organisms

Question 8

What are the characteristics of the kelp forests?

Answer 8

• Exist ar 30° latitude or higher
• Cooler temperatures
• Areas of coastal upwelling

Question 9

What are the characteristics of the coral reefs/gardens?

Answer 9

• 30° latitude or lower
• Warmer temperatures

Question 10

What is an Elkman spiral?

Answer 10

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

Question 11

What is coastal upwelling?

Answer 11

• Wind-driven off-shore movement of water
• Deeper, nutrient rich waters replace displaced water near shoreline

Question 12

What are the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the littoral (intertidal) zone?

Answer 12

Physical/Chemical
• Highly variable & dynamic
• Tides
• High light
• Temperature is closer to air temp

Biological
• Amphibious (part marine, part terrestrial)

Question 13

What are the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of salt marshes & mangroves?

Answer 13

Physical/Chemical
• Highly variable and dynamic
• Salinity fluxes

Biological
• Marshes = grass
• Mangroves = trees
• Low diversity
• High productivity

Question 14

What are the lotic ecosystems?

Answer 14

•Rivers & streams: natural channels of moving water, differing in size
•Canals: human made channels of flowing water

Question 15

What are the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of lotic (river) ecosystems?

Answer 15

Physical/Chemical
•Moving water
•Turbid, lots of suspended sediment
•Temperature is similar to air temp

Biological
•Fish
•Macroinvertibrates (benthic inversibrates)

Question 16

What are the lentic ecosystems?

Answer 16

•Lakes: relatively deep (>3m) and large (>1 ha)
•Ponds: smaller, often fishless
•Wetlands: shallow, dominated by waterlogged soils and aquatic vegetation

Question 17

What are the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of lakes?

Answer 17

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

Question 18

What are the characteristics of the wetlands, bogs, and fens?

Answer 18

Physical/Chemical
• Decomposition<Production
•Still water
•Low O2

Biological
•Structurally comprised of slowly decomposinf organic matter

Question 19

What are the 2 forms of wetland?

Answer 19

Those that form peat (accumulated partially decomposed vegetation and organic matter) and those that don’t

Question 20

What are the 2 kinds of peatland?

Answer 20

1. Bogs: found in landscape depressions
2. Fens: Receive water frim groundwater or surface water

Question 21

What are the basic regulatory factors of marine ecosystems?

Answer 21

•Oceanic currents
•Solar irradiance
•Nutrients

Question 22

What are the basic regulatory factors of freshwater ecosystems?

Answer 22

•Landscape factors
•Solar irradiance
•Nutrients
•Still vs flowing water

Question 23

Fundamental niche

Answer 23

Physical conditions that a species can live in (no interaction with other species)

Question 24

Realized niche

Answer 24

Conditikns a species can live in when restricted by interactions with other species

Question 25

What are the 3 dimensions of the Hutchinsonian hypervolume

Answer 25

3 environmental factors important fo survival and reproduction

Question 26

Competitive exclusion

Answer 26

No 2 species can occupy the same realized niche, eventually one will out-compete the other

Question 27

Niche partitioning

Answer 27

When species use limiting factors in different ways they occupy different realized niches