Biomes/Canadian Ecosystems Flashcards

Question

Gyres

Answer 1

Huge circular current patterns formed by opposing stable boundary currents

Answer 2

Smaller, temporary circular currents And they are the swirly patterns you see here along what is called the Gulf Stream, the major boundary current that moves up the eastern coasts of North America Eddies form for a variety of reasons these including the fluid dynamics of flowing around an obstacle, like an island So that warm water is pushing up and outward, because it’s density is less than the water around it and then it pushes that water in a clockwise spin driven by the Coriolis effect While cold core eddies, who’s cold central waters are pulling water downward and towards the center of the eddy spin counter-clockwise These smaller, swirling eddies can range greatly in size from only a few centimeters to a few kilometers in diameter And they can last for only seconds or for years

Answer 3

All organisms have thermal tolerance limits and we’ll talk a little bit more about those when we look at adaptations organisms have to living in the marine environment But those thermal tolerance limits affect the distribution of species, or where they are found in the oceans Photosynthetic primary producers are also affected by temperature For the most part, primary production is greater in warmer waters So the distribution of heat as a resource, affects the distribution of organisms associated with their tolerance for certain temperatures But also in terms of where the food is More primary production means more nutrients and more food for higher order consumers Thermal overlay of a satellite image of the Gulf Stream in the western Atlantic ocean off the coast of North America {#} The warm water nearer to the equator is being pushed up against north America here and driven northward in this boundary current called the Gulf Stream Warm water upwards along the coast and then towards Europe Warmer, green surface water being pushed up from the equatorial current and towards Europe and Scandinavia Average temperatures on earth are largely driven by differences in sunlight intensity associated with the increasing angle of incidence of the sun with latitude So we’d expect areas at higher latitudes to be colder than those at lower latitudes and places found at similar latitudes should have similar average annual temperatures But let’s look at and example here in the Atlantic For us in the terrestrial world, we would expect that the average temperatures in say Happy Valley Goose Bay Labrador over here {#} And London England over here {#} Would be similar because they are at the same latitude But, if you’ve ever heard about the climate in either place, you know that it is much warmer in England than it is in Labrador And part of the reason for this is the Gulf Stream, which brings warm water up the coast of north America and then over to Europe following the north Atlantic current Another current, the Labrador current {#} which is part of a subpolar gyre, carries cold water down towards Labrador, consequently cooling that part of the world The combination of these two gyres, and these currents Causes Labrador to be much colder than western Europe, despite being at the same latitude That affects our terrestrial climate But it also affects the distribution and migration patterns of organisms in the north Atlantic Because they have thermal preferences and tolerances Warmer water means more food!

Answer 4

Surface currents also redistribute dissolved oxygen and gasses Primary productivity tends to be higher in warmer waters producing more nutrients and dissolved oxygen for higher order consumers Currents serve the role of carrying this warm water and those primary producers as they are planktonic organisms, which cannot swim against currents from warm, highly productive areas like the equatorial waters towards the north and south along those boundary currents This is part of the reason, to use the north western again as an example {#} That the Grand Banks off the coast of eastern Canada are so productive So this was, historically, an area with lots of productive fisheries, including Atlantic Cod The gulf stream carries that warm water and nutrients up here from the warmer equatorial waters And the Labrador current brings nutrients and dissolved oxygen down from the arctic waters These two currents coming together is what makes this area more productive than it might otherwise be

Answer 5

Surface currents basically drag along anything that can’t swim This means plankton So nearly all the primary producers at the surface of the ocean are planktonic, as are the primary consumers So they are carried around in these currents basically as giant nutrient sources for nekton, which often seek out these currents Not for the mobility it gives them, but for the food source it offers This is why you will see whale migration patterns that follow currents Or, another example are higher order consumers like the Bluefin Tuna, which feeds on smaller fish Here are the migration routes of the Northern Pacific Bluefin Tuna {#} Which roughly follow the currents that make up the northern and southern pacific gyres Travelling from their spawning or reproductive areas off the eastern coast of China all the way over to California But notice they avoid the middle of the pacific? Because of the north pacific gyre, the waters there are very unproductive and don’t have a lot of nutrients The middle of the pacific is essentially a nutrient desert But, during at least part of their journey, these Bluefin Tuna are travelling as meroplankton {#} Meroplankton are the planktonic life stages of marine organisms Like the blue fin tuna here {#} Typically these are larval or juvenile forms of organisms That simply are not big enough or strong enough to swim yet, like our baby tuna here Or they are the planktonic larva of sessile organisms So organisms that will settle out of the water column and either attach themselves to the ocean floor Corals are a good example of this Or they will simply not move very far as adults, like these sea urchins Surface currents do carry just about anything that is floating around near the surface of the water That includes pleuston that have adapted to floating around Like these jellyfish {#} Or sargassum, the floating seaweed in the Sargasso sea {#} Which is associated with the north Atlantic gyre But this also includes all of our garbage…

Answer 6

organisms that living on the surface of water ex. sargassum

Answer 7

The net directional movement of water blwon by the wind resulting from a combo of friction and coriolis effect Ocean currents move perpendicular to wind currents Bends to right in northern Bends to left in southern

Answer 8

Brings cooler nutrient rich and oxygen rich water ip to the surface of the ocean (water hits coastline and goes down) Wind going north, air deflecting right, water going dwon, then goes on the bottom, hits side, comes up and then again deflect right (downwelling to upwelling) downwelling brings o2 down and upwelling site brings nutreints from the bottom to top - productivty is high at upwelling sites Cold water at upwelling and high nutreints - so at coastline of california there is upwelling and high conc of algal and phytoplankton growth causing lots of chlrophyl At the equator, easterly winds - in northern hemisphere teh water is delfecting right and in southern its deflecting left so there is an upwelling site at the equator and lots of chrlophyll conc