Marine Environment L1 Flashcards
List eight types of aquatic environment.
1) Streams and rivers
2) Wetlands
3) Groundwater
4) Ponds and Lakes
5) Estuaries
6) Marine environment (sea/ocean)
7) Intertidal
8) Salt Marsh & Mangroves
What percentage of the Earth’s surface is water?
70%
What percentage of all named species are invertebrates?
70%
What percentage of all global water resources are salty?
97%
How much freshwater is stored on Earth as ice? In what form is the remaining percentage of water held?
70% of freshwater is ice
Almost all of the remaining 30% is groundwater. Streams/rivers/lakes etc hold a tiny fraction of the Earth’s freshwater.
How salty is saltwater?
There are 35 parts water per thousand of solutes
Why is the marine environment important?
1) Vital for global nutrient cycles (including carbon)
2) Has different biomes
3) Species rich
Define Primary Production
Primary productivity is the rate at which energy is converted by photosynthetic and chemosynthetic autotrophs to organic substances.
Define Secondary Production
Secondary production is the generation of biomass of heterotrophic (consumer) organisms in a system. This is driven by the transfer of organic material between trophic levels, and represents the quantity of new tissue created through the use of assimilated food
Approximately, how much carbon does the ocean absorb annually?
90 Gigatons (or petagrams, they are the same amount)
Why are there more phytoplankton nearer coastlines?
1) The water is shallow and therefore warmer
2) Human waste production provides nutrients
Why are there lots of phytoplankton found at the equator?
The equator is warm.
What heats up Northern Europe and the North Atlantic?
Thermohaline circulation.
A rapid rise in greenhouse gas concentrations could disrupt the thermohaline circulation.
What drives the climate in the UK?
The Gulf stream
Give examples of shallow water environments.
1) Estuaries
2) Intertidal zones
3) Kelp forests
4) Coral reefs
Define benthic zone
The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water
Define pelagic zone
The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean, and can be further divided into regions by depth
What is the most important variable of the ocean?
Water depth
Different _______________ penetrate to different depths.
Different wavelengths of light penetrate to different depths.
________ light doesn’t penetrate very far.
Red light doesn’t penetrate very far (which is a shame because this is the sort of light most green plants use).
Brown and red algae absorb light of a different spectrum (that can penetrate deeper). E.g. blue light
In what zone is most energy found in the ocean?
Most energy is in the Euphotic zone where photosynthesis occurs
What is the euphotic zone?
The euphotic zone is the layer closer to the surface that receives enough light for photosynthesis to occur.
What is marine snow?
In the deep ocean, marine snow is a continuous shower of mostly organic detritus falling from the upper layers of the water column. It is a significant means of exporting energy from the light-rich photic zone to the aphotic zone below.
What happens to the ocean as it absorbs more CO2?
The ocean becomes more acidic as it absorbs CO2, casing a wide range of consequences, such as the slowing of skeletal growth in corals and coral bleaching.
