Ocnquiz11

Question 1

Define Primary Productivity

Answer 1

The rate at which energy is stored by an organism through the formation of organic material using energy derived from solar and chemical reactions.

Question 2

Define Biomass

Answer 2

The total mass of defined organisms or a defined group with in a specific community or the ocean as a whole

Question 3

Give the percentage of Earth’s biomass that depends on photosynthesis to create organic material

Answer 3

99.9 percent

Question 4

Explain how scientist measure primary production through satellites

Answer 4

satellites can detect the change in color of the sea water based on the amount of chlorophyll that varies with photosynthesis productivity

Question 5

Define eutrophic and oligotrophic

Answer 5

Eutrophic are generally high in chlorophyll and are located in shallow waters or along the coastal regions, areas of up-welling and high latitude

Oligotrophic - has a low chlorophyll concentration and are generally found in the open oceans of the tropics

Question 6

Explain why coastal regions generally are eutrophic while open waters are generally oligotrophic

Answer 6

Water depth in coastal regions are shallower than open areas and contain more biomass, allowing for more photosynthesis productivity

Question 7

Define ecosystem

Answer 7

All organisms in a biotic community and the abiotic environmental factors which they interact with

Question 8

Give two important commodities in an ecosystem

Answer 8

Energy and nutrients

Question 9

Explain why energy in an ecosystem is not recycled

Answer 9

the flow of nutrients depend of biogeochemical cycle, where energy does not dissipate but is transferred from one chemical form to another.

Question 10

List three basic categories of organisms in an ecosystem

Answer 10

producers
decomposers
consumers

Question 11

Define producers, decomposers, consumers

Answer 11

producers are the autotrophic component of an ecosystem that produces food
Consumers are the herbivores, carnivores, and the omnivores that eat other organisms
Decomposers are mostly bacteria that feed and decompose organic compounds that comprise of detritus

Question 12

Define herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores and bacterivores

Answer 12

Herbivores eat plants
carnivores eat other animals
and omnivores eat both plants and animals
bacteriavores feed only on bacteria

Question 13

detritus

Answer 13

detritus are the decaying organic matter or fecal waste

Question 14

Describe the cycling of nutrients

Answer 14

Components of organic matter enter the ocean through photosynthesis. these organic matters are then dated and taken in as energy for other organisms. the detritus feed the organisms below. nutrients are then returned back to the surface through upwelling

Question 15

Explain why the producers’ biomass is much greater than the consumers’ biomass

Answer 15

Only a percentage of energy is passed onto the next trophic level because energy is consumed and lost at each level

Question 16

Describe suspension feeding, carnivorous feeding, and deposit feeding

Answer 16

Suspension feeding is also referred to as filter feeding, where an organism uses specific structures to filter out plankton from the water

Carnivorous feeding is when one organism feeds on another animal

deposit feeding is where organisms feed on deposits such as detritus.

Question 17

Define trophic level

Answer 17

Herbivores are consumed by carnivores and carnivores are eaten by other predators. each level is called a trophic level feeding stages

Question 18

Define gross ecological efficiency

Answer 18

the ratio of energy passed on to the next higher trophic level divided by the energy received from the trophic level below

Question 19

Explain why the average ecological transfer efficiency is only 10 percent

Answer 19

Of the assimilated energy, much of it is consumed through kinetic energy such as respiration, growth, maintaining life, and producing offsprings

Question 20

Explain the advantage of feeding in the first or second trophic level

Answer 20

food is much more abundant and the ecological efficiency is much higher than a higher trophic level, allowing the organism to produce more

Question 21

. Explain how low ecological transfer efficiencies limit the number of trophic levels in an ecosystem.

Answer 21

If there were too many trophic levels, then there wouldn’t be enough energy to support the higher trophic levels

Question 22

Define food chain

Answer 22

a food chain is a sequence of organisms through which energy is transferred

Question 23

Define food web

Answer 23

a group of interrelated food chains

Question 24

Explain why food webs general are more realistic feeding models, compared to a food chains.

Answer 24

food webs are generally more realistic for it shows more options an organism receives its energy from. if a prey is killed off or goes extinct, the predator can always consume energy from another source; whereas food chains only show one prey per predator.

Question 25

Define biomass pyramid

Answer 25

a biomass pyramid show that for each of the large marine organisms, levels of progressively smaller organisms must have larger populations for the larger organisms to survive.