Sargasso Sea

Question 1

West, north, south

Answer 1

West-Gulf Stream
North-North Atlantic drift
South-North equatorial drift

Question 2

Size

Answer 2

4.4million km2

Question 3

Nutrients come from

Answer 3

Gulf Stream produces eddies that lead to mixing as cool water is drawn up from deep

Question 4

Surface water

Answer 4

Warm high saline nutrient poor and unproductive

Question 5

Surface currents

Answer 5

Air temp and wind

Question 6

Ocean gyre

Answer 6

Thermohaline circulation from salinity and temp

Question 7

Sargassum weed

Answer 7

Brown alga s.fluitans and s.natans
Grow veg actively in clumps about 1metre but can get up to 50metres
4-11 million tonnes
Hosts a miniature ecosystem

Question 8

Food web

Answer 8

Shrimp, crab, fish
Sea spiders, sea slugs
Tube worms
Hydrozoans, bryozoans, barnicals 
Isopods, copeopods, 
Plankton, Cyanobacteria, algae, diatoms, detritus

Question 9

Frog fish

Answer 9

Uses criptism, prehensile pictorial films to hold on to the weed, can open mouth wide to suck in prey, sub dermal cavities help with buoyancy

Question 10

Pipe fish

Answer 10

Elongated body provides camouflage

Question 11

Crab

Answer 11

Markings mimic the weed and bryozoans

Question 12

Why community live in weed

Answer 12

Protection and nutrition due to dissolved organic matter and high levels of phosphate

Question 13

Eels

Answer 13

Spawn in spring and are present in the sargasso

Question 14

Where it’s found

Answer 14

Subtropical North Atlantic. Bounded by gigantic system of ocean currents known as North Atlantic subtropical gyre. Due to interaction of rotation of earth and winds. Clockwise circulation