I wanna share some slides dealing with marine ecosystems.

1. MARINE ECOSYSTEMS

3. OCEANS

4. Special Features:
• Oceans occupy 70% of Earth’s surface
All of the seas are:
>interconnected by currents
>dominated by waves
>influenced by tides
>characterized by saline waters

5. Open Sea

6. Regions:
• POLAR DOMAIN:
 Arctic Ocean - marine waters that lie north of the land masses
in the Northern Hemisphere
 Antarctic Ocean- lies about the continent of Antarctica and is
open to three oceans, the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian
• TEMPERATE DOMAIN
 Atlantic
 Pacific

7. • Types of open sea ecosystem:
1.Pelagic
2.Benthic

8. Major structural groups:
1) Phytoplankton
• dominant primary producer in open sea
• don’t need well-developed supporting structures
• restricted to upper surface waters

9. 2) Zooplankton
-graze on phytoplanktons (herbivorous zooplanktons)
ex.copepods, planktonic arthropods, and krills (shrimplike euphausiids)
-eat herbivorous zooplanktons(carnivorous zooplanktons)
ex.larval forms of comb jellies (Ctenophora), arrow worms(Chaetognatha)

10. 3)Nekton
-swimming organisms that can move at will in the water column
ex. Sperm whale (Physeter catadon)
--ratio in size between predator and prey falls within certain limitations
except: baleen whales (Mysticeti) prey on krill
Sperm whale prey on giant squid

11. 4)Benthos
-organisms that live on or in the bottom of a body of water
-from tideline to abyss, organisms influenced by nature of substrate
>>rocky and hard-surface only - epifauna and epiflora
>>sediment-within deposits- infauna

12. ROCKY SHORES

13. Rocky shores:
 all ocean shores have one thing in common: are
alternately exposed & submerged by tides
Seashore region marked by:
a) extreme high water mark
b) extreme low water mark