CHAPTER 12 Marine Life and the Marine Environment

CHAPTER 12 Marine Life and the Marine Environment Fig. 12. 5

Overview More than 250, 000 identified marine species Most live in sunlit surface seawater Species success depends on ability to Find food Avoid predation Reproduce Cope with physical barriers to movement

Classification of living organisms Three domains of Life Archaea Prokaryotic, includes “extremophile” bacteria Bacteria Prokaryotic, includes what used to be in Kingdom Monera Eukaryotic cells Includes Protists, Fungi, Plants, and Animals

Archaea Bacteria - Prokaryotic cells Cell wall differs from those bacteria in Domain Bacteria Includes extremophile bacteria ○ Acidophiles ○ Halophiles ○ Thermophiles ○ Etc. ○ These bacteria are found to chemosynthesize in hydrothermal vents

Bacteria – prokaryotic cells Cell wall made of peptidoglycan Includes Staphylococcus, Bacillus, Vibrio, Pseudomonas, etc. ○ Only a very small % of bacteria are pathogenic ○ Bacteria are very important in things like nitrogen cycle, decomposition, food making, etc. Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic bacteria

Archaea and Bacteria ○ Most numerous organisms on Earth - Think about how much bacteria lives just on you - Viruses are thought to out number bacteria but if you are just talking about “live” organisms then bacteria are the most numerous ○ Simplest of organisms - But, can live in every thinkable habitat, even those once thought to be unsuitable to life

Eukarya - Protists Algae ○ Photosynthetic ○ Can be unicellular, colonial, or multicellular - Multicellular - “seaweed” – kelp, sargassum, sea lettuce - Unicellular – phytoplankton, produce majority of oxygen in atmosphere, can cause red tides Protozoans ○ Heterotrophic ○ Unicellular ○ Amoeba, paramecium

Eukarya - Fungi Heterotrophic ○ Secrete enzymes and absorb nutrition ○ Since they are heterotrophic, they are more closely related to animals than to plants Multicellular (mold) or unicellular (yeast)

Eukarya - Plants Autotrophic, multicellular Many plant species cannot tolerate saltwater ○ Very few species grow in/near ocean Sea grasses Mangroves Dune plants

Eukarya - Animals Heterotrophic, multicellular, have motility at some point in life cycle Wide variety ○ From simplest of animals (sponges) to most complex (mammals)

Viruses Acellular entities ○ Are they “alive”? ? ? ○ Do not have the machinery for life processes, have to take over host cell ○ The ultimate “parasites”

Taxonomic classification Systemized classification of organisms Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species Fundamental unit Population of genetically similar, interbreeding individuals

Classification by habitat and mobility Plankton (floaters) Nekton (swimmers) Benthos (bottom dwellers)

http: //i. ehow. com/images/Global. Photo/Articles/2110315/icephytoplankton-main_Full. jpg Plankton Most biomass on Earth consists of plankton Phytoplankton Microscopic algae, Autotrophic Zooplankton Heterotrophic Protozoans, tiny animals, larvae of larger animals Bacterioplankton Virioplankton Viruses that infect bacteria and eukaryotic cells

Plankton o Holoplankton o o o Entire lives as plankton Example is algae, protozoans, small microscopic animals Meroplankton o o o Part of lives as plankton Juvenile or larval stages in the plankton Examples are lobsters, some fish species, etc. o Large floaters such as jellyfish or Sargassum o Very small floaters such as bacterioplankton Macroplankton Picoplankton

Nekton Independent swimmers Most adult fish and squid Marine reptiles Marine mammals Fig. 12. 3

Benthos Epifauna live on surface of sea floor Infauna live buried in sediments Nektobenthos swim or crawl through water above seafloor Most abundant in shallower water

Hydrothermal vent biocommunities Abundant and large deep-ocean benthos Discovered in 1977 Associated with hot vents Bacteria-like archaeon produce food using heat and chemicals ○ “chemosynthesis instead of photosynthesis” http: //bioinfo. bact. wisc. edu/themicrobialworld/Hydrothermal_vent. jpg

Number of marine species More land species than marine species Ocean relatively uniform conditions Therefore, less adaptation required, less speciation Don’t get this fact confused with # of individual organisms There are fewer different species in the ocean but greater # Majority of life on Earth lives in the ocean!! Diversity in the ocean is high, also – think about different types of fish (seahorses to sharks, for example) Marine species overwhelmingly benthic rather than pelagic ○ Most of these will be in shallow coastal benthic areas

Adaptations of marine organisms Physical support Buoyancy How to resist sinking Different support structures in cold (fewer) rather than warm (more appendages) seawater Smaller size Ciliate Chaining tunicate http: //www. solaster-mb. org/mb/images http: //science. discovery. com/convergence/scienceofdeep/photos/gallery

Adaptations to marine life Appendages to increase surface area Oil in micro-organisms to increase buoyancy ○ Over-time, if these organisms die and sink to bottom ○ Can become offshore oil deposits Fish egg with oil droplet Fig. 12. 9 http: //www. rpgroup. caltech. edu/~natsirt/aph 162/webpages/dylanandco/lab 1/image

Adaptations to marine life Streamlining important for larger organisms Less resistance to fluid flow Flattened body Tapering back end – fusiform http: //www. wissenschaft-online. de/sixcms/media. php/591

Adaptations to marine life Narrow range temperature in oceans Smaller variations (daily, seasonally, annually) Remember it takes longer to change water temp than air temp Deep ocean nearly isothermal Fig. 12. 11

Adaptations to marine life Cold- versus warm-water species Smaller in cooler seawater More appendages in warmer seawater Tropical organisms grow faster, live shorter, reproduce more often More species in warmer seawater More biomass in cooler seawater (upwelling)

Adaptations to marine life Stenothermal Organisms withstand small variation in temperature Typically live in open ocean Eurythermal Organisms withstand large variation in temperature Typically live in coastal waters

Adaptations to marine life Stenohaline Organisms withstand only small variation in salinity Typically live in open ocean Euryhaline Organisms withstand large variation in salinity Typically live in coastal waters, e. g. , estuaries

Adaptations to marine life Extracting minerals from seawater High concentration to low concentration Diffusion Cell membrane permeable to nutrients, for example Waste passes from cell to ocean Fig. 12

Adaptations to marine life Osmotic pressure Less concentrated to more concentrated solutions Isotonic Hypertonic Hypotonic Fig. 12. 13

Adaptations to marine life Dissolved gases Animals extract dissolved oxygen (O 2) from seawater through gills Fig. 12. 15

Adaptations to marine life Water’s transparency Many marine organisms see well Some marine organisms are nearly transparent to avoid predation

Adaptations to marine life Camouflage through color patterns Countershading Disruptive coloring http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=Pm. DTtk. Zl Mw. M http: //theplasticocean. blogspot. com/2012_07_01_archive. html

Adaptations to marine life Water pressure Increases about 1 atmosphere (1 kg/cm 2) with every 10 m (33 ft) deeper Many marine organisms do not have inner air pockets Collapsible rib cage (e. g. , sperm whale)

Main divisions of the marine environment Pelagic (open sea) Neritic (< 200 m) and oceanic Benthic (sea floor) Subneritic and suboceanic Another classification scheme: Euphotic Disphotic Aphotic

Pelagic environments Fig. 12. 19 Epipelagic Mesopelagic Bathypelagic Abyssopelagic

Daily Movement of the Deep Scattering Layer

Benthic environments Supralittoral Transition from land to seafloor Subneritic (under neritic) Littoral (intertidal zone) Sublittoral (shallow tidal zone to 200 m) Suboceanic Bathyal (200 -4, 000 m) Abyssal (4000 -6000 m) Hadal (below 6000 m) Fig. 12. 19

Misconceptions

Ocean Literacy Principles 3. e - The ocean dominates the Earth’s carbon cycle. Half the primary productivity on Earth takes place in the sunlit layers of the ocean and the ocean absorbs roughly half of all carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere. 5. a - Ocean life ranges in size from the smallest virus to the largest animal that has lived on Earth, the blue whale. 5. b - Most life in the ocean exists as microbes. Microbes are the most important primary producers in the ocean. Not only are they the most abundant life form in the ocean, they have extremely fast growth rates and life cycles. 5. e - The ocean is three-dimensional, offering vast living space and diverse habitats from the surface through the water column to the seafloor. Most of the living space on Earth is in the ocean. 5. f - Ocean habitats are defined by environmental factors. Due to interactions of abiotic factors such as salinity, temperature, oxygen, p. H, light, nutrients, pressure, substrate and circulation, ocean life is not evenly distributed temporally or spatially, i. e. , it is “patchy”. Some regions of the ocean support more diverse and abundant life than anywhere on Earth, while much of the ocean is considered a desert. 5. g - There are deep ocean ecosystems that are independent of energy from sunlight and photosynthetic organisms. Hydrothermal vents, submarine hot springs, methane cold seeps, and whale falls rely on chemical energy and chemosynthetic organisms to support life.

Sunshine State Standards SC. 6. L. 14. 3 - Recognize and explore how cells of all organisms undergo similar processes to maintain homeostasis, including extracting energy from food, getting rid of waste, and reproducing. SC. 7. L. 17. 3 - Describe and investigate various limiting factors in the local ecosystem and their impact on native populations, including food, shelter, water, space, disease, parasitism, predation, and nesting sites. SC. 912. L. 15. 5 - Explain the reasons for changes in how organisms are classified. SC. 912. L. 15. 6 - Discuss distinguishing characteristics of the domains and kingdoms of living organisms. SC. 912. L. 17. 2 - Explain the general distribution of life in aquatic systems as a function of chemistry, geography, light, depth, salinity, and temperature. SC. 912. L. 17. 7 - Characterize the biotic and abiotic components that define freshwater systems, marine systems and terrestrial systems.