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Given their major role in marine food webs and ecosystem functioning, [53] knowledge of the tolerance limits of copepods to abiotic factors is essential if robust projections of the effects of global change on the world's oceans are to be possible. The effects of climate-driven warming (and acidification) on the SML ecosystem and neuston ...
From shallow waters to the deep sea, the open ocean to rivers and lakes, numerous terrestrial and marine species depend on the surface ecosystem and the organisms found there. [28] The ocean's surface acts like a skin between the atmosphere above and the water below, and harbours an ecosystem unique to this environment.
A variety of biotic reef types exists, including oyster reefs and sponge reefs, but the most massive and widely distributed are tropical coral reefs. [1] Although corals are major contributors to the framework and bulk material comprising a coral reef, the organisms most responsible for reef growth against the constant assault from ocean waves ...
Organisms that inhabit these reefs include red algae, green algae, bivalves and echinoderms. Many of these organisms contribute to reef formation. [1] Furthermore, unicellular dinoflagellates live in coral tissues, engaging in a mutualistic relationship where they provide corals with essential organic molecules. [6]
Ecosystem ecology is the "study of the interactions between organisms and their environment as an integrated system". [2]: 458 The size of ecosystems can range up to ten orders of magnitude, from the surface layers of rocks to the surface of the planet. [4]: 6
A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral or similar relatively stable material, lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. [55] Many reefs result from natural, abiotic processes but there are also reefs such as the coral reefs of tropical waters formed by biotic processes dominated by corals and coralline algae.
The off-reef floor is the shallow sea floor surrounding a reef. This zone occurs next to reefs on continental shelves. Reefs around tropical islands and atolls drop abruptly to great depths and do not have such a floor. Usually sandy, the floor often supports seagrass meadows which are important foraging areas for reef fish.
Biological evolution and the functioning of ecosystems, in turn, are to a large degree conditioned by geophysical and geological processes. Understanding the interactions between organisms and their abiotic environment, and the resulting coupled evolution of the biosphere and geosphere is a central theme of research in biogeology.