Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The first recorded observations on the distribution and habits of marine life were made by Aristotle (384–322 BC). [3] Observations made in the earliest studies of marine biology provided an impetus for the age of discovery and exploration that followed. During this time, a vast amount of knowledge was gained about life that exists in the oceans.
This process is called photosynthesis, and results in the phytoplankton converting naturally occurring carbon into protoplasm. For this reason, phytoplankton are said to be the primary producers at the bottom or the first level of the marine food chain.
The tiny marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus was discovered in 1986 and accounts for more than half of the photosynthesis of the open ocean. [99] Circadian rhythms were once thought to only exist in eukaryotic cells but many cyanobacteria display a bacterial circadian rhythm .
Photosynthesis usually refers to oxygenic photosynthesis, a process that produces oxygen. Photosynthetic organisms store the chemical energy so produced within intracellular organic compounds (compounds containing carbon) like sugars, glycogen , cellulose and starches .
In the process of photosynthesis, phytoplankton release molecular oxygen (O 2) into the water as a waste byproduct. It is estimated that about 50% of the world's oxygen is produced via phytoplankton photosynthesis. [61] The rest is produced via photosynthesis on land by plants. [61]
Marine biology studies species that live in marine habitats. Most of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, which is the home to marine life. Oceans average nearly four kilometers in-depth and are fringed with coastlines that run for about 360,000 kilometres. [4] [5] Marine biology can be contrasted with biological oceanography.
The organisms responsible for primary production are called primary producers or autotrophs. Most marine primary production is generated by a diverse collection of marine microorganisms called algae and cyanobacteria. Together these form the principal primary producers at the base of the ocean food chain and produce half of the world's oxygen ...
Biology, physics and gravity interact to pump organic carbon into the deep sea. The processes of fixation of inorganic carbon in organic matter during photosynthesis, its transformation by food web processes (trophodynamics), physical mixing, transport and gravitational settling are referred to collectively as the biological pump. [10]