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A freshwater aquatic food web. The blue arrows show a complete food chain (algae → daphnia → gizzard shad → largemouth bass → great blue heron). A food web is the natural interconnection of food chains and a graphical representation of what-eats-what in an ecological community.
Freshwater ecosystem. Freshwater ecosystems are a subset of Earth's aquatic ecosystems that include the biological communities inhabiting freshwater waterbodies such as lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, springs, bogs, and wetlands. [1] They can be contrasted with marine ecosystems, which have a much higher salinity. Freshwater habitats can be ...
The freshwater ecoregion system is similar to that for terrestrial ecoregions. The Earth's land surface is divided into eight terrestrial biogeographic realms or ecozones, which contain hundreds of smaller ecoregions. Ecoregions are classified into biomes or major habitat types, which have similar climates and vegetation types. The freshwater ...
The two main types of aquatic ecosystems are marine ecosystems and freshwater ecosystems. [1] Freshwater ecosystems may be lentic (slow moving water, including pools, ponds, and lakes); lotic (faster moving water, for example streams and rivers); and wetlands (areas where the soil is saturated or inundated for at least part of the time). [2]
The microbial food web refers to the combined trophic interactions among microbes in aquatic environments. These microbes include viruses, bacteria, algae, heterotrophic protists (such as ciliates and flagellates). [1] In aquatic ecosystems, microbial food webs are essential because they form the basis for the cycling of nutrients and energy.
Oxsjön, a lake in Sweden. Freshwater biology focuses on environments like lakes. A pond in the Oconee River Floodplain in Georgia, whose surface is covered in duckweed but still contains fish. Freshwater biology is the scientific biological study of freshwater ecosystems and is a branch of limnology. This field seeks to understand the ...
The offshore is divided into two further zones, an open water zone and a deep water zone. In the open water zone (or photic zone) sunlight supports photosynthetic algae and the species that feed upon them. In the deep water zone, sunlight is not available and the food web is based on detritus entering from the littoral and photic zones.
Climate change, hydrologic engineering, shifting water needs, and newly introduced species will continue to alter the food web configuration of the estuary. This model provides a snapshot of the current state, with notes about recent changes or species introductions that have altered the configuration of the food web.