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Water is the medium of the oceans, the medium which carries all the substances and elements involved in the marine biogeochemical cycles. Water as found in nature almost always includes dissolved substances, so water has been described as the "universal solvent" for its ability to dissolve so many substances.
Marine biogenic calcification is the production of calcium carbonate by organisms in the global ocean.. Marine biogenic calcification is the biologically mediated process by which marine organisms produce and deposit calcium carbonate minerals to form skeletal structures or hard tissues.
A food web model is a network of food chains. Each food chain starts with a primary producer or autotroph, an organism, such as an alga or a plant, which is able to manufacture its own food. Next in the chain is an organism that feeds on the primary producer, and the chain continues in this way as a string of successive predators.
The aquatic microbial loop is a marine trophic pathway which incorporates dissolved organic carbon into the food chain.. The microbial loop describes a trophic pathway where, in aquatic systems, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is returned to higher trophic levels via its incorporation into bacterial biomass, and then coupled with the classic food chain formed by phytoplankton-zooplankton-nekton.
DOM can be recycled and put back into the food web through a process called microbial loop which is essential for nutrient cycling and supporting primary productivity. [6] It also plays a vital role in the global regulation of oceanic carbon storage, as some forms resist microbial degradation and may exist within the ocean for centuries. [7]
Food web showing the flow of carbon in the open ocean. In most open ocean ecosystems only a small fraction of organic matter reaches the seafloor. Biological activity in the photic zone of most water bodies tends to recycle material so well that only a small fraction of organic matter ever sinks out of that top photosynthetic layer.
The tiny marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus, discovered in 1986, forms today part of the base of the ocean food chain and accounts for more than half the photosynthesis of the open ocean [23] and an estimated 20% of the oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere. [24]
Marine saprobic protists have the essential function of returning inorganic nutrients to the water. This process allows for new algal growth, which in turn generates sustenance for other organisms along the food chain.