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The pelagic food web, showing the central involvement of marine microorganisms in how the ocean imports nutrients from and then exports them back to the atmosphere and ocean floor. A marine food web is a food web of marine life. At the base of the ocean food web are single-celled algae and other plant-like organisms known as phytoplankton.
Winds drive ocean currents in the upper 100 meters of the ocean's surface. However, ocean currents also flow thousands of meters below the surface. These deep-ocean currents are driven by differences in the water's density, which is controlled by temperature (thermo) and salinity (haline). This process is known as thermohaline circulation.
The list of organisms that may struggle due to ocean acidification include coccolithophores and foraminifera (the base of the marine food chain in many areas), human food sources such as oysters and mussels, [69] and perhaps the most conspicuous, a structure built by organisms – the coral reefs. [68]
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]
Ocean sediments are the sink for many persistent organic pollutants, usually lipophilic pollutants like DDT, PCB and PAH. [24] Bottom trawling mixes these pollutants into the plankton ecology where they can move back up the food chain and into our food supply. [25] Phosphorus is often found in high concentration in soft shallow sediments. [26]
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While blooms can be studied and traced, scientists still do not know if the extra production gets incorporated into the food chain or falls to the deep ocean after a bloom dies off. [ 42 ] [ 43 ] Even if carbon is exported to depth, raining organic matter can be respired, potentially creating mid-column anoxic zones or causing acidification of ...
The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of the ocean is very deep, where the seabed is known as the abyssal plain. Seafloor spreading creates ...