Download Marine Ecology

Flow of energy
through a living system;
energy is degraded w/ each step
Fig 12-3, p.238
Generalized trophic pyramid
Fig 12-6, p.241
Simplified food
web
Fig 12-7, p.242
Factors that effect…
• Light
• Temperature
• (among others…that you already know…)
Fig 12-9, p.244
Fig 12-11, p.247
Life in the Ocean
• The PELAGIC community!
• A “Pelagic community” is a community of
organisms that live suspended in the water
column…they either float (plankton) or
swim (nekton).
• This is different than those that live on
shore, on the bottom (etc.)
Pelagic
Communitiy
Plankton
And
nekton
Fig 13-1, p.258
Bony fish
examples
Deep sea angler fish
Marine
Mammals
that live in
the pelagic
zone
(Baleen)
Fig 13-21, p.275
Marine
Mammals
that live in
the pelagic
zone
(Toothed)
Fig 13-21, p.276
Next…
• Since we know some of the organisms that
live there, we can also study their
interactions (w/ each other and w/I the
community structure)
Marine Ecology
• The study of interactions of marine
organisms with each other and with their
environment
Population
• A group of organisms of the same species
occupying a specific area
Community
• Many populations of organisms that interact
with each other at a particular location
Community Composition
• Physical factors
– temperature, salinity, dessication, pressure
– can all limit where an organism can survive
• Biological factors
– larval supply, competition, predation,
parasitism,
– can also limit where an organism can be found
Physical Factors
•
•
•
•
range of tolerance
Steno = narrow
Eury = wide or broad
Examples:
– stenothermal or eurythermal
– stenohaline or euryhaline
Biological Factors
• Competition
• Predation
• Symbiosis
Competition
• limited supply of resources
• Intraspecific competition
– between individuals of the same species
– Leads to adaptation
• Interspecific competition
– between individuals of different species
– may lead to competitive exclusion
Predation
• Can also affect community structure
• Allows for increased diversity when
superior competitor is preferred prey
Symbiosis
• the co-occurrence of two species in which the life
of one is closely tied with the life of another
Symbiosis
• Three types
– mutualism (++)
• Anemone fish, cleaner shrimp, zooxanthellae
– commensalism (+0)
• Pea crabs, pilotfish & shark
– parasitism (+-)
• roundworms