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Science and Marine Biology
Chapter 1
Importance of the oceans and Marine
Organisms
• Oceans are the principal physical feature of
our planet. They cover nearly 71% of the
earth’s surface. Oceans act as enormous
solar powered engines that drive the various
weather patterns affecting terrestrial
environments such as El Nino Southern
Oscillation (ENSO).
Ocean Productivity
• The amount of food marine organisms can
produce and the number of organisms the
ocean can support.
• The United Nations reports that more than 80
million metric tons of marine fish are
harvested annually.
• Main source of food, materials for industry
and medicine, and provides jobs.
Study Of The Sea And Its
Inhabitants
 Oceanography:
The study of the oceans
and their phenomena, such as waves
currents, and tides.
 Different disciplines: Chemistry, physics,
geology, geography, meteorology, and
biology.
 Marine Biology: The study of the living
organisms that inhabit the seas and their
interactions with each other.
Diversity in the World’s Ocean
Human Impact
 Dumping
trash, disposal of radioactive and
industrial wastes, oil spills, and over
fishing.
 Make intelligent decisions you need to
have background facts.
A History of Changing Perspectives
• Early study of the sea’s creatures can
be traced back to the ancient Greeks
and Romans.
• Aristotle and the “ladder of life”
classified more than 500 species and
studied fish gills, gas exchange and the
anatomy of the cuttlefish.
History
• Pliny the Elder: 37 volume Natural History
which contains info. About terrestrial animals
and references to marine fishes and bivalves.
• Catholic Church
• Arabian philosophers interpreted and
explained the works of the ancient naturalists.
• Late 18th century biologists would again
conduct studies of the marine environment
based on original observations.
Renewed Interest
• The Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth
centuries. Great discoveries.
• Better sailing ships and navigational
instruments.
• Better sea routes
• Lamarck and Cuvier studied and described
marine organisms.
1831 HMS Beagle
• 5 year voyage of exploration around the globe.
• Charles Darwin observed first hand marine life
and collect many specimens.
• He proposed the explanation of atoll development.
• He began his theory of Evolution
• In 1859 is published On the Origin of Species by
Means of Natural Selection.
• After the Beagle he did a detailed study of the
barnacles that inhabit the rocky coasts of England
and produced a monograph on the subject still
used today.
Challenger Expedition
• 3 ½ years HMS Challenger: contained state
of the art equipment and research facilities.
• It returned to England in 1876 and filled 50
volumes of scientific reports of information.
• More than 4,700 new species were collected
and described.
• It gave birth to the modern sciences of
marine biology and oceanography.
The Nineteenth Century
• He also studied the barnacles that inhabit
the rocky coasts of England.
• General agreement that living organisms
could not survive in the cold and darkness
of the deep.
• But transatlantic telegraph cable provided
evidence of all sorts of marine organisms
which sparked investigations and dredging
expeditions.
Charles Wyville Thomson
• Driving force behind the Challenger and
chief scientist
• Collected floating microscopic
organisms
• Victor Hensen called it Plankton
• They are the base of the oceans
complex food webs.
Marine Studies in the U.S.
• Alexander Agassiz an American naturalist
1877
• Investigates the organisms of the sea and
collected samples of dredged animals from
depths of 600 to 14,000 feet.
• He studied coloration in marine animals as
different depths.
• He found brightly colored animals in surface
waters that became blues, greens and reds
with black as the depth increased.
More Agassiz
• He spent much of the latter part of his
life studying the structure and formation
of coral reefs.
• His father Louis Agassiz founded the
Museum of Comparative Zoology at
Harvard Univ. and the first marine bio.
Lab in the U.S. Anderson Summer
School of Natural History
• This was for teachers to improve their
methods of teaching natural history.
Other U.S. Marine Labs
• Twentieth Century: Scripps Institution of
Oceanography in Ca.
• The University of Miami’s Rosenstiel
School of Marine and Atmospheric
Science in Fl., the Harbor Branch
Oceanographic Institution in Fla., the
Friday Harbor lab of the Univ. of
Washington, and Duke Univ. Marine
Lab in North Carolina.
Marine Bio in the
th
20
Century
• Expeditions were mounted to study the Artic and
Antarctic seas.
• Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen and Englishman Sir
Alistair Hardy
• Nansen: Magnetic North Pole, Charting the
waters
• Hardy: biolody of whales for commercial
exploitation and more info. On the Antarctic seas.
Marine Bio Today
• Deep submersibles such as the Alvin can
view and collect organisms that live in the
deepest recesses of the sea.
• Computers with Internet…the information
superhighway, enormous amounts of
information.