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Marine Zones
iNOB
Four Zones of a Marine Ecosystem
1.Intertidal
2. Neritic
3. Oceanic
4. Benthic
• 1.Intertidal Zone (think tide)--the shallow zone
of the ocean where land meets water
• between the highest tide line and the lowest
tide line
• (also known as the foreshore and seashore
and sometimes referred to as the littoral zone)
Intertidal Zone
• 8. Organisms will be subject to changing
conditions—under water, pounding waves,
sunlight and air.
Intertidal Zone
Intertidal Zone
• On sandy beaches, the intertidal zone is often
home to animals that live in burrows within
the sand such as clams and worms.
• Crabs scurry across the sand and usually have
burrows too.
• Large waves often crash along sandy beaches,
so living in a burrow offers some protection.
Intertidal Zone
Intertidal Zone
• On rocky coastlines, there are often many
types of algae and small snails that eat the
algae.
• Animals that attach to the rocks such as
barnacles and mussels can be common.
• Sea urchins and sponges live in areas that are
usually covered with water.
Intertidal Zone
• Region between the highest and lowest tides
• Living things in the intertidal zone needs to be
able to survive extreme conditions - both
above and below the water .
• Home to crabs, oysters, mussels, snails, sea
urchins, and sea stars
Neritic Zone
• 9. located above the continental shelf
between the intertidal and ocean zones
• the most productive zone of the ocean
• It extends from the low-tide level to a
depth of 200 meters.
• 2. Neritic Zone (think near)--of or formed in
the region of shallow seas near a coastline;
between the low tide mark to about 200 m.
phytoplankton (producers)
Neritic Zone
Neritic Zone
• Located above the continental shelf
• Many organisms live here because the shallow
water allows photosynthesis to occur
• Home to plankton, many fish, sea turtles,
squid, and many other organisms
Oceanic Zone
10. the region of a marine ecosystem that
begins in the area off shore where the water
measures 200 meters deep or deeper
• It is the region of open sea beyond the edge of
the continental shelf and includes 65% of the
ocean’s completely open water.
Oceanic Zone
• The open ocean
• Largest marine zone and very deep
• Home to fish, whales, jellyfish, etc.
Oceanic Zone
Oceanic Zone
• The area of the open ocean where sunlight
shines through the water is called the photic
zone.
• Most life in the open ocean is found in the
photic zone.
• The open ocean, called the pelagic zone, is the
largest area of the marine ecosystem. It
reaches from coasts to the middle of the
ocean. The living things that survive in the
open ocean need to have a way to float or
swim in ocean water.
Oceanic Zone
• In the open ocean there are many types of
swimmers including fish, whales, and sharks.
• Some fish, such as herring and tuna, swim in
schools while others swim alone.
• Some animals have other ways of moving
besides swimming. For example, squid propel
themselves through the ocean with a jet of
water and flying fish are able to glide just
above the water surface using fins shaped like
wings.
Oceanic Zone
• In the parts of the open ocean below where
light can penetrate, there are fish and other
animals like giant squid.
• Because there is no sunlight, there are no
algae to start food chains.
• Instead many animals living in the deep ocean
rely on the bodies of dead animals falling from
the water above for food.
Benthic Zone
11. The _________ zone is basically the floor of
a body of water such as the ocean, a lake or
river.
It can be just below the surface in shallow water,
or it can be tens of thousands of feet down
where the water ends and the solid earth
begins.
4. Benthic Zone (think beneath)--relating to the
bottom of a sea or lake or to the organisms that
live there.
• The benthic zone is the
lowest zone of a body
of water.
• This could be a lake,
stream, or the ocean.
Benthic Zone
• Located at the ocean floor
• Very cold, dark, and deep
• Crabs, lobsters, and many strange organisms.
Benthic Zone
Benthic Zone
• The benthos, as it is called, is home to many
types of plants and animals, or benthic
organisms, like corals, sea squirts and oysters,
shellfish such as clams, snails, crabs, sea stars,
worms and sea cucumbers and fish like catfish
(fresh water) and flounder (marine).
• In rivers, streams and shallow bodies of water,
bacteria consume all the dead leaves and
nutrients that wash into the water from the
land.
sea squirts
sea cucumbers
oysters
Benthic Zone
• But there are two extreme environments in
the deep sea where life is more abundant.
These are cold seeps and hydrothermal
vents. In these environments, food chains do
not begin with plants or algae that make food
from sunlight.
Benthic Zone
• Cold seeps are areas where methane and
hydrogen sulfide are released into the ocean.
• Cold seeps are home to clams, mussels,
shrimp, crabs, bacteria, and tubeworms.
• For food, these animals depend on certain
types of single-cell Archaebacteria and
Eubacteria microbes that live off the methane
and hydrogen sulfide from the seep.
• There are cold seeps in many different places
in the world’s ocean. They are often at the
edges of continents.
Benthic Zone
• Hydrothermal vents are another type of
extreme environment in the deep sea.
• While most of the water in the deep ocean is
close to freezing, the water at hydrothermal
vents is very hot.
• It is heated by volcanic activity at tectonic
spreading ridges.
Benthic Zone
• The hot water spews from holes in the crust
called vents, looking like dark smoke because
of the dissolved chemicals it picked up
underground.
• Certain types of Archaebacteria and
Eubacteria microbes are able to turn the
chemicals from the hot water into the energy
they need to survive.
Benthic Zone
• The deep ocean is very cold, under high
pressure, and always dark because sunlight
can not get down that far. Less life can survive
in the deep ocean than in other parts of the
ocean because of these conditions.
• Bits of dead fish and the remains of
microscopic things that float in the water such
as tiny plankton drift down to the bottom.
• Bacteria, fungi and single celled protozoa
consume this detritus (debris formed from the
decay of organisms).
whale fall
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Intertidal
Neritic
Oceanic
Benthic
Continental Shelf
• The continental shelf is an undersea extension
of a continent which can stretch for many
miles out to sea in some cases.
• Surrounding nearly all continents is a shallow
extension of that landmass known as the
continental shelf.
• This shelf is relatively shallow, tens of meters
deep compared to the thousands of meters
deep in the open ocean, and extends outward
to the continental slope where the deep
ocean truly begins.