CHAPTER 12 Marine Life and the Marine Environment

Overview  More than 250,000 identified marine species  Most live in sunlit surface seawater  Species success depends on ability to Find food Avoid predation Reproduce Cope with physical barriers to movement

Classification of living organisms  Three domains of Life Archaea Prokaryotic, includes “extremophile” bacteria Bacteria Prokaryotic, includes what used to be in Kingdom Monera Eukarya Eukaryotic cells Includes Protists, Fungi, Plants, and Animals

Archaea  Bacteria - Prokaryotic cells  Cell wall differs from those bacteria in Domain Bacteria  Includes extremophile bacteria ○ Acidophiles ○ Halophiles ○ Thermophiles ○ Etc. ○ These bacteria are found to chemosynthesize in hydrothermal vents

Bacteria  Bacteria – prokaryotic cells  Cell wall made of peptidoglycan  Includes Staphylococcus, Bacillus, Vibrio, Pseudomonas, etc. ○ Only a very small % of bacteria are pathogenic ○ Bacteria are very important in things like nitrogen cycle, decomposition, food making, etc.  Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic bacteria

 Archaea and Bacteria ○ Most numerous organisms on Earth - Think about how much bacteria lives just on you - Viruses are thought to out number bacteria but if you are just talking about “live” organisms then bacteria are the most numerous ○ Simplest of organisms - But, can live in every thinkable habitat, even those once thought to be unsuitable to life, very successful

 Now we will talk about Domain Eukarya ○ Includes protists, fungi, plants, animals

Eukarya - Protists  Algae ○ Photosynthetic ○ Can be unicellular, colonial, or multicellular - Multicellular - “seaweed” – kelp, sargassum, sea lettuce - Unicellular – phytoplankton, produce majority of oxygen in atmosphere, can cause red tides  Protozoans ○ Heterotrophic ○ Unicellular ○ Amoeba, paramecium

Eukarya - Fungi  Heterotrophic ○ Secrete enzymes and absorb nutrition ○ Since they are heterotrophic, they are more closely related to animals than to plants  Multicellular (mold) or unicellular (yeast)

Eukarya - Plants  Autotrophic, multicellular  Many plant species cannot tolerate saltwater ○ Very few species grow in/near ocean Sea grasses Mangroves Dune plants

Eukarya - Animals  Heterotrophic, multicellular, have motility at some point in life cycle  Wide variety ○ From simplest of animals (sponges) to most complex (mammals)

Viruses  Acellular entities ○ Are they “alive”??? ○ Do not have the machinery for life processes, have to take over host cell ○ The ultimate “parasites”

Taxonomic classification  Systemized classification of organisms  Kingdom  Phylum  Class  Order  Family  Genus  Species Fundamental unit Population of genetically similar, interbreeding individuals

 With new molecular methods (comparing DNA sequence and amino acid sequences of certain proteins), traditional taxonomy is changing ○ Taxonomists are discovering new relationships between species ○ Molecular data gives a clearer picture of relatedness as opposed to the traditional ways of classifying organisms: - Morphology, embryology, behavior, habitat, etc.

Classification by habitat and mobility  Plankton  Plankton (floaters)  Nekton  Nekton (swimmers)  Benthos  Benthos (bottom dwellers)

Plankton  Most biomass on Earth consists of plankton  Phytoplankton Microscopic algae, Autotrophic  Zooplankton Heterotrophic Protozoans, tiny animals, larvae of larger animals  Bacterioplankton  Virioplankton  Viruses that infect bacteria and eukaryotic cells

Plankton o Holoplankton o Entire lives as plankton o Example is algae, protozoans, small microscopic animals o Meroplankton o Part of lives as plankton o Juvenile or larval stages in the plankton o Examples are lobsters, some fish species, etc. o Macroplankton o Large floaters such as jellyfish or Sargassum o Picoplankton o Very small floaters such as bacterioplankton

Nekton  Independent swimmers  Most adult fish and squid  Marine reptiles  Marine mammals

Benthos  Epifauna  Epifauna live on surface of sea floor  Infauna  Infauna live buried in sediments  Nektobenthos  Nektobenthos swim or crawl through water above seafloor  Most abundant in shallower water

Hydrothermal vent biocommunities  Abundant and large deep-ocean benthos  Discovered in 1977  Associated with hot vents  Bacteria-like archaeon produce food using heat and chemicals ○ “chemosynthesis instead of photosynthesis”

Number of marine species  More land species than marine species Ocean relatively uniform conditions Therefore, less adaptation required, less speciation Don’t get this fact confused with # of individual organisms There are fewer different species in the ocean but greater # of individuals Majority of life on Earth lives in the ocean!! Diversity in the ocean is high, also – think about different types of fish (seahorses to sharks, for example)  Marine species overwhelmingly benthic rather than pelagic ○ Most of these will be in shallow coastal benthic areas where there is light and a lot of primary productivity

Adaptations of marine organisms  Physical support Buoyancy How to resist sinking Different support structures in cold (fewer) rather than warm (more appendages) seawater Smaller size

Adaptations to marine life  Appendages to increase surface area  Oil in micro-organisms to increase buoyancy ○ Over-time, if these organisms die and sink to bottom ○ Can become offshore oil deposits Fish egg with oil droplet Fig. 12.9

Adaptations to marine life  Streamlining important for larger organisms  Less resistance to fluid flow  Flattened body fusiform  Tapering back end – fusiform

Adaptations to marine life  Narrow range temperature in oceans  Smaller variations (daily, seasonally, annually) Remember it takes longer to change water temp than air temp  Deep ocean nearly isothermal

Adaptations to marine life  Cold- versus warm-water species Smaller in cooler seawater More appendages in warmer seawater Tropical organisms grow faster, live shorter, reproduce more often More species in warmer seawater More biomass in cooler seawater (upwelling) Polar waters are much more productive (more plankton growth) than tropical waters

Adaptations to marine life  Stenothermal Organisms withstand small variation in temperature Typically live in open ocean  Eurythermal Organisms withstand large variation in temperature Typically live in coastal waters

Adaptations to marine life  Stenohaline Organisms withstand only small variation in salinity Typically live in open ocean  Euryhaline Organisms withstand large variation in salinity Typically live in coastal waters, e.g., estuaries

Adaptations to marine life  Extracting minerals from seawater  High concentration to low concentration Diffusion Diffusion Cell membrane permeable to nutrients, for example Waste passes from cell to ocean

Adaptations to marine life  Osmotic pressure  Less concentrated to more concentrated solutions  Isotonic  Hypertonic  Hypotonic

Adaptations to marine life  Dissolved gases  Animals extract dissolved oxygen (O 2 ) from seawater through gills Fig

Adaptations to marine life  Water’s transparency  Many marine organisms see well  Some marine organisms are nearly transparent to avoid predation

Adaptations to marine life  Camouflage through color patterns  Countershading  Disruptive coloring  MwM MwM

Adaptations to marine life  Water pressure Increases about 1 atmosphere (1 kg/cm 2 ) with every 10 m (33 ft) deeper Many marine organisms do not have inner air pockets Collapsible rib cage (e.g., sperm whale)

Main divisions of the marine environment  Pelagic  Pelagic (open sea) Neritic (< 200 m) and oceanic  Benthic  Benthic (sea floor) Subneritic and suboceanic  Another classification scheme:  Euphotic  Disphotic  Aphotic

Pelagic environments – Open ocean  Epipelagic  Mesopelagic  Bathypelagic  Abyssopelagic Fig

Benthic environments – ocean floor  Supralittoral Transition from land to seafloor Transition from land to seafloor  Subneritic (under neritic) Littoral (intertidal zone) Littoral (intertidal zone) Sublittoral (shallow tidal zone to 200m) Sublittoral (shallow tidal zone to 200m)  Suboceanic Bathyal (200-4,000m) Bathyal (200-4,000m) Abyssal ( m) Abyssal ( m) Hadal (below 6000m) Hadal (below 6000m) Fig

Ocean Literacy Principles  3.e - The ocean dominates the Earth’s carbon cycle. Half the primary productivity on Earth takes place in the sunlit layers of the ocean and the ocean absorbs roughly half of all carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere.  5.a - Ocean life ranges in size from the smallest virus to the largest animal that has lived on Earth, the blue whale.  5.b - Most life in the ocean exists as microbes. Microbes are the most important primary producers in the ocean. Not only are they the most abundant life form in the ocean, they have extremely fast growth rates and life cycles.  5.e - The ocean is three-dimensional, offering vast living space and diverse habitats from the surface through the water column to the seafloor. Most of the living space on Earth is in the ocean.  5.f - Ocean habitats are defined by environmental factors. Due to interactions of abiotic factors such as salinity, temperature, oxygen, pH, light, nutrients, pressure, substrate and circulation, ocean life is not evenly distributed temporally or spatially, i.e., it is “patchy”. Some regions of the ocean support more diverse and abundant life than anywhere on Earth, while much of the ocean is considered a desert.  5.g - There are deep ocean ecosystems that are independent of energy from sunlight and photosynthetic organisms. Hydrothermal vents, submarine hot springs, methane cold seeps, and whale falls rely only on chemical energy and chemosynthetic organisms to support life.

Sunshine State Standards  SC.6.L Recognize and explore how cells of all organisms undergo similar processes to maintain homeostasis, including extracting energy from food, getting rid of waste, and reproducing.  SC.7.L Describe and investigate various limiting factors in the local ecosystem and their impact on native populations, including food, shelter, water, space, disease, parasitism, predation, and nesting sites.  SC.912.L Explain the reasons for changes in how organisms are classified.  SC.912.L Discuss distinguishing characteristics of the domains and kingdoms of living organisms.  SC.912.L Explain the general distribution of life in aquatic systems as a function of chemistry, geography, light, depth, salinity, and temperature.  SC.912.L Characterize the biotic and abiotic components that define freshwater systems, marine systems and terrestrial systems. 