12: Foundations of Life in the Oceans
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CC4 Particle Size, Sinking, Deposition, and Resuspension: Suspended particles in ocean water, including plankton, sink at rates primarily determined by particle size: large particles or plankton sink faster than small particles. Larger plankton species have various adaptations to reduce their sinking rate. Small organic particles can be aggregated into fecal pellets that are larger than the individual particles and, thus, sink faster.
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CC8 Residence Time: The residence time of seawater in a given segment of the oceans is the average length of time the water spends in the segment. In the deep ocean trenches water column water mass residence time can be long and this affects the character of the biota that inhabits this zone.
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CC10 Modeling: Complex environmental systems including the cycling of nutrients among ocean water, living matter, suspended particles and sediments can best be studied by using conceptual and mathematical models. Many oceanographic and climate models are extremely complex and require the use of the fastest supercomputers.
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CC14 Phototrophy, Light, and Nutrients: Phototrophy (which includes photosynthesis) and chemosynthesis are the two processes by which simple chemical compounds are made into the organic compounds of living organisms. Photosynthesis depends on the availability of carbon dioxide, light, and certain dissolved nutrient elements including nitrogen, phosphorus, and iron. Non-photosynthetic phototrophy is the use of rhodopsins in place of chlorophyll and traditional photosynthesis allowing organisms to grow in low nutrient environments. Chemosynthesis does not use light energy and instead depends on the availability of chemical energy from reduced compounds which occur only in limited environments where oxygen is depleted.
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CC15 Food Chain Efficiency: All organisms use some of their food as an energy source in respiration and for reproduction, and also lose some in excretions including wastes. On average, at each level in a food chain, only about 10% of food consumed is converted to growth and biomass of the consumer species.
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CC19 Metagenomics: Metagenomics is the study of all of the genetic material in a sampled environment. These studies provide insight on the organisms present and what their metabolic potential is. Metagenomics has been used to understand the microbial biomes that exist within the ocean. Studies have shown that the majority of microbes living within the oceans have yet to be discovered and that viruses play a much larger role than originally described
In many ways, the oceans are an ideal environment for life. Temperatures are much more uniform than on land, so most marine organisms do not have to contend with the temperature variations and extremes that terrestrial organisms experience. In addition, all elements essential to life are present as dissolved ions in seawater, albeit sometimes at very low concentrations, and they are readily available to marine archaea, bacteria, and algae, which perform the task of converting these dissolved substances into living matter. Living in the ocean also presents special problems, and the abundance of ocean life is limited by a variety of physical and chemical factors.
This chapter examines the basic processes of life in the oceans, and the physical and chemical parameters that control the quantities and types of organisms in different regions of open oceans. The parameters that determine the distribution of life include the physical and chemical nature of seawater, the distribution of winds and currents, and even plate tectonics. Chapter 13 discusses how life in coastal and estuarine zones differs from open-ocean marine life as a result of the different physical and chemical environments.