*Oceanography Final*

What is a hydrothermal vent community?

A biologically complex community supported by chemosynthetic archea that thrive on the chemicals from geothermally heated water

Why is the surface area to volume ratio important for phytoplankton?

A larger ratio provides higher resistance to sinking and less energy used to stay afloat

Why is the ability to bioluminescence beneficial?

Attract prey, communication, escape, camouflage

Organisms that can photosynthesize and produce their own food are called what?

Autotrophic

What are the 3 domains of life?

Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya

Plankton is a organism that float. Why is a copepod, which can swim and propel itself through the water, classified as plankton?

Because of its small size it cannot swim very far or fast so its location is determined by currents

What strategies or methods do NOT help and organism float?

Becoming larger

What is chemosynthesis?

Biological process that uses chemicals such a hydrogen sulfide to combine water, carbon dioxide, and oxygen into carbohydrates

What is a common, important adaption to life on sedimented shores?

Burrowing in the sediment

What are the differences between commensalism, mutualism, and parasitism.

Commensalism: dominant organism benefits without harming the host, Mutualism: both organisms benefit, Parasitism: host is harmed parasite is benefited

What is a "baleen" and what is it used for?

Consists of parallel rows of plates in their mouths, used for filtering water for food

What group of animals makes up the majority of the ocean's zooplankton biomass?

Copepods

Why are coral reefs important to ocean life?

Coral reefs provide food, shelter, and breeding grounds for thousands of marine organisms

Why are corals rarely found near rivers?

Corals are intolerant of reduced salinity, reduced sunlight, intolerant of suspended particles in river water that interfere w/ ability to filter feed, better adapted for environments with low nutrient loads

What are some of the common adaptions for deep- water nekton?

Counter illumination, large sensitive eyes, large sharp teeth, expandable bodies, hinged jaws

What is the deep biosphere and what organisms have been found living there?

Diverse microbial community that exists within the sea floor itself

What is the purpose of a fish's swim bladder? A fishes swim bladder is an internal organ that ___?

Enables the fish to achieve neutral buoyancy

What are the 4 biozones of the oceanic province?

Epipelagic, mesopelagic, bathypelagic, abyssopelagic

Why does the distribution of benthic biomass mimic the distribution of surface water biomass?

Food for most benthic organisms sink to the seafloor from overlying surface water.

Why does the distribution of benthic biomass mimic the distribution of surface water biomass?

Food for most benthic organisms sinks to the seafloor from overlying surface water

What is the difference between gross primary productivity and net primary productivity?

Gross primary productivity is the amount ot organic carbon created by photosynthesis per unit of time and net primarty productivity is the gross minus the amount of organic carbon consumed by the photosynthesizers.

What is the deepest zone of the suboceanic province?

Hadal

Why is an increase of ocean acidity harmful to corals?

High acidity makes it more difficult for corals to grow their calcium carbonate skeletons

In addition to hydrothermal vents, what are the other 3 types of biocommunities found in the deep- sea that depend on chemosynthesis?

Hypersaline seep communities

Freshwater fish are isotonic, hypertonic, or hypotonic relative to their environment?

Hypertonic

What is the primary difference between pelagic environment zones below the euphotic zone?

Increasing pressure with increasing depth

What is the primary difference between pelagic environment zones below the photic zone?

Increasing pressure with increasing depth

What does IWC stand for and what is it?

International Whaling Commission- they manage the subsistence and commercial hunting of whales

Toothed whales have an organ called the "melon" what is it and what is it used for?

It is a sensory organ used to focus sound for communication and echo-location

Most organisms that live on sediment- covered shorelines are called infauna. What does this word refer to?

It refers to the fact that these organisms burrow into the sediment

What are some examples of macroscopic zooplankton?

Krill and cnidarians

Why do big baleen whales, such as the blue whale, eat small creatures such as krill?

Krill are highly abundant because they are near the bottom of the food web and so there is more biomass to support large animals

What is the main limitation of life on the deep sea floor?

Low food supply

If someone brought you an organism from the nearshore environment on a rocky coastline and it consists almost entirely of soft parts, what nearshore environmental zone would you think it came from?

Low tide zone

Organisms that only spend part of their life cycle as plankton are referred to as what?

Meroplankton

Given what you know about surface productivity, where do you think that sunlight penetrates deepest into the ocean?

Middle gyre

Most shallow water corals have dinogflagellates living in their structures. They carry out photosynthesism while coral provides protection. This is an example of what?

Mutualism

What is incidental catch or bycatch?

Non- targeted marine organisms that are caught by fishers on accident

According to the IWC what are the 3 ways to engage in legal hunting of whales?

Objection to IWC ban, scientific whaling, aboriginal subsistence whaling

On rocky shores, different elevations have bands of different types of organisms. Why?

Organisms are adapted to different levels of exposure to air and desiccation, which are controlled by elevation.

What is the definiton of eurythmal?

Organisms that can tolerate large changes in temperature

What are nektobenthos?

Organisms that live on the bottom but can swim or crawl through the water

What is epifauna?

Organisms that live on the surface and ocean floor

What are zooxanthellae?

Photosynthetic microscopic dinoflagellate algae that lives in a symbiotic relationship w/ corals

What marine organism represents the vast majority of the ocean's biomass?

Plankton

How does water pressure change with depth?

Pressure increases with depth

What are the 3 basic categories of organism that exist within an ecosystem?

Producers, consumers, and decomposers

What are the common characteristics or adaptions for a fish that lives a cruising lifestyle?

Red muscle tissue, lunate or heteroceral fins, actively seek prey

What is responsible for the red tide phenomenon?

Red tide occurs in patches of water where certain species of dinoflagellates flourish. They are so abundant that the water becomes discolored and takes on a red hue

What is a food web?

Relationship between all organisms

What advantages does schooling behavior offer?

Safety in numbers, appear as a single larger unit, maneuvers confuse predators

How can you tell seals from sea lions?

Seals lack prominent earflaps, seals have smaller front flippers, and seals have fore flipper claws, different hip structures, and different locomotion strategies, move different on land

What is a food chain?

Sequence of organisms through which energy is transferred

What is meiofauna?

Small organisms that live in the spaces between sediment particles

What is NOT and advantage of schooling?

Some predators take advantage of the high density of prey found in a school

Why do you think that most cetaceans use sound for communication and echo- location?

Sound travels farther through water than light

What is the primary factor that limits life on the deep ocean floor?

Sparse food supply

What adverse conditions do organisms living on rocky shores have to face?

Strong wave activity, drying out during low tide, rapid changes in temp, salinity and pH, strong competition for space

Of the 5 intertidal zones of sediment- covered shores, which one is always underwater?

Subtidal zone

What are the two primary factors that control biologic productivity in the surface oceans?

Sunlight and nutrients

What is a general rule to help determine how fast a fish can swim?

The bigger the fish, the faster it can probably swim

What is meant by the term fisheries?

The fish caught from the ocean by commercial fisheries.

Explain maximum sustainable yield.

The maximum fishery biomass that can be removed yearly and still be sustained by the fishery ecosystem

What is a biomass pyramid?

The number of individuals and the total biomass decrease at successively higher trophic levels

What is the gross ecological efficiency?

The ratio of energy passed on to the next higher tropic level divided by the energy received from the trophic level below

What is the biological pump?

The removal of organic matter and nutrients from the surface water to deep water through the sinking of dead surface- dwelling organisms

Why do most fish and marine mammals have the same torpedo- like streamlined shape?

The streamlined shape minimizes energy expended to move through the water

What is a standing stock?

The total mass of a population present in an ecosystem at any given time.

Biologican oceanographers discuss about biomass frequently. Just what is biomass?

The total mass of all organisms of a given class

What is suspension feeding?

The use of specialized structures to filter water for food

What is the euphotic zone?

The zone where there is enough light to support photosynthesis

What are nematocysts and what are they used for?

They are needlelike cells that can inject neurotoxins either to catch a prey or for protection

Why do marine mammals look and behave similar to fish?

They both have adapted for moving efficiently in water

What characteristics are shared by all mammals, including marine mammals?

They breathe air and females have mammary glands

Why are sessile, plant- like macroalgea only found in littoral and sub- littoral environments?

They require light to reach the ocean bottom, which only occurs in these 2 zones

Most fresh water are hypertonic, meaning their body cells contain more salt than the surrounding water. Since osmosis should push water into their cells, why don't they explode?

They urinate a lot, so the water does not build up, they don't drink any water, their cells have adapted to absorb salt, they have adapted to live with high osmotic pressure

What influences ocean color?

Turbidity from runoff, photosynthetic pigment that has a positive correlation with biological production

Of earth's total # of species, why are the fewest in the marine pelagic realm?

Uniform conditions in the pelagic realm make fewer specialized environments for organism adaption as different species

Why is upwelling such an important factor in creating areas of high biologic productivity?

Upwelling brings nutrient- rich deep water to the surface where productivity is limited by the availability of nutrients

What are some adaptions that marine mammas have that allow for deep diving?

Use oxygen efficiently (absorb about 90% of oxygen inhaled, store large quantities oxygen w/ their large blood volume per unit body mass, reduce oxygen required for noncritical organs) muscles insensitive to buildup of carbon dioxide and can resist nitrogen narcosis, collapsible lungs

What are the conditions necessary for coral reef development?

Warm temp, strong sunlight, hard substrate for attatchment, lack of turbidity

In photosynthesis, what two things must come together with light energy input to produce sugar and oxygen?

Water and carbon dioxide

What is the euphotic zone?

Zone where there is enough light to support photosynthesis

What is the neritic province?

Zone with water with depth less than 200 meters

What are the reasons the ocean has a smaller daily, seasonal, and annual temperature range than that experienced on land?

higher heat capacity of water ocean warming reduced by evaporation, solar radiation penetrates deeply into ocean layers, and ocean mixing