Anusha (producer/consumer relationship):
3 Examples of Producer and Consumer:
Decomposers:
Information:
- Estuaries and Salt Marshes
- Coral Reefs
- Coastal Areas
- Need at least 3 different examples.
- Include and describes at least 3 decomposers interacting within the specific ecosystem
3 Examples of Producer and Consumer:
- Diatoms, who lives and thrives in the temperate and polar regions grow to about 30 micrometers, and contribute about 60% to the primary production in oceans. Diatom, which is a type of phytoplankton, is eaten by shrimp, which is a type of crustacean.
- Dinoflagellates, tend to dominate in areas with low nutrients and turbulence, and thrive in the summer and sizes range from 30 micrometers to 2 millimeters. Cilates, which are filter feeders with hairlike cilia and can be seen by the naked eye, eat dinoflagellates, a type of phytoplankton.
- Coccolithophores, which are one of the world’s major primary producers and dominate in late spring in regions of moderate turbulence and nutrients. They are 5-10 micrometers in diameter and is another type of phytoplankton. They are eaten by copepods, which are also crustaceans and they grow up to 1 millimeter and widely abundant. Many fish rely on copepods for food like the Atlantic herring and also krill, which is a larger crustacean.
Decomposers:
- Benthic bacteria, which is a decomposer, can be found by a billion or more per teaspoon of ocean bottom sediment. Decomposers like to feed off the bottom of the ocean floor since the dead organisms sink to the bottom.
- Marine worms also eat food off the ocean floor and release nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus,etc.
- Parasitic marine fungi live on the ocean floor and feed of living organisms, like shells, animals, and algae. Saprophytic fungi eat decaying matter like animals, shells, algae, plants, and wood.
Information:
- Marine ecosystem are part of the largest aquatic system on the planet covering 70 % of the Earth’s surface.
- Marine ecosystems
- Estuaries and Salt Marshes
- Coral Reefs
- Coastal Areas
- Home to different species, from tiny planktonic organisms (phytoplankton, zooplankton) to large animals like whales, manatees, and seals.
- Home to fish species, birds, and turtles.
- Marine ecosystems rely on nutrients and light to produce food and energy. Aquatic plants, phytoplankton, rely upon sunlight and chlorophyll plus nitrogen plus phosphorus plus silicon to generate food and promote growth and reproduction.
- Photosynthesis can only take place within a small band near the surface of the water, which is called the photic zone.
- Open ocean, nutrients level are poor so primary production is low.
- Nearshore waters like estuaries and marshes are rich in nutrients, primary production is high.
- Nearshore ecosystem have excess of nutrients due to runoff and other terrestrial sources.
- Excess nutrients equals over stimulation of primary production, depleting oxygen levels and causing eutrophic conditions to occur in coastal habitats.==
- Producers are plants and involves the Sun. Using photosynthesis, plants use the Sun to make food to grow.
- Primary consumers eat the plants.
- Decomposers eat dead things and break it down nutrients in the dead stuff and return it to the soil. Then producers can use the nutrients to make food to grow.
- Marine producers are either seaweeds and/or phytoplankton.
- Animals can be found everywhere in the photic zone, because they are not limited by light.
- Most seaweeds grow only attached to the ocean so it is limited to the edges of continents and islands within the photic zone.
- Seaweeds only count for a small portion of the producers in the ocean because so geographically limited.
- Most is open ocean, away from the edges of land and over deep water. Here near the surface, that phytoplankton dominates. Phytoplankton is also found in the same coastal areas as seaweed.
- Producers are important in marine ecosystem however the phytoplankton based ecosystems are more common.
- Phytoplankton are generally microscopic and make the marine ecosystem different from land ecosystems because land doesn’t have them.
- Land based ecosystem are based primarily on large land plants but marine ecosystems are based primarily on tiny, microscopic phytoplankton.
- Producers: phytoplankton, seaweed, seagrasses.
- Seagrasses are the only flowering plant found in marine environments.
- Producers are autotrophic.
- Consumers are heterotrophic.
- Primary consumers: zooplankton.
- Decomposers: bacteria
- Phytoplankton: diatoms, coccolithophores, cyanobacteria, synechococcus, and prochlorococcus and dinoflagellates.
- Diatoms:They dominate the temperate and polar oceans. Typical size is about 30 micrometers. They contribute about 60 per cent of the primary productivity in the oceans.
- Dinoflagellates:They tend to dominate in regions of low turbulence and nutrients, such as oceanic areas in late summer. Sizes range from 30 micrometers for some marine species up to 2,000 micrometers (2 mm) for Noctiluca.
- Coccolithophores: They dominate in regions of moderate turbulence and nutrients such as mid-latitudes in late spring in subpolar regions and in equatorial regions. Typical size is 5-10 micrometers in diameter. They are one of the world’s major primary producers, contributing about 15 per cent of the average oceanic phytoplankton biomass to the oceans (Berger, 1976).
- Zooplankton: ciliates, copepods, shrimp
- Copepods:The copepods are a class of crustaceans with over 7,500 species, most of which are marine. Copepods are small (only a few species over 1 mm) and extremely abundant, often dominating the plankton community. They form a link in the food web between the primary-producing phytoplankton and the plankton-feeding fish like Atlantic herring. Almost all fish found in temperate and polar waters rely at some point in their life cycle on copepods and other shrimp-like zooplankton (krill) as a food source.
- Ciliates:They are filter feeders with many hairlike cilia. Some are no larger than a large bacteria, others can be seen by the naked eye. A paramecium is a common example of a ciliate.
- Shrimp: A type of crustacean, but this is a herbivorous type of shrimp that eat phytoplankton.
- Decomposers: Hagfish,Worms, bacteria, fungiA rich bottom fauna exists in the Arctic. These species include numerous invertebrates such as anemones, worms, bivalves, crabs, sea stars, and sea cucumbers. The Arctic benthic species exist in very cold water – close to freezing temperatures. Their adaptations for this cold temperature include enzymes that work well at near freezing temperatures and slower body processes (metabolism). Many of these Arctic species live ten times longer than their tropical counterparts because of this.
The benthos depends on organics from the surface water. These organics are probably more abundant over the continental shelves but there have been few studies to prove this so far. Several studies are concentrating on benthic bacteria that can be found to the order of a billion or more per teaspoon of Arctic bottom sediment. A number of these may just be dormant, or they may actually be part of the food chain, as yet unknown.
Bacteria may recycle organic matter. Many bacteria function as decomposers, completing the trophic cycle in the ocean from diatom producers to the small planktonic primary consumers (copepods) and on up the food chain to the carnivores. Along the way dead organisms are consumed by scavengers or decomposed. Most decomposition is on the bottom in the ocean because dead organisms tend to sink. The decomposers release the nutrients (in the form of nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, etc.) from the dead bodies back into the water and these nutrients are used as fertilizers by the producers.
Picture Links:- http://kids.britannica.com/comptons/art-90131/Organisms-in-a-community-are-linked-through-what-they-eat
- http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/Contexts/Life-in-the-Sea/Science-Ideas-and-Concepts/Marine-food-webs
Sources:- http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/Contexts/Life-in-the-Sea/Science-Ideas-and-Concepts/Marine-food-webs
- http://www.marinebio.net/marinescience/03ecology/mlecosystem.htm
- http://www.geography4kids.com/files/land_foodchain.html
- http://www.epa.gov/bioiweb1/aquatic/marine.html
- http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/marinefoodwebs.htm
- http://www.ehow.co.uk/info_8467074_types-fungi-grow-ocean.html
Picture Citations:- "Tuna Sandwich." Online Image. Marine Food Webs. 2007. 9/4/12 <http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/var/sciencelearn/storage/images/contexts/life-in-the-sea/sci-media/images/tuna-sandwich/169378-7-eng-NZ/Tuna-sandwich_gallery_supersize_landscape.jpg>.
- Encyclopedia Britanica Inc., "Food Web and Food Chain." Online Image. Food Chain: Marine Food Web and Food Chain. 2006. 9/4/12 <http://media.web.britannica.com/eb-media/99/95199-036-D579DC4A.jpg>.
Website Citations:- Marine Food Webs. 2012 The University of Waikato. 9/2/12 <http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/Contexts/Life-in-the-Sea/Science-Ideas-and-Concepts/Marine-food-webs>.
- Anderson, Genny. Marine Life: Marine Ecosytems. 8/19/12 9/4/12 <http://www.marinebio.net/marinescience/03ecology/mlecosystem.htm>.
- Geography 4 Kids: Biosphere: Food Chains. 2012 Andrew Rader Studios. 9/4/12 <http://www.geography4kids.com/files/land_foodchain.html>.
- Marine Ecosystems: Biological Indicators of Watershed Health: U.S. EPA. 12/8/10 U.S. Enviromental Protection Agency. 9/4/12 <http://www.epa.gov/bioiweb1/aquatic/marine.html>.
- Stewart, Robert. Marine Food Webs. 2005 Department of Oceanography, Texas A&M University. 9/4/12 <http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/marinefoodwebs.htm>.
- Radcliffe, Shawn. What Types of Fungi Grow in the Ocean?. 2012 Demand Media Inc.. 9/4/12 <http://www.ehow.co.uk/info_8467074_types-fungi-grow-ocean.html>.