Marine Zones

iNOB

Four Zones of a Marine Ecosystem

1.Intertidal2. Neritic3. Oceanic4. Benthic

• 1.Intertidal Zone (think tide)--the shallow zone of the ocean where land meets water 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 coastlineshallow 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

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

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.

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.

Benthic Zone

4. Benthic Zone (think beneath)--relating to the bottombottom 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

• i• N• O• B

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.