Intro to Aquatic Ecology - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Intro to Aquatic EcologySlide2

Energy into the earth

Of 100% of earth’s energy, how much comes from the sun

Of all the sun energy, how much is taken up by photosynthesis on earth? What happens to most of the sun’s energy? Of all of earth’s photosynthesis – how much of it happens in the oceans?

99.99%

Less than 1%! (0.6%)

Heats up the

earthSlide3

Ecology of Aquatic Environments:

Ecology = The

study of relationships between living things and their environmentEcologists seek to explain:how things change over timeWhere things live and whyHow material and energy move through the environment.Slide4

Trophic levels

(trophic = energy)

Energy: rule of 10 = ? Why?

Consumer do not consume (eat) entire organism.

Energy lost as heat.

AS you move up the food chain, there is typically fewer and fewer organisms at each “trophic” levelSlide5

“producers” : Trophic level 1

Producers store the sun’s energy into complex chemicals.

They make them using the sun’s energy and raw ingredients provided by the decomposition of dead things by bacteria.On land Producers include:Trees, grass, vegetables, fruit, etc. etc.

In Aquatic systems (lakes, rivers, oceans)Algae, seaweed, diatoms, water grasses, etc.

“plankton”Slide6

“consumers” – Trophic levels 2+

Consumers rely on the sun’s energy too,… passed on to it via the chemicals made by producers.

Producers do this: CO2 + H2O + energy  O2

+ C6H12

O6Producers AND Consumers do this:

O

2

+ C

6

H

12

O

6



CO

2

+ H

2

O + energySlide7

What is “plankton”?

Name means: “Drifters” or “Wanderers

”

So. . .are they autotrophs or heterotrophs?

They can be either one!.. And sometimes both (

protists

)Slide8

Autotrophs vs. Heterotrophs

Most

autotrophs use sunlight energy to make their food

Heterotrophs eat autotrophs and other heterotrophs

to obtain energy that came from the sun

6 H

2

0 + 6 CO

2

+

solar energy

--> C

6

H

12

O

6

+ 6 O

2Slide9

“Phytoplankton” = plankton that can do photosynthesis, some are plants, some are bacteriaSlide10

Diatoms: the main aquatic phytoplanktonSlide11

Diatoms – single celled green houses

Single celled

Have a “shell” or casing made of glass Have chlorophyll & make food from sunlightThe most abundant organisms in the oceans!Take any lake, river or ocean, there is more WEIGHT of these guys than all the fish! Slide12

Where would you find Phytoplankton in an aquatic ecosystem?Slide13

Words to know:

Photic

AphoticPelagic

Phytoplankton are found in the photic zone – where the light is!

pelagicSlide14

Zooplankton

(=

plankton that are consumers. what are they consuming?)Slide15

Two important “Zooplankton” out there -

Krill - tiny shrimplike things

Copepods – tiny one eyed drifting crustaceansSlide16

Copepods and other plankton

often have

“bioluminescence” and can glowSlide17

Typical Marine food pyramid:Slide18

More Vocabulary

Plankton can be divided into lifestyles:

1)Meroplankton , which merely spend SOME of their lives as drifters and2) Holoplankton, which spend their

WHOLE lives driftingSlide19

Guess what these Meroplankton “Grow Up” to be” and what they do when they’re done with the “drifter” lifestyleSlide20

Summary:

Earth

gets its energy from the sun – but very little of the sun’s energy goes into “life”Ecology is the study of the interaction between organisms and the environment.The first two “

trophic levels” of aquatic environments are both “plankton”There is more mass of plankton in the ocean than all the whales added together (there has to be)

Phytoplankton do photosynthesis, they are T1, and main type to know if “diatoms”

Zooplankton

are the consumer, T2 and they can be

Meroplankton

– like larvae of some animals

Holoplankton

– like copepods and krill