GEOS126 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Biological Oceanography, Chemosynthesis, Primary Production
28 Nov 2018
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Document Summary
The scientific study of: the abundance and distribution of organisms, the relationship between the organisms and their environment (ex. Two fundamental types of organisms: autotrophs (self-feeders, in the deep-sea chemosynthesis is a method of primary production, mostly phytoplankton, heterotrophs (consumers, cannot fix inorganic compounds to organic matter, process of respiration. Recent research shows that many microbes can choose to be autotrophs or heterotrophs depending on the situation. Not necessarily a chain but more of a web. Sometimes large animals such as killer whales will be on the 2nd level by consuming phytoplankton. There is a 90% loss of energy at each step of the trophic step as only 10% of the energy is used by the organism to add to their body weight (the rest is burned or excreted) Unlike energy, the chemical ingredients of life are recycled. The biomass of microbial organisms is 5-10 times greater than non-microbial ocean biomass. Account for large fraction of primary production.
