FNR 45400 Lecture 1: Marine Primary Production
24 Jan 2019
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Document Summary
Primary producers include a range of marine organisms that manufacture organic compounds by either photosynthesis or chemosynthesis. Photosynthetic primary producers use light energy to convert carbon dioxide (co ) into organic carbon compounds that are integrated into cells. Producers that use light to fix inorganic carbon and produce oxygen (o ) as a byproduct are referred to as oxygenic photoautotrophs. There are four main groups of primary producers: macroalgae (i. e. , seaweeds), micoalgae (i. e. , phytoplankton), cyanobacteria, and. Phytoplankton are responsible for more than 90% of the fixation of inorganic carbon to organic matter across the three-fourths of the earth"s surface that is marine. Chemosynthetic primary producers, or chemolithotrophs, use energy stored in inorganic compounds, such as hydrogen sulfide (h s), methane (ch ), ammonia (nh ), nitrite (no ), sulfur (s), hydrogen gas (h ), or ferrous iron (fe ), to fix carbon dioxide into organic matter.
