01:460:120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Manicouagan Reservoir, Carl Linnaeus, Invertebrate
28 Mar 2017
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Document Summary
Life on earth is notable for diversity and unity: diversity because there are perhaps 100 million different species on earth; unity because all species share the same underlying mechanisms for basic life processes. Any definition for life must depend on energy relationships - the ability to capture, store, and transmit energy helps differentiate a living organism from a nonliving object. Producers assemble food molecules using energy from the sun (photosynthesis) or from energy- rich inorganic molecules (chemosynthesis) Productivity is expresses in grams of carbon bound into carbohydrates (food) per square meter of ocean surface per year (g c/m2/y) Primary producer - autotrophs - are organisms that synthesize food from inorganic substance by photosynthesis and chemosynthesis. Primary producers and their consumers - heterotrophs - interact in energy relationships called food webs. The great bulk of the ocean lies in perpetual darkness; only the upper part of the lighted zone, the euphotic zone, sustains photosynthetic producers.
