APES 1.3

AQUATIC BIOMES

Ponds and lakes are where nutrient and fertilizer runoff happens, which leads to eutrophication

Algae In marine biomes are responsible for most of the earths oxygen and remove much of the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere

Turbidity: how cloudy the water is due to suspended sediment

Salinity: how much salt there is in a body of water

• Determines which species can survive and whether or not its suitable for drinking water

  Depth

• Influences how much sunlight can penetrate water and reach plants below the surface for photosynthesis

  Flow

• Determines which plants and organisms can survive

• How much O2 can dissolve into water

  Temperature

• Warmer water holds less dissolved O2, so it supports fewer aquatic organisms

  Rivers

• They have high O2 due to their flow that mixes water and air

• They also carry nutrient rich sediments

  Lakes consist of fresh H2O

  Lake zones:

• Littoral zone: the top surface of the water where plants grow and emerge

• Limnetic zone: middle zone where light can reach phytoplankton for photosynthesis

• Profundal zone: deepest zone where sunlight cannot reach (i.e. no photosynthesis)

• Benthic zone: the very bottom at the deepest zone where invertebrates (bugs) live that contains nutrient rich sediments

  Wetland: Area with soil submerged in water for at least part of the year

• Shallow enough for emergent plants

• Plants living here have to be adapted to living with roots that are submerged in standing water

  Benefits of wetlands: stores excess water during storms, which lessens floods, recharges groundwater by absorbing rainfall into soil, the roots of wetland plants filter pollutants from water that is draining through, and high productivity due to lots of water and nutrients in sediments

  Estuaries: Areas where rivers empty into the ocean

• Mix of fresh water and salt water

• High productivity due to nutrients in sediments deposited in estuaries by river

  Salt Marsh: estuary habitat along the coast in Temperate climates

• Breeding ground for many fish and shellfish species

  Mangrove Swamps: estuary habitat along the coast of tropical climates

• Mangrove trees with long, stilt roots stabilize shoreline and provide habitat for many species of fish and shellfish

  Coral Reef: warm shallow waters beyond the shoreline

• Most diverse marine biome on earth

• Includes a mutualistic relationship between coral (animal) and Algae (plant)

• Coral takes CO2 out of ocean to make calcium carbonate exoskeleton (the reef) and provides CO2 to the Algae

• Algae lives in the reef and provides sugar to the coral through photosynthesis

  Intertidal zone: narrow band of coastline between high and low tide

• Organisms must be adapted to survive crashing waves and direct sunlight during low tide

  Open ocean

• Low productivity as only Algae and phytoplankton can survive in most of the ocean

• So large that Algae and phytoplankton produce a lot of earths O2 and absorb a lot of atmospheric CO2