1T1_2013 Group 7 - Deep Sea


Team members

 

Names / Roles:

Interrelationships Ecosystem 

 

An ecosystem is a community of living organisms (plants, animals and microbes) in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil), interacting as a system.[2] These biotic and abiotic components are regarded as linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows.[3] As ecosystems are defined by the network of interactions among organisms, and between organisms and their environment,[4] they can come in any size but usually encompass specific, limited spaces[5](although some scientists say that the entire planet is an ecosystem).[6]

Energy, water, nitrogen and soil minerals are other essential abiotic components of an ecosystem. The energy that flows through ecosystems is obtained primarily from the sun. It generally enters the system through photosynthesis, a process that also captures carbonfrom the atmosphere. By feeding on plants and on one another, animals play an important role in the movement of matter and energy through the system. They also influence the quantity of plant and microbial biomass present. By breaking down dead organic matter,decomposers release carbon back to the atmosphere and facilitate nutrient cycling by converting nutrients stored in dead biomass back to a form that can be readily used by plants and other microbes.[7]

Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors. External factors such asclimate, the parent material which forms the soil and topography, control the overall structure of an ecosystem and the way things work within it, but are not themselves influenced by the ecosystem.[8] Other external factors include time and potential biota. Ecosystems are dynamic entities—invariably, they are subject to periodic disturbances and are in the process of recovering from some past disturbance.[9] Ecosystems in similar environments that are located in different parts of the world can end up doing things very differently simply because they have different pools of species present.[8] The introduction of non-native species can cause substantial shifts in ecosystem function. Internal factors not only control ecosystem processes but are also controlled by them and are often subject to feedback loops.[8] While the resource inputs are generally controlled by external processes like climate and parent material, the availability of these resources within the ecosystem is controlled by internal factors like decomposition, root competition or shading.[8] Other internal factors include disturbance, succession and the types of species present. Although humans exist and operate within ecosystems, their cumulative effects are large enough to influence external factors like climate.[8]

Biodiversity affects ecosystem function, as do the processes of disturbance and succession. Ecosystems provide a variety of goods and services upon which people depend; the principles of ecosystem management suggest that rather than managing individual species, natural resources should be managed at the level of the ecosystem itself. Classifying ecosystems into ecologically homogeneous units is an important step towards effective ecosystem management, but there is no single, agreed-upon way to do this.

Classification of Living Organisms

The Kingdom Prokarya or Bacteria are distinguished from the life forms in all other kingdoms in that they do not have a membrane bound nucleus containing the genetic material of the cell. They are called "prokaryotes". The genetic material is simply found in strands ("plasmids") within the cell's cytoplasm. Note that what was previously called blue green algae are now classified as cyanobacteria because they are prokaryotes. Since they are so different from all other life, under the five kingdom system, Bacteria also comprise the Superkingdom Prokarya.

 

 

The cells of life forms in the other four kingdoms are classified as "eukaryotes" and have a nucleus in which the genetic material is  organized on "chromosomes within a cellular nucleus. These four kingdoms comprise the Superkingdom Eukarya. Besides with the presence or absence of a nucleus, "there are other major differences between prokaryotes and eukaryotes. For example, Bacteria are all over the map in whether they utilize oxygen or another gas such as nitrogen or methane. Some cannot even tolerate oxygen—for these "anaerobic" Bacteria, oxygen is a poison. Almost all eukaryotes are aerobes—they need oxygen to live. That some Bacteria require an oxygen-free environment harkens back to the earth's earliest times and suggest their ancient origin. 

 

 

Food Web

A food web (or food cycle) depicts feeding connections (what-eats-what) in anecological community and hence is also referred to as a consumer-resource system. Ecologists can broadly lump all life forms into one of two categories called trophic levels: 1) the autotrophs, and 2) the heterotrophs. To maintain their bodies, grow, develop, and to reproduce, autotrophs produce organic matter frominorganic substances, including both minerals and gases such as carbon dioxide. These chemical reactions require energy, which mainly comes from the sun and largely by photosynthesis, although a very small amount comes from and hydrothermal vents ot springs. A gradient exists between trophic levels running from complete autotrophs that obtain their sole source of carbon from the atmosphere, to mixotrophs (such as carnivorous plants) that are autotrophic organisms that partially obtain organic matter from sources other than the atmosphere, and complete heterotrophs that must feed to obtain organic matter. The linkages in a food web illustrate the feeding pathways, such as where heterotrophs obtain organic matter by feeding on autotrophs and other heterotrophs. The food web is a simplified illustration of the various methods of feeding that links an ecosystem into a unified system of exchange. There are different kinds of feeding relations that can be roughly divided into herbivory,carnivory, scavenging and parasitism. Some of the organic matter eaten by heterotrophs, such as sugars, provides energy. Autotrophs and heterotrophs come in all sizes, from microscopic to many tonnes - from cyanobacteria to giant redwoods, and from viruses and bdellovibrio to blue whales.

Charles Elton pioneered the concept of food cycles, food chains, and food size in his classical 1927 book "Animal Ecology"; Elton's 'food cycle' was replaced by 'food web' in a subsequent ecological text. Elton organized species into functional groups, which was the basis for Raymond Lindeman's classic and landmark paper in 1942 on trophic dynamics. Lindeman emphasized the important role ofdecomposer organisms in a trophic system of classification. The notion of a food web has a historical foothold in the writings of Charles Darwin and his terminology, including an "entangled bank", "web of life", "web of complex relations", and in reference to the decomposition actions of earthworms he talked about "the continued movement of the particles of earth". Even earlier, in 1768 John Bruckner described nature as "one continued web of life".

Food webs are limited representations of real ecosystems as they necessarily aggregate many species into trophic species, which are functional groups of species that have the same predators and prey in a food web. Ecologists use these simplifications in quantitative(or mathematical) models of trophic or consumer-resource systems dynamics. Using these models they can measure and test for generalized patterns in the structure of real food web networks. Ecologists have identified non-random properties in the topographicstructure of food webs. Published examples that are used in meta analysis are of variable quality with omissions. However, the number of empirical studies on community webs is on the rise and the mathematical treatment of food webs using network theory had identified patterns that are common to all. Scaling laws, for example, predict a relationship between the topology of food web predator-prey linkages and levels of species richness.

 

Overview

In this section, include a brief description of the allocated ecosystem. You should include the following information:

 

~LOCATION OF DEEP SEA~

 

The   deep sea  is the lowest layer in the ocean, existing below the thermocline, at a depth of 1000 fathoms or more.

 

 

The deep sea, or deep laye r, is the lowest layer in the ocean, existing below the thermocline and above the seabed, at a depth of 1000 fathoms (1800 m) or more. Little or no light penetrates this part of the ocean and most of the organisms that live there rely for subsistence on falling organic matter produced in the photic zone. For this reason scientists once assumed that life would be sparse in the deep ocean but virtually every probe has revealed that, on the contrary, life is abundant in the deep ocean.

 

Video of Deep Sea Volcano Eruption: http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-videos/sea-creatures-deep-video-national-geographic-and-census-marine-life

 

~DESCRIPTION OF DEEP SEA~ 


reactos-angelus-deepsea-download-free-backgrounds-wallpapers  Shark In Deep Sea WallpaperIn 1960 the Bathyscaphe Trieste descended to the bottom of the Mariana Trench near Guam, at 35,798 feet or 6.77 miles (10,911 meters), the deepest spot in any ocean. If Mount Everest were submerged there, its peak would be more than a mile beneath the surface. At this great depth a small flounder-like fish was seen moving away from the bathyscaphe's spotlight. The Trieste was retired and for a while the Japanese remote-operated vehicle (ROV) Kaikō was the only vessel capable of reaching this depth. It was lost at sea in 2003. In May and June 2009, the hybrid-ROV (HROV) Nereus returned to the Challenger Deep for a series of three dives to depths exceeding 10900 meters.

 

 

Physical Factors

Search the Internet for information on the following physical factors in the allocated ecosystem. 

 

 

 

 

Classification of Living Organisms

Classify at least eight of the living organisms found in the allocated ecosystem into the categories below:

  1. Producers  : All differnt types of corals  
  2. Primary Consumers : Green Sea Turtles, Dugongs and Manatees
  3. Secondary Consumers : Blue whales, dolphins, sharks, and killer whales
  4. Tertiary Consumers : Sharks, killer whales, whales, Great White Shark ,Sealions, Orca Leopard, seal
  5. Decomposers : plankton, algae, and bacteria

For each of the living organism, find a picture and write a short description on the organism. You may wish to include feeding habits, region in the ecosystem where it is normally found etc. 

 

 

 

 

Food Web 

Create a food web using at least eight of the living organisms listed above. You may wish to use Microsoft PowerPoint to create your food web. Save your food web as a picture. Finally copy and paste your picture in this section of your wiki. 

 

 

 

Interrelationship in Ecosystem

Give at least one example for each of the following relationships in the ecosystem:

  1. Predator-prey relationship
  2. Parasitism
  3. Mutualism

 

 

 

Useful Links

Plagarism is a strongly discouraged.

 

Include the links of all websites you obtained information from to complete your ecology wiki. 

For example:

Wild World @ nationalgeographic.com ( http://www.nationalgeographic.com/wildworld/terrestrial.html )