海洋生態學

Marine Ecology is the scientific study of marine-life habitats, populations, and interactions among organisms and the surrounding environment including their abiotic (non-living physical and chemical factors that affect the ability of organisms to survive and reproduce) and biotic factors (living things or the materials that directly or indirectly affect an organism in its environment). Manado Tua volcanic island where the first Indonesian Coelacanth was discovered in 1997. Marine Ecology is the scientific study of marine-life habitat, populations, and interactions among organisms and the surrounding environment including their abiotic (non-living physical and chemical factors that affect the ability of organisms to survive and reproduce) and biotic factors (living things or the materials that directly or indirectly affect an organism in its environment). Marine ecology is a subset of the study of marine biology and includes observations at the biochemical, cellular, individual, and community levels as well as the study of marine ecosystems and the biosphere. To understand the difference between marine biology and marine ecology, it may be useful to look at a community of organisms. A marine biologist may focus on behavioral relationships between the organisms in one particular species while someone studying ecology would study how the behavior of one organism influences another. An ecologist would also look at abiotic factors and how they influence that organism. A scientist studying community ecology might study a group of organisms to see how they influence other species and abiotic factors. The study of ecology in general includes all of the subcategories listed above as they apply to marine ecology, animal ecology, plant ecology, insect ecology, arctic ecology, tropical ecology and desert ecology. Earth has been divided by ecologists into four areas: the hydrosphere, the lithosphere, the atmosphere, and the biosphere. The hydrosphere refers to water on the planet, the lithosphere consists of soil and rocks, the atmosphere is the air, and the biosphere refers to all of the life on Earth. The biosphere can be visualized as a thin surface layer on the Earth from 11,000 m below sea level to 15,000 m above sea level, even though there are no permanent residents living in the atmosphere. The first life on Earth was formed in the photic zone of the hydrosphere when organisms with more than one cell evolved in the deep ocean benthic zones. After the ozone layer formed, which protects land organisms from harmful UV rays, life began to evolve on land. After the continents separated and reformed, biodiversity began to increase as life began to adapt to new environments. Biodiversity can be observed at the genetic level, the species level, the population level, and the ecological level. Abiotic elements like carbon, nitrogen and oxygen are present in great quantities in the biosphere. Phosphorus, calcium, and potassium are also present in smaller amounts. All are elements critical to the existence of life. Every element in the ecosystem transforms from mineral to organic forms and back to minerals and is never destroyed. Life depends on energy from the sun and the organisms that are capable of transforming light into chemical energy form the basis for the food chain. The process of photosynthesis converts light into chemical energy, resulting in the production of glucose and oxygen. Other organisms depend on glucose produced by photosynthesis for energy to fuel biological processes such as cellular respiration. During cellular respiration, organisms split glucose back into water and carbon dioxide. The breaking down of glucose releases and utilizes energy from the sun stored by photosynthesizing plants. The oxygen level of the Earth’s atmosphere is largely reliant on the amount of photosynthetic activity and respiration going on in the biosphere. A build up of elements in areas with a lot of organisms is prevented by circulat