Honors Marine Biology
The Deep Ocean – Part 2
Module 14
April 7, 2015
Class Challenge
Act out lines from your favorite movie or TV show.
Notebook Check
Through Module 13Thank you Mrs. Bowers!
We have 5 more classes.
April 28 will be SeaPerch launch Day!
and
May 5, 2015 is our last day of class.
Oral Presentations
Deep Sea Creatures!!
25 Most Terrifying Sea Creatures
http://youtu.be/xQP5yV9yxFc
BBC Planet Earth/Blue Planet - Deep ocean creatures
• http://youtu.be/mrSu65Bb9X4
• Slide 27 – 39 Deep Ocean part 1 - April 4
The Deep Ocean
Is located below the mesopelagic and extends down to the ocean floor. This is the area of the ocean where absolutely no sunlight can penetrate.
The physical conditions are fairly constant:
Darkness, cold, stable salinity and other chemical concentrations.
In the previous lessons we have only discussed ocean environments from the continents’ coast down to 1000 meters in depth.
This still leaves thousands of meters below that level to discuss.
Determining Factors where organisms live
Pressure: This is because any organism in the water is being pushed on by all the water above it. As an organism goes deeper, the greater the pressure.
Because most body functions are affected by pressure, deep sea organisms can only tolerate a specific pressure range.
Think for a movement about the creatures that we have just learned about.
Some of them seem so delicate and should be crushed like a pancake. Why aren’t they?
Deep Sea Animals
1. Since there is an absence of light, there is no need for countershading.
2. Most creatures are bioluminescent. The photophores are not on the ventral surface, but on the head and sides of the animal.
This is probably most likely for locating prey and mating.
Deep Sea Animals
3. Eyes are either very small or none at all.4. Animals are very small, 5. move very slowly, 6. have watery muscles, 7. weak skeleton, 8. have no swim bladder,9. Most have very large mouths to enable
them to eat whatever prey might come by.
Mating
1. Hermaphrodites: ability to produce eggs and sperm
2. Bioluminescent: light pattern to help find mate
3. Special Chemical: that releases into the water to produce ID smells that attract a mate
4. Male parasitism: Attaches to the female for life
Scientists only know very little about the creatures of the deep, only about 5% .
The Deep Sea Floor
Has a substrate and is characterized by no light, tremendous pressure and fairly constant temperature and salinity.
Benthic Organisms
Organisms that live on the ocean bottom. Food is more plentiful on the ocean bottom because everything that is not eaten above eventually falls to the bottom.
Meiofauna Microrganisms
Live between the marine sediment particles. These represent the largest animal group on the deep sea floor.
Deposit Feeders
Dominate the deep sea floor. They eat detritus settled into the sediment.
Infauna
Organisms that burrow and living within the sediment
Epifauna
Live on the sediment surface. They are sea cucumbers, crustaceans, polychaetes, bivalves
Major Predators
Of the deep ocean benthos are crabs, sea stars, brittle stars, squids and fish.
They are all scavengers.
Gigantism
Some organisms grow to a very extreme large size in the deep ocean.
Giant Oarfish
Hydrothermal Vents
Hot, actively spreading rift zone where heated water spews up from the crust. They provide for a highly populated community of organisms that live around the vents.
• . Even giant worms nearly 2 meters long, large clams, mussels, shrimp, crabs, and fish. The vents are like an oasis in the desert.
• Bacteria live in these areas that can extract energy containing certain minerals and use that energy to make organic matter. They use this process similar to photosynthesis, but they substitute chemical energy for solar energy. This process is called chemosynthesis. Chemosynthesis bacteria are the primary producers of hydrothermal communities.
Black Smokers
Black Smokers: 250 Degrees F – get to 40 feet high – contains minerals and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) that is toxic to most creatures, but not chemosynthetic bacteria. They are called black smokers because of the darkly colored, chimney-like structures that are produced when cold meets deep sea water.
Cold Seeps
• Cold seeps that produce white smokers: less than 200 Degrees F, found in areas where the water temperature is much cooler. They produce white zinc sulfides. Because they are a slow growing community, they possibly last 5 times longer than Black smokers.
Deep Sea Photosynthesis
Green Sulfur bacteria uses Bacteriochlorophyll a highly sensitive chemical that can capture a single photon of light (once every eight hours) Chlorosomes are like light funnels that collect photons in water and store the light energy in food molecules.
Homework
Finish Module 14 reading ….
Finish OYO Questions …..
Finish Study Guide questions ….
Class Challenge Sit-ups in a minute
Class Quiz on the Deep Ocean
