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Marine Ecosystem

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The earth's oceans provide an enormous range of resources and affect the quality of life as we know it. The oceans cover approximately 70 percent of the surface of the earth and have a cyclical effect on weather, e.g. temperature, precipitation and air quality. Regardless of your views on global warming, the fact remains that humans have an impact on the marine ecosystems through waste from chemicals and debris polluting this vast renewable resource. Based upon current scientific evidence, emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are projected to cause significant global climate change during the 21st century. Such climate change will create novel challenges for coastal and marine ecosystems that are already stressed from human …show more content…

However, the total amount of energy in the universe available to do biological work is decreasing over time."This law plays into the fact that energy in life-organisms is decreasing over time. If this were not the case then, these organisms would live forever. Instead the law is biological creatures are born and they die. Energy can only be transferred. It cannot be created or destroyed. In the marine life-system this is as evident as in any other life-system. Benthos relies on nekton just as much as plankton. They are all locked in a complicated yet simple dance of consumption, reproduction, and death following in decomposition. This can be translated into energy examples such as taking in energy through capturing, transferring energy as in reproduction and dispersing energy back into the general eco system by death. Abiotic factors are elements of an ecosystem that are non-living but still have an impact on the environment. Some examples of abiotic factors that impact the marine ecosystem include: water temperature, sunlight, ocean currents and the salinity of the water. Biotic factors in the marine ecosystem are the living organisms, which include plants and animals. Biological evolution accounts for the diversity of species developed through gradual processes over many generations. Many species develop their unique characteristics through biological adaptation, which involves the selection of naturally occurring variations in populations. Biological adaptations

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