Sentences with phrase «marine predators like»

Though the fishes were not commercially valuable, they are an important source of food for marine predators like other fish, squid and whales, and help to support ecosystem health.

Not exact matches

The study is one of the first to test if the «landscape of fear» model, a scientific theory that has been used to explain how animals move and interact with the environment based on their fear of being attacked by their predators, is applicable to large open marine systems involving wide - ranging species, like sharks and turtles.

For mussels, that can mean thinner shells, making them more vulnerable to predators like the dogwhelk, a marine snail that attacks mussels by drilling through their shells.

Hagfish are marine fish shaped like eels, famous for releasing large quantities of «slime» that unfolds, assembles and expands into the surrounding water in response to a threat or a predator's attack.

They feed on the bottom of the food chain — on single - celled plankton, which larger fish can not eat — and then they become prey for all sorts of upper - level predators like tuna, sea bass and halibut as well as seabirds and marine mammals.

Taken together, these organisms weigh approximately 10 billion tons and are a major link in the food chain between microscopic plankton and top predators like tuna, birds and marine mammals, according to Simone Baumann - Pickering, an assistant research biologist at the University of California, in San Diego.

As a result, the project benefits every kind of marine species, from commercial groupers and snappers, common butterfly fish and fusiliers to the large predators like tuna and sharks.

The lunar cycles of the Gladden Spit Marine Reserve bring enormous schools of fish to the area to spawn, releasing enormous clouds of eggs that attract top predators like whale sharks.

Due to the intact connectivity of the extensive seagrass beds, desnse mangrove forests, and robust coral reefs, the remoteness of the area, and the history of protection from coastal development, the Gardens of the Queen represents a «baseline» for a nearly pristine Caribbean marine ecosystem; an ecosystem that includes healthy populations of apex predators like sharks and groupers, important grazers like Rainbow parrotfish and long - spine sea urchins, and recovering endangered species like elkhorn coral and hawksbill sea turtles.

Each of the three species sees the environment differently and creatures like the Alien are able to see clearly in areas that would otherwise appear pitch black to both the Marine and the Predator.