Sentences with phrase «primary marine food»

Not exact matches

«Marine ecosystems everywhere to the north will be increasingly starved for nutrients, leading to less primary production (photosynthesis) by phytoplankton, which form the base of ocean food chains.»

These have provided insight into the roles that marine bacteria, archaea, viruses and eukaryotic microbes have as global primary producers that provide nutrition at the base of the food chain; remineralization (the transformation of organic molecules into inorganic forms); and the deposition of carbon on the sea floor.

Unicellular photosynthetic microbes — phytoplankton — are responsible for virtually all oceanic primary production, which fuels marine food webs and plays a fundamental role in the global carbon cycle.

The Oregon coast produces lots of phytoplankton (small marine plants) which are eaten by zooplankton (small marine animals) including bottom dwelling amphipods and mysid shrimp — primary food of the Gray Whales.

In contrast, what can marine life do upon losing 40 % of its primary food source as a result of human - induced climate change?

With less sea ice many marine ecosystems will experience more light, which can accelerate the growth of phytoplankton, and shift the balance between the primary production by ice algae and water - borne phytoplankton, with implications for Arctic food webs.

Ocean primary production of the phytoplankton at the base of the marine food chain is expected to change but the global patterns of these changes are difficult to project.

Fish and marine cetaceans consume vast amounts of zooplankton as their primary food source.

Some species of marine mammals will be able to take advantage of increases in prey abundance and spatial / temporal shifts in prey distribution toward or within their primary habitats, whereas some populations of birds and seals will be adversely affected by climatic changes if food sources decline or are displaced away from regions suitable for breeding or rearing of young.

Ice plays an important role in the development and sustenance of temperate to polar ecosystems because it creates conditions conducive to ice - edge primary production, which provides the primary food source in polar ecosystems; it supports the activity of organisms that ensure energy transfer from primary producers (algae and phytoplankton) to higher trophic levels (fish, marine birds, and mammals); and, as a consequence, it maintains and supports abundant biological communities.

Despite low biomass, phytoplankton carries out almost half of global primary production, and is the basis of the marine food web (Field et al., 1998).