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Welcome to week ten where we are going to continue on with marine life.
In
these series of videos, we're going to talk about
biological communities and ecosystems,
how they relate to each other, and and the different types of communities
in the oceans.
So in this first video we're going to get into what a biological community
is, what an ecosystem is, and some of the main
types that we see
in the ocean.
So
community
of organisms in the ocean
is basically a group of interdependent organisms that exist in same
place and time.
So they are not necessarily related to each other they are just living in the same spot
all the time.
Ecosystem, similar idea, it's a biological community so these
organisms that are all living in the same place and time and that also factors in
their physical setting. So a tide pool
full of organisms verses a lake full of organisms so the physical
setting is actually taking into account
with ecosystems.
So some of the main types of communities
and ecosystems would be sandy coastline
we went over these in a little bit more detail last week.
So we've got beach grass in some places. So you've got the areas that are above sea level
and also the beach itself
and then the sandy part of the ocean of just offshore.
Estuaries, we visited an estuary in our
field trip, last field trip was
kind of half way through the term so
estuaries are really muddy environments, fluctuating tides, fluctuating salinity
and fluctuating temperatures. So these organisms
could all live here in this ecosystem all have to adapt to those pretty drastic
changes and I've got some examples here pickle weed,
which can turn pink eventually like its older.
Oysters which tend to be
buried in the mud a little bit more so you don't necessarily see them all the time at the
surface.
It's hard to get to this covered in mud
and then in more tropical areas like maybe Florida or
Louisiana we have
mangroves that grow in these estuaries.
And then another example
is rocky intertidal, this is where
we went on our second field trip.
So we've got organisms living in tide pools the places where the tide moves
up-and-down. Some pretty dramatic changes and
tides and temperature and oxygen levels
and salinity as well.
Now the last example are mid ocean ridges. These are the very very bottom of the ocean.
Immense amounts of pressure because we're at the bottom of the ocean get
several hundred meters of
ocean water above these organisms they have to
be prepared for that and
pretty wide and changes in temperature
you have a
very high variation from
super hot water
that's pumping out of these black smokers in comparison to the water surrounding it
can be extreme differences in temperature.
So these organisms have to also be able to withstand those changes as well.
So these are communities
of organisms. All these guys are living in the same
place, same time
and then our ecosystem in this example is this mid ocean ridge
and then if I go back to rocky intertidal you've got sea stars, sea enemies,
rock weed, sea urchins all living together in the same spot
and time and then our ecosystem would be the rocky intertidal.
So that's the difference between a biological community which is just the organisms
themselves versus
an ecosystem which is taking those organisms and then also factoring in what
the environmental conditions are like.
So we'll sign off come back in video two where we're gonna talk about
how these organisms are actually related to each other.