Shankar IAS: Summary of Marine Organisms - Famous Books for UPSC Exam (Summary & Tests)

• Includes both microscopic plants like algae (phytoplankton) and animals like crustaceans and protozoans (zooplankton) found in all aquatic ecosystems, except certain swift moving waters.
• The major inorganic nutrients required by phytoplankton for growth and reproduction are nitrogen and phosphorus. Marine phytoplankton are not uniformly distributed throughout the oceans of the world.
• The highest concentrations are found at high latitudes, with the exception of bliwelling areas on the continental shelves, While the tropics and subtropics. Phytoplanktons are the foundation of the aquatic food web, the primary producers
• Phytoplankton are responsible for most of the transfer of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the ocean. Carbon dioxide is consumed during photosynthesis, and the carbon is incorporated in the - phytoplankton, just as carbon is stored in the wood and leaves of a tree.

ZOO PLANKTON

• Play vital role in food web of the food chain, nutrient recycling, and in transfer of organic matter from primary producers to secondary consumers like fishes

SEA-GRAS

• Specialized angiosperms (marine flowering plants) that resemble grass in appearance.
• They produce flowers; have strap-like or oval leaves and a root system.
• They grow in shallow coastal waters with sandy or muddy bottoms & require comparatively calm areas. They are the only group of higher plants adapted to life in the salt water.
• Major Sea grass meadows in India occur along the south east coast of Tamil Nadu and in the lagoons of a few Lakshadweep Islands.
•  few grass beds around Andaman and Nicobar islands.

SEA WEEDS

• Are thalloid plants) macroscopic algae, which mean they have no differentiation of true tissues such as roots, stems and leaves, have leaf-like appendages.
• Grow in, shallow coastal waters wherever sizable substata is available.

Uses of seaweeds

• Seaweeds are important as food for humans, feed for animals, and fertilizer for plants.
• Seaweeds are used as a drug for goiter treatment, intestinal and stomach disorders.
• Products like agar-agar and alginates, iodine which are of commercial value, are extracted from seaweeds.
• By the biodegradation of seaweeds methane like, economically important’ gases can be produced in large quantities potential indicators of pollution 4n coastal ecosystem, particularly heavy metal pollution due to their ability to bind and accumulate metals strongly.
• Rotting seaweed is a potent source of hydrogen sulphide, a highly toxic gas

Phytoplankton V/S Zooplankton