Week 5: Marine Ecology

Wooclap:
[Link]/
OJCCRH
 Objectives
▪ Brief tour of Earth history, and the origin of photosynthesis
▪ Examine the basics of how an ecosystem “works”
▪ Describe how energy and substances move through a food
web
▪ Explain trophic levels and primary production
▪ Examine how primary production and energy flow work in
the open ocean

Relevant textbook chapters: 1 and 13

 Origin of life: our biggest enigma

Aristotle 340 BC - Spontaneous generation theory

– All living things originated spontaneously from non-living matter

17th Century “Recipe of Life”

– Flemish physician Van Helmont reported the generation of
mice from wheat grains and a sweaty shirt

Note: always interpret your

experimental data critically...
Louis Pasteur 1864 – Through
experimentation, Pasteur brings
to end the theory of spontaneous
generation.

“Life can only originate from

preexisting life”
Earth’s history

The first living

microbes emerged
at least 3.5 - 4
billion years ago
3.5-billion year-old rocks from Australia contain diverse microbes.
Life arose early and evolved quickly.
 The Urey and Miller experiments

Essential organic molecules

can be generated from
inorganic substances under
“early Earth” conditions

Includes sugars, amino acids,

and building blocks of DNA
(nucleic acids)
 From molecules to cells – still active research!

Recent research points to hydrothermal vents: contain reactive minerals

and gases, and lipids can be formed there.

These lipids can spontaneously assemble into vesicles – the same

structure as a cell
 From molecules to cells

Key ingredients for life:

• A lipid membrane to seal off from surroundings
• Enzymes to catalyse the many necessary chemical reactions
• Self-replication

The molecular building blocks could be formed on pre-biotic Earth:

amino acids, lipids, and nucleotides
Hydrothermal vents can also supply the energy needed to sustain life
(as we’ll see in Week 9)
Nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) can self-replicate
 How did free oxygen start to accumulate?
Free O2 gas is very reactive – any O2 created on early Earth was
quickly locked up in minerals and water. To accumulate, O 2 production
had to increase massively

Photosynthesis

An excellent podcast about

photosynthesis :
[Link]
Earth’s history

Photosynthesis evolved first

in cyanobacteria. A very
efficient way of obtaining
energy

O2 was toxic to most other

organisms, and led to the first
mass extinction of life on
Earth
Earth’s history
Increase in O2 also allowed the evolution of animals

O2 reacts with Mineral

minerals on land, sinks are
hence saturated,
O2 slowly concentration and O2 rises
remains steady rapidly
rises
Also known as
“The Boring Billion”

Origin of life
Great Origin of Animals Origin of
Origin of Oxygenation eukaryotes and of evolve modern
photosynthesis Event animals and
multicellular life
land plants
Week 4, remember?
Evolution and classification
Eukaryotes and Archaea diverged during the boring billion
cei c e
ee
i e
cei e e i e i
pi c e e
i
et anosarcina
p ii e et ano acteri m p ie
e cei
et anococc s
cei ii e
celer
lanctomyces ermoprote s e e
yro ictic m
acteroi es ic
ytop aga
ic p i i
ermotoga
ip
ifex

Bacterium Archaeon Eukaryote

 Modern Animals: the Cambrian Explosion

Ediacaran period: earliest animals.

Soft-bodied, no jaws or eyes, no
predators

Cambrian period: jaws, hard parts,

eyes, and limbs evolve. Predators,
and ways to get away from them!
Modern animals = modern ecosystems

Without animals and plants, ecosystems consisted only of microbes

The evolution of animals, and the invention of predation, set the scene
for complex ecosystems of the kind we know today

Complex forest ecosystem Microbial ecosystem (Yellowstone)

Characteristics of an ecosystem
What makes this a coral reef ecosystem, and not just a collection of animals?
Species in an ecosystem interact with each other, and these interactions are
critical for survival
Eating and being eaten – a food web

All ecosystems are

organised into food
webs
Ecologists call these
feeding relationships
trophic relationships
Distinguish different
trophic levels
A trophic pyramid
Energy and nutrients
move from primary
producers through
several consumer
levels to top
predators

This energy transfer

is not very efficient
Energy transfer is inefficient
Typically, 90% of energy is
lost, and 10% of energy is
assimilated at each trophic
level

This limits how many trophic

levels there can be

In practice, many animals feed

across several trophic levels
(=> food web, not food chain)
How an ecosystem “works”

Primary producers harvest energy and inorganic nutrients, which are then
passed through several consumer levels

To understand an ecosystem, it is critical to understand its food web!

Primary production and respiration
Primary production = synthesis of organic biochemicals from inorganic
molecules
Photosynthesis is the main form of primary production
All consumers in an ecosystem conduct the opposite: respiration
Biomass produced by consumers is the secondary production
Ecological cycles of matter

Carbon, oxygen, and nutrient elements are constantly recycled in all

ecosystems. Only energy is needed as an input.
Microbes (bacteria and archaea) do most of this recycling
Without recycling, life on Earth would grind to a halt

The two diagrams both symbolise cycling of carbon and nutrients

Transfer of energy through a food web
Energy flow (=production rate)

On land and in water,

energy flow
Secondary production
decreases massively
with each trophic
level
Primary production
This energy flow is
the rate of ecological
production
 (A) (B) (C)
Positive relationship Negative relationship No relationship

2° production
2° production

2° production
1° production 1° production 1° production
Some real data
The amount of secondary production is positively related to the amount of
primary production

Intuitive: more primary production = more food for consumers. But note
LOTS of variability in these data!
Marine versus terrestrial systems

Production rate On land, most biomass

is in plants, least
biomass is in top
carnivores

At sea, we often see an

inverted biomass
pyramid: most
biomass is in the
consumers
Production rate Biomass
Reasons for the inverted biomass pyramid

Most primary production is

by phytoplankton: fast
growth rate, but their
biomass is quickly eaten or
decomposed

Many marine consumers

are large and long-lived,
but have slow population
growth (sharks, whales)

Marine apex predators are

vulnerable to over-
exploitation (sharks,
whales!)
Recycling in ecosystems

Ecosystems need energy input, but nutrient elements are recycled

• Primary producers use inorganic

nutrients
• They are eaten by consumers
• Waste is decomposed by microbes
back into inorganic nutrients
 Open-ocean ecosystems

Primary production by phytoplankton: single-celled, microscopic algae

Grow in the upper 50–200 m of the ocean. Deeper down, there is no
light for photosynthesis

• Requires light,
CO2 carbon dioxide, and
Energy (sunlight)
nutrients
Nutrients:
• Nutrient elements
N, P, Fe, ...
include nitrogen,
phosphorus, and
Phytoplankton Zooplankton Fish etc. iron
What controls ocean primary production?

Nitrate concentration (micro-mol / L)

Week 3: distribution of
phytoplankton mirrors the
distribution of nutrients

Chlorophyll concentration (mg / m3)

Primary production in the

open ocean is controlled
mostly by nutrient supply

© NASA
The Biological Carbon Pump

Organic waste (detritus) sinks

to the deep ocean, removing
carbon and nutrients from the
surface

Stratification: nutrients can’t

return to surface

Most detritus is decomposed

in the deep ocean, and the
CO2 and nutrients return to
the surface with the global
thermohaline circulation
Decomposition of detritus in the deep ocean
Abyssal sediments contain hardly
any organic matter. Mostly just the
Sediment cores from 5 km
mineral shells of plankton
in the Southern Ocean
Accumulate ∼1 cm in 1000 years, so
lots of time for detritus to
decompose!
Decomposition of detritus in the deep ocean
Time-lapse photos at 4 km depth: detritus from a plankton bloom arrives
and is quickly consumed by scavengers
Primary production: land vs. ocean
Ocean and land contribute ∼50% each to the total primary
production of the Earth

56 Gt C yr

48 Gt C / yr

Field, C. B. et al. Science (80) 1998.

Primary production: land vs. ocean

But plants have far more biomass than phytoplankton

Hence, plankton biomass is fully recycled on average
every few weeks
Plant biomass: 560 Gt carbon

Phytoplankton
biomass: 3 Gt carbon

Field, C. B. et al. Science (80) 1998.

Primary production: land vs. ocean

Pelagic ecosystems are very dynamic: imagine a forest

growing, decaying, and becoming a grassland in weeks

Plant biomass: 560 Gt carbon

Phytoplankton
biomass: 3 Gt carbon

Field, C. B. et al. Science (80) 1998.

This dynamic and spatially patchy nature is clearly visible
from remote sensing of phytoplankton biomass
To summarise

Most plankton biomass is

© P. Chisholm
recycled many times in the
surface layer

Some biomass sinks to deep

sea, removing nutrients and
carbon from surface layer

This biomass is mostly recycled,

and nutrients and CO2
eventually return to surface via
thermohaline circulation
The structure of a pelagic ecosystem

Many predator
species

Few species in the

middle

Many plankton species

with rapid growth and
short life-cycles
Forage fish boom–bust cycles
“Forage fish” (sardine, anchovy) often have natural, climate-
driven boom–bust cycles
Geographic range of forage fish varies
Abundance of forage fish varies

Current

Data are for Pacific Sardine

How does this affect the predators?

If a prey species fluctuates a lot, predators can:

• Feed on a different species (but in open ocean, not many species!

Works better in terrestrial systems)
• Migrate elsewhere (in ocean, must cover huge distances)
• Starve (not a great choice... But with enough energy reserves, can
buffer lean periods)

Therefore: many ocean predators are large, long-lived, swim huge

distances, and invest energy more in growth/survival than reproduction
Consider the whales

Whales are an excellent example of these ecological pressures

• Largest animals in the ocean, but most feed on zooplankton (krill

and copepods)
• Feeding on a low trophic level allows whales to use more of the
ocean’s primary productivity
• Many species migrate between feeding grounds at high latitudes
(very productive) and breeding grounds in the tropics (calmer seas,
less productive so fewer predators)
Consider the whales
The California Current Ecosystem is
home to many whale species

Toothed whales are apex predators:

eat fish, squid, mammals

Baleen whales eat zooplankton, small

fish
Whales in the California Current Ecosystem

A study in 2008 calculated how much of the primary production is

eaten by whales:

• Estimated total biomass of each species

• Then calculated food requirement
• Trophic position of each whale species is known
• Rule-of-thumb: 10% energy transfer between trophic levels
• Primary productivity of ecosystem can be measured
Whales in the California Current Ecosystem

Baleen whales Toothed whales

• 2.5x more biomass than toothed • Less biomass than the baleen
whales whales
• Consume 123 mg C / m2 / yr on • Consume 119 mg C / m2 / yr on
average average
• Require ∼1.6% of primary • Require ∼10.3% of primary
production production

Whales eat a lot of the primary production – but the trophic level makes a huge difference
The “Whale Pump”

Scarce nutrients limit production. Will rising whale populations compete

with fish stocks for scarce food??

In fact, most whales

feed below the
surface, but excrete
their waste at the
surface

This actually helps

to recycle scarce
nutrients!
How important is the whale pump?
• In some places, “Whale Pump” may supply more nutrients than inputs
from rivers and the atmosphere

• But in general, very little understanding of how much whales

contribute to plankton productivity and carbon cycling

Scientific & newspaper articles on whales and carbon cycling...

Summary

• Life began early on Earth. Evolution of photosynthesis set the scene

for complex ecosystems with animals
• Ecosystems are characterised by organisms interacting – especially
by eating and being eaten (trophic relationships)
• The food web shows how energy flows through an ecosystem, and
how nutrients are recycled in it. Energy flow is inefficient.
• Ocean ecosystems can have an inverted biomass pyramid, because
lower trophic levels are microscopic and have short life cycles
• Most production in the oceans depends on nutrient recycling
• Production in the oceans varies temporally and spatially, which
affects the higher trophic levels and their biological characteristics