Marine Biomes
Research Paper The ocean is one of, if not, the largest biome on earth. There are more than one million species of marine life. Covering over 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, the ocean is our planet’s largest habitat, containing 99 percent of the living space on the planet. This area holds the life of nearly 50 percent of all species on Earth. Like lakes, oceans are subdivided into separate zones: intertidal, pelagic, abyssal, and benthic. All four zones have a great diversity of species. The intertidal zone is the region along the shoreline between average low tide and average high tide. In other words, this region goes through cycles of submergence and exposure to air. Animals in this zone must be able to survive the extended periods of exposure. The pelagic zone includes all the open ocean water. The abyssal zone is the deep ocean water, between 6,560 and 19,685 feet deep. The benthic ocean includes the deep ocean bottom inhabited by organisms. The intertidal zone is a zone by itself. It is the area that is above water at low tide and under water at high tide. Organisms in the intertidal zone are adapted to an environment of harsh extremes. Water is available regularly with the tides but varies from fresh with rain to highly saline and dry salt with drying between tidal submergence. The intertidal zone has four main zones which are the spray, high tide, middle tide, and low tide zones. The spray zone, also called the upper littoral is uncovered much of the time, but is sprayed with salt water during high tides. It is only flooded during storms and extremely high tides. Organisms in this thin habitat include barnacles, isopods, lichens, lice, limpets, periwinkles, and whelks. The high tide zone, also called the upper mid-littoral zone and high intertidal zone is flooded only during high tide. Organisms in this area include anemones, barnacles, brittle stars, chitins, crabs, green algae, isopods, limpets, mussels, sea stars, snails, and whelks. The middle
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