Study Guide for exam on lectures at KSU
Basic Ecosystem Ecology
What is the difference between primary production and primary productivity? Describe ways that each can be estimated for phytoplankton communities. How can rates of primary productivity be high in a system where primary production is low? Name two general metabolic processes used by primary producers to produce organic carbon.
How does the movement of matter in ecosystems differ from the movement of energy in ecosystems?
Planktonic processes
What is meant by the “limiting nutrient”, and what specific element can be limiting in marine systems? Why are phytoplankton often less productive and smaller-bodied in the summer?
Why does much of the consumer biomass (zooplankton) move upward (migrate vertically) to shallower depths during the night and downward during the day?
What can acoustic Doppler current profilers measure?
Name two ways different types of copepods feed.
Name ways in which bacteria in marine systems acquire energy in marine systems. Through what group of organism does this energy passed through to higher trophic levels. What is the role of viruses in an oceanic food web? In otherwords, be able to draw and explain a generalized food web for open water ecosystems that includes heterotrophic bacteria.
Benthic processes
What general categories of organisms (based on size and energy acquisition) exist in soft sediments (i.e. macro-invertebrates, benthic microalgae…)?
Describe the vertical distribution of oxygen (O2) from the sediment surface downward, and explain what brought about this pattern in oxygen.
What factors determine the rate exchange of pore water (the water held in the interstitial spaces between sediment particles) with the overlying water?
Draw and explain the nitrogen cycle. What is the benefit to the bacteria the oxidize ammonia, reduce nitrate/nitrite, nitrify inorganic nitrogen, and fix N2?
Name to general sources of organic matter and nutrients for benthic communities on the shelf. Which are more productive, estuaries or the coastal waters on the self. Why?
Geomorphology of the Georgia coast
What is the continental shelf and how is it formed? What are estuaries and how can they be formed?
Physical Process of Water Columns
How and why does light change with depth?
Why do dissolved oxygen and pH tend to be higher nearer the surface? Why does carbon dioxide tend to be low nearer the surface?
What is the salinity of ocean water. Why can salinity be estimated from chlorinity? How is it measured more easily in situ?
What three factors affect the density of seawater and why is it important to determine density when study marine systems?
§ What causes the ocean to be divided vertically into 3 zones (surface mixed layer, pycnocline, and deep zone)?
§ What factors are measured to determine horizontal pressure gradients
Be able to distinguish between thermohaline circulation and geostrophic currents?
Explain three factors that lead to the formation of gyres (i.e.. three “forces” that contribute to geostrophic currents).
Why does wind blowing parallel to the coastline produce upwellings or downwellings.
Waves and Tides
How are currents and waves different in terms of water movement? How do wind-generated waves form and what factors determine their growth?
How deep does wave motion go relative to wavelength? What can happen as two different wave trains with different wave lengths meet?
Explain how the motion of the moon, sun, and Earth lead to the patterns of changes in tidal height over 24 hours 50 minutes, and over 28 days.
Be able to explain three additional factors that influence and complicate these patterns of tidal change.
Define:
§ heterotroph
§ photo-autotroph
§ chemo-autotroph
§ PAR
§ DOM, DOC, DON
§ SAB
§ fluorescence
§ nauplii and copepodites
§ detrital (microbial) loop
§ phytoplankton
§ zooplankton
§ demersal zooplankton
§ benthos
§ bioturbation
§ bioirrigation
§ deposit feeder
§ suspension feeder
§ meiofauna
§ photic zone/ compensation depth
§ Coriolis effect
§ ekman transport
§ warm-core eddies
§ internal waves