Characteristics
Freshwaters
Wetlands
Coastal Zones
Open Ocean
100
The two types of aquatic ecosystems.
What are freshwater and marine (saltwater) ecosystems?
100
Where rivers end and meet large bodies of water. The water here is often a mixture of fresh and saltwater, called ________.
Where is the mouth of the river? What is brackish?
100
The two different types of wetlands.
What are inland and coastal wetlands?
100
The zone along the shore between the highest high-tide line and the lowest low-tide line.
What is the intertidal zone?
100
The ocean zone extending down to about 200 meters. Sunlight penetrates this zone and allows photosynthesis to occur.
What is the photic zone (surface zone)?
200
Four abiotic factors that determine which organisms can survive in an ecosystem.
What are sunlight, salinity, temperature, dissolved oxygen levels? (nutrients, turbidity)
200
Freshwater ecosystems that contain standing water.
What are lentic systems?
200
Two types of inland wetlands. Both are non-permanent bodies of water and have diverse plant life. Only one has trees.
What are marshes and swamps?
200
The force that causes tides to rise and fall about every six hours.
What is the moon's gravitational pull?
200
A trait of animals that can produce and emit light.
What is bioluminescence?
300
Two types of plankton.
What are phytoplankton and zooplankton?
300
The zone within a lake near the shore, and containing high biological diversity due to the presence of photosynthetic plants and algae.
What is the littoral zone?
300
Man-made features that allow ships to move through wetlands and pipelines to carry oil, but also contribute to the erosion of the coastline.
What are canals?
300
Floating algae that produce half the Earth's oxygen.
What are phytoplankton?
300
The bottom of the food chain in most of the open ocean.
What is phytoplankton?
400
Organisms living on the floor of a body of water, such as lobster, sea stars, and mussels.
What are bottom-dwellers?
400
Lakes with high concentrations of nutrients, often leading to high populations of algae and plankton.
What are eutrophic lakes?
400
Partially enclosed bodies of water where seawater mixes with freshwater. Lake Pontchartrain is technically one of these.
What are estuaries?
400
Structures created by the exoskeletons of small animals that live in warmer waters.
What are coral reefs?
400
The source of food for most organisms dwelling in the benthic zone.
What are dead organisms?
500
Two examples of nekton
What are whales, turtles, etc (anything free-swimming)?
500
The zones along a river, beginning where they are created; moving to where they become wider, deeper, and warmer, and ending where they occasionally flood and deposit material from upstream.
What are the source zone, the transition zone, and the floodplain zone?
500
Three important functions of wetlands.
What are biodiversity, helping to control flooding, and filtering pollutants?
500
The region of shallow water inside the continental shelf. Sunlight penetrates the water allowing photosynthesis to occur.
What is the neritic zone?
500
A major limiting factor for animals living in the open ocean.
What are nutrients?
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