Chapter 25: The Deep Sea
This zone, starting at 1,000 meters, is also called the "midnight zone."
What is the aphotic zone?
What is the disphotic zone (mesopelagic)?
Example: "A" means "no," and "photic" means "light." So, no light = aphotic.
These are the two types of hydrothermal vents distinguished by water temperature and mineral composition. What is the name of each type?
What are black smokers and white smokers?
3x points if you can tell me each element
Black - sulfide-rich water due to high temperatures.
White - rich in calcium, barium, and silicon.
This zone lies between the highest high tides and the lowest low tides.
What is the intertidal zone?
Example: It’s the area of the beach that’s sometimes underwater and sometimes dry.
This pesticide, discovered by Paul Müller, was banned in the U.S. in 1972 for its environmental effects.
What is DDT?
Example: It killed insects but also harmed bird eggs, making them too thin to survive.
This practice involves capturing non-target species during fishing.
What is bycatch?
Example: Turtles or dolphins caught in shrimp trawls are examples of bycatch.
These light-producing organs are found in deep-sea organisms and are often used for camouflage or attracting prey.
What are photophores?
Example: "Photo" means light, and "phore" means to carry—light carriers!
This organ in Riftia stores symbiotic bacteria that facilitate chemosynthesis.
What is the trophosome?
This tidal schedule has one high and one low tide in a 24-hour period.
What is a diurnal tide?
Example: Think of a clock ticking 24 hours for just two tides.
This term refers to harmful substances, like mercury, accumulating in the food chain.
What is bioaccumulation?
Example: Like a sponge soaking up toxins, organisms store them in their tissues.
This concept involves harvesting the maximum number of fish annually without depleting stocks.
What is maximum sustainable yield (MSY)?
Example: Like cutting just enough wood from a forest so it can regrow.
This daily migration involves organisms traveling between shallow and deep ocean layers.
What is vertical migration?
Example: Like a yo-yo going up and down daily to find food or avoid predators.
This term describes the precipitation of minerals when vent water meets cold seawater.
What is chimney formation?
Like minerals solidifying in pipes, vents build tall chimneys over time.
This term refers to the exposure of intertidal organisms to air during low tide.
What is emersion?
Example: Think of a mussel drying out on the rocks when the tide goes out.
This warning sign in Los Angeles advised against eating fish contaminated with DDT.
What is the White Croaker advisory?
Example: Signs warned fishers not to eat white croaker near DDT dumpsites
This term refers to the portion of a species available for harvest in a given area.
What is a stock?
Example: Salmon stocks in one river may be separate from nearby populations.
This structure in some fish allows upward and forward vision simultaneously.
What are tubular eyes?
Example: Think of them like binoculars
This worm species thrives at vents, growing rapidly within chitinous tubes.
What is Riftia pachyptila?
Example: They’re like skyscrapers of the vent world, growing up to 2 meters tall.
These tides occur when the Moon and Sun are at right angles, creating minimal tidal ranges.
What are neap tides?
Example: Neap tides happen during quarter moons.
x2 if you can tell me the other type of tide and the phase of the moon
Example: Spring tides happen during full and new moons.
This process results from chemicals like DDT weakening bird eggshells, causing population declines.
What is calcium transport inhibition?
Example: Birds like brown pelicans struggled to hatch chicks due to fragile eggs.
This term describes fishing gear that continues to trap animals after being lost.
What is ghost fishing?
Example: Old nets drifting in the ocean still catch fish and crabs.
This type of bioluminescence is derived from bacteria in a mutualistic relationship with their host.
What is bacteriogenic bioluminescence?
This term refers to organisms found only in vent ecosystems and nowhere else.
What is endemism?
Example: Many vent species, like Riftia worms, can’t live anywhere else.
This ecological process describes the gradual replacement of communities over time.
What is ecological succession?
Example: First bacteria, then algae, then barnacles—each prepares the environment for the next.
What are the sources for heavy metals and mercury pollution?
antifouling paints, plastic and chlorine production, industry discharge,
coal burning
This effect describes the inability of organisms to find mates at low population densities.
What is the Allee effect?
Example: Like being too far apart in the ocean to reproduce, as seen with abalone.