Marine life, which is also known as sea life or ocean life, refers to all the marine organisms that live in salt water habitats, or ecological communities that encompass all aquatic animals, plants, algae, fungi, protists, single-celled microorganisms and associated viruses living in the saline water of marine habitats, either the sea water of marginal seas and oceans, or the brackish water of coastal wetlands, lagoons, estuaries and inland seas. As of 2023, more than 242,000 marine species have been documented, and perhaps two million marine species are yet to be documented. On average, researches describe about 2,300 new marine species each year. The study of marine life spans into multiple fields, which is primarily marine biology, as well as biological oceanography.
Today, marine species range in size from the microscopic phytoplankton, which can be as small as 0.02–micrometers; to huge cetaceans like the blue whale, which can reach 33 m (108 ft) in length. Marine microorganisms have been variously estimated as constituting about 70% or about 90% of the total marine biomass. Marine primary producers, mainly cyanobacteria and chloroplastic algae, produce oxygen and sequester carbon via photosynthesis, which generate enormous biomass and significantly influence the atmospheric chemistry. Migratory species, such as oceanodromous and anadromous fish, also create biomass and biological energy transfer between different regions of Earth, with many serving as keystone species of various ecosystems. At a fundamental level, marine life affects the nature of the planet, and in part, shape and protect shorelines, and some marine organisms (e.g. corals) even help create new land via accumulated reef-building. (Full article...)
Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms that inhabit the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather than on taxonomy. (Full article...)
Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.
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Image 1Jellyfish, also known as sea jellies or simply jellies, are the medusa-phase of certain gelatinous members of the subphylum Medusozoa, which is a major part of the phylum Cnidaria. Jellyfish are mainly free-swimming marine animals, although a few are anchored to the seabed by stalks rather than being motile. They are made of an umbrella-shaped main body made of mesoglea, known as the bell, and a collection of trailing tentacles on the underside. Via pulsating contractions, the bell can provide propulsion for locomotion through open water. The tentacles are armed with stinging cells and may be used to capture prey or to defend against predators. Jellyfish have a complex life cycle, and the medusa is normally the sexual phase, which produces planula larvae. These then disperse widely and enter a sedentary polyp phase which may include asexual budding before reaching sexual maturity. ( Full article...)
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Image 2The Sipuncula or Sipunculida (common names sipunculid worms or peanut worms) is a class containing about 162 species of marine annelid worms, that have secondarily lost their segmentation. Sipuncula was once considered a phylum of unsegmented worms, but was demoted to a class of Annelida, based on recent molecular work. Sipunculans vary in size but most species are under 10 cm (4 in) in length. The body is divided into an unsegmented, bulbous trunk and a narrower, anterior section, called the "introvert", which can be retracted into the trunk. The mouth is at the tip of the introvert and is surrounded in most groups by a ring of short tentacles. With no hard parts, the body is flexible and mobile. Although found in a range of habitats throughout the world's oceans, the majority of species live in shallow water habitats, burrowing under the surface of sandy and muddy substrates. Others live under stones, in rock crevices or in other concealed locations. ( Full article...)
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Image 3A squid ( pl. squid) is a mollusc with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight arms, and two tentacles in the orders Myopsida, Oegopsida, and Bathyteuthida (though many other molluscs within the broader Neocoleoidea are also called squid despite not strictly fitting these criteria). Like all other cephalopods, squid have a distinct head, bilateral symmetry, and a mantle. They are mainly soft-bodied, like octopuses, but have a small internal skeleton in the form of a rod-like gladius or pen, made of chitin. Squid diverged from other cephalopods during the Jurassic and radiated at the beginning of the Late Cretaceous, and occupy a similar role to teleost fish as open-water predators of similar size and behaviour. They play an important role in the open-water food web. The two long tentacles are used to grab prey and the eight arms to hold and control it. The beak then cuts the food into suitable size chunks for swallowing. Squid are rapid swimmers, moving by jet propulsion, and largely locate their prey by sight. They are among the most intelligent of invertebrates, with groups of Humboldt squid having been observed hunting cooperatively. They are preyed on by sharks, other fish, sea birds, seals and cetaceans, particularly sperm whales. ( Full article...)
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Four examples of cnidaria ( clockwise, from top left): ( nih-DAIR-ee-ə, ny-) is a phylum in kingdom Animalia containing over 11,000 species of aquatic invertebrates found both in freshwater and marine environments (predominantly the latter), including jellyfish, hydroids, sea anemones, corals and some of the smallest marine parasites. Their distinguishing features are an uncentralized nervous system distributed throughout a gelatinous body and the presence of cnidocytes or cnidoblasts, specialized cells with ejectable organelles used mainly for envenomation and capturing prey. Their bodies consist of mesoglea, a non-living, jelly-like substance, sandwiched between two layers of epithelium that are mostly one cell thick. Many cnidarian species can reproduce both sexually and asexually. Cnidarians mostly have two basic body forms: swimming medusae and sessile polyps, both of which are radially symmetrical with mouths surrounded by tentacles that bear cnidocytes, which are specialized stinging cells used to capture prey. Both forms have a single orifice and body cavity that are used for digestion and respiration. Many cnidarian species produce colonies that are single organisms composed of medusa-like or polyp-like zooids, or both (hence they are trimorphic). Cnidarians' activities are coordinated by a decentralized nerve net and simple receptors. Cnidarians also have rhopalia, which are involved in gravity sensing and sometimes chemoreception. Several free-swimming species of Cubozoa and Scyphozoa possess balance-sensing statocysts, and some have simple eyes. Not all cnidarians reproduce sexually, but many species have complex life cycles of asexual polyp stages and sexual medusae stages. Some, however, omit either the polyp or the medusa stage, and the parasitic classes evolved to have neither form. ( Full article...)
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Image 5Anthozoa is one of the three subphyla of Cnidaria, along with Medusozoa and Endocnidozoa. It includes sessile marine invertebrates and invertebrates of brackish water, such as sea anemones, stony corals, soft corals and sea pens. Almost all adult anthozoans are attached to the seabed, while their larvae exist as zooplankton. The basic unit of the adult is the polyp, an individual animal consisting of a cylindrical column topped by a disc with a central mouth surrounded by tentacles. Sea anemones are mostly solitary, but the majority of corals are colonial, being formed by the budding of new polyps from an original, founding individual. Colonies of stony corals are strengthened by mainly aragonite and other materials, and can take various massive, plate-like, bushy or leafy forms. Members of Anthozoa possess cnidocytes, a feature shared among other cnidarians such as the jellyfish, box jellies and parasitic Myxozoa and Polypodiozoa. The two classes of Anthozoa are class Hexacorallia, with members that have six-fold symmetry such as stony corals, sea anemones, tube anemones and zoanthids, and class Octocorallia, with members that have eight-fold symmetry, such as soft corals, gorgonians ( sea pens, sea fans and sea whips), and sea pansies. Some additional species are also included as incertae sedis until their exact taxonomic position can be ascertained. ( Full article...)
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Image 6Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and porpoises. Dolphins and porpoises may be considered whales from a formal, cladistic perspective. Whales, dolphins and porpoises belong to the order Cetartiodactyla, which consists of even-toed ungulates. Their closest non-cetacean living relatives are the hippopotamuses, from which they and other cetaceans diverged about 54 million years ago. The two parvorders of whales, baleen whales (Mysticeti) and toothed whales (Odontoceti), are thought to have had their last common ancestor around 34 million years ago. Mysticetes include four extant (living) families: Balaenopteridae (the rorquals), Balaenidae (right whales), Cetotheriidae (the pygmy right whale), and Eschrichtiidae (the grey whale). Odontocetes include the Monodontidae (belugas and narwhals), Physeteridae (the sperm whale), Kogiidae (the dwarf and pygmy sperm whale), and Ziphiidae (the beaked whales), as well as the six families of dolphins and porpoises which are not considered whales in the informal sense. Whales are fully aquatic, open-ocean animals: they can feed, mate, give birth, suckle and raise their young at sea. Whales range in size from the 2.6 metres (8.5 ft) and 135 kilograms (298 lb) dwarf sperm whale to the 29.9 metres (98 ft) and 190 tonnes (210 short tons) blue whale, which is the largest known animal that has ever lived. The sperm whale is the largest toothed predator on Earth. Several whale species exhibit sexual dimorphism, in that the females are larger than males. ( Full article...)
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Image 7Steller's sea ape is a purported marine mammal, observed by German zoologist Georg Steller on August 10, 1741, around the Shumagin Islands in Alaska. The animal was described as being around 1.5 m (5 feet) long; with a dog-like head; long drooping whiskers; an elongated but robust body; thick fur coat; no limbs; and tail fins much like a shark. He described the creature as being playful and inquisitive like a monkey. After observing it for two hours, he attempted to shoot and collect the creature, but missed, and the creature swam away. There have been four attempts to scientifically classify the creature, described as Simia marina, Siren cynocephala, Trichechus hydropithecus, and Manatus simia. Most likely, Steller simply misidentified a northern fur seal. ( Full article...)
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Chrysomallon squamiferum from Longqi. Scale bar is 1 cm , commonly known as the scaly-foot gastropod, scaly-foot snail, sea pangolin, or volcano snail, is a species of deep-sea hydrothermal-vent snail, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Peltospiridae. This vent-endemic gastropod is known only from deep-sea hydrothermal vents in the Indian Ocean, where it has been found at depths of about 2,400–2,900 m (1.5–1.8 mi). C. squamiferum differs greatly from other deep-sea gastropods, even the closely related neomphalines. In 2019, it was declared endangered on the IUCN Red List, the first species to be listed as such due to risks from deep-sea mining of its vent habitat. The shell is of a unique construction, with three layers; the outer layer consists of iron sulphides, the middle layer is equivalent to the organic periostracum found in other gastropods, and the innermost layer is made of aragonite. The foot is also unusual, being armored at the sides with iron-mineralised sclerites. ( Full article...)
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Image 10Bathyphysa conifera, sometimes called the flying spaghetti monster, is a bathypelagic species of siphonophore in the family Rhizophysidae. It is found in the northern Atlantic Ocean and off the coast of Southwestern Africa and California. Its common name comes from a satirical deity of the same name after its apparent resemblance. It is a colonial species, having multiple zooids that together comprise a single unit. Each zooid has a specialized function; some help with feeding, some with swimming, reproduction, etc. Including its tentacles, it can reach several meters long. Their tentacles are lined with several nematocysts that provide a sting that defends against predators and helps hunt its prey. It is a carnivore, and, like other siphonophores, eats small crustaceans and even small fish. ( Full article...)
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Marine vertebrates are vertebrates that live in marine environments, which include saltwater fish (including pelagic, coral and deep sea fish) and marine tetrapods (primarily marine mammals and marine reptiles, as well as semiaquatic clades such as seabirds). As a subphylum of chordates, all vertebrates have evolved a vertebral column (backbone) based around the embryonic notochord (which becomes the intervertebral discs), forming the core structural support of an internal skeleton, and also serves to enclose and protect the spinal cord.
Compared to other marine animals, marine vertebrates are distinctly more nektonic, and their aquatic locomotions rely mainly on propulsion by the tail and paired appendages such as fins, flippers and webbed limbs. Marine vertebrates also have a far more centralized nervous system than marine invertebrates, with most of the higher functions cephalized and monopolized by the brain; and most of them have evolved myelinated central and peripheral nerve system, which increases conduction speeds significantly. The combination of endoskeleton (which allows much larger body sizes for the same skeletal mass) and a more robust and efficient nervous system (which enables more acute perception and more sophisticated motor control) gives vertebrates much quicker body reactivity and behavioral adaptability, which have led to marine vertebrates dominating most of the higher-level niches in the marine ecosystems. (Full article...)
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Image 1Ocean surface chlorophyll concentrations in October 2019. The concentration of chlorophyll can be used as a proxy to indicate how many phytoplankton are present. Thus on this global map green indicates where a lot of phytoplankton are present, while blue indicates where few phytoplankton are present. – NASA Earth Observatory 2019. (from Marine food web)
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Image 2A 2016 metagenomic representation of the tree of life using ribosomal protein sequences. The tree includes 92 named bacterial phyla, 26 archaeal phyla and five eukaryotic supergroups. Major lineages are assigned arbitrary colours and named in italics with well-characterized lineage names. Lineages lacking an isolated representative are highlighted with non-italicized names and red dots. (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 3Marine protected areas are one area of legislation that helps marine ecosystems to thrive. (from Marine conservation)
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Image 4Dinoflagellate (from Marine food web)
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Image 5Diagram of a mycoloop (fungus loop) Parasitic chytrids can transfer material from large inedible phytoplankton to zooplankton. Chytrids zoospores are excellent food for zooplankton in terms of size (2–5 μm in diameter), shape, nutritional quality (rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids and cholesterols). Large colonies of host phytoplankton may also be fragmented by chytrid infections and become edible to zooplankton. (from Marine fungi)
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Image 6Scale diagram of the layers of the pelagic zone (from Marine habitat)
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Image 7Archaea were initially viewed as extremophiles living in harsh environments, such as the yellow archaea pictured here in a hot spring, but they have since been found in a much broader range of habitats. (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 9Driftwood (from Marine fungi)
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Image 10 Kimberella, an early mollusc important for understanding the Cambrian explosion. Invertebrates are grouped into different phyla ( body plans). (from Marine invertebrates)
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Image 11 Dickinsonia may be the earliest animal. They appear in the fossil record 571 million to 541 million years ago. (from Marine invertebrates)
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Image 12Classic food web for grey seals in the Baltic Sea containing several typical marine food chains (from Marine food web)
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Image 13Phylogenetic and symbiogenetic tree of living organisms, showing a view of the origins of eukaryotes and prokaryotes (from Marine fungi)
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Image 14Schematic representation of the changes in abundance between trophic groups in a temperate rocky reef ecosystem. (a) Interactions at equilibrium. (b) Trophic cascade following disturbance. In this case, the otter is the dominant predator and the macroalgae are kelp. Arrows with positive (green, +) signs indicate positive effects on abundance while those with negative (red, -) indicate negative effects on abundance. The size of the bubbles represents the change in population abundance and associated altered interaction strength following disturbance. (from Marine food web)
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Image 15Cycling of marine phytoplankton. Phytoplankton live in the photic zone of the ocean, where photosynthesis is possible. During photosynthesis, they assimilate carbon dioxide and release oxygen. If solar radiation is too high, phytoplankton may fall victim to photodegradation. For growth, phytoplankton cells depend on nutrients, which enter the ocean by rivers, continental weathering, and glacial ice meltwater on the poles. Phytoplankton release dissolved organic carbon (DOC) into the ocean. Since phytoplankton are the basis of marine food webs, they serve as prey for zooplankton, fish larvae and other heterotrophic organisms. They can also be degraded by bacteria or by viral lysis. Although some phytoplankton cells, such as dinoflagellates, are able to migrate vertically, they are still incapable of actively moving against currents, so they slowly sink and ultimately fertilize the seafloor with dead cells and detritus. (from Marine food web)
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Image 16Cryptic interactions in the marine food web. Red: mixotrophy; green: ontogenetic and species differences; purple: microbial cross‐feeding; orange: auxotrophy; blue: cellular carbon partitioning. (from Marine food web)
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Image 18Diagram above contains clickable links
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Image 19Phytoplankton (from Marine food web)
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Image 20A food web is network of food chains, and as such can be represented graphically and analysed using techniques from network theory. (from Marine food web)
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Image 21Only 29 percent of the world surface is land. The rest is ocean, home to the marine habitats. The oceans are nearly four kilometres deep on average and are fringed with coastlines that run for nearly 380,000 kilometres.
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Image 22The Ocean Cleanup is one of many organizations working toward marine conservation such at this interceptor vessel that prevents plastic from entering the ocean. (from Marine conservation)
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Image 23Marine Species Changes in Latitude and Depth in three different ocean regions(1973–2019) (from Marine food web)
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Image 24The 49th plate from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, 1904, showing various sea anemones classified as Actiniae, in the Cnidaria phylum (from Marine invertebrates)
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Image 25Mycoloop links between phytoplankton and zooplankton Chytrid‐mediated trophic links between phytoplankton and zooplankton (mycoloop). While small phytoplankton species can be grazed upon by zooplankton, large phytoplankton species constitute poorly edible or even inedible prey. Chytrid infections on large phytoplankton can induce changes in palatability, as a result of host aggregation (reduced edibility) or mechanistic fragmentation of cells or filaments (increased palatability). First, chytrid parasites extract and repack nutrients and energy from their hosts in form of readily edible zoospores. Second, infected and fragmented hosts including attached sporangia can also be ingested by grazers (i.e. concomitant predation). (from Marine fungi)
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Image 26Mature forests have a lot of biomass invested in secondary growth which has low productivity (from Marine food web)
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Image 27A protected sea turtle area that warns of fines and imprisonment on a beach in Miami, Florida. (from Marine conservation)
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Image 28Diatoms (from Marine food web)
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Image 30Tidepools on rocky shores make turbulent habitats for many forms of marine life (from Marine habitat)
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Image 31Halfbeak as larvae are one of the organisms adapted to the unique properties of the microlayer (from Marine habitat)
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Image 32This algae bloom occupies sunlit epipelagic waters off the southern coast of England. The algae are maybe feeding on nutrients from land runoff or upwellings at the edge of the continental shelf. (from Marine habitat)
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Image 33Two Nanoarchaeum equitans cells with its larger host Ignicoccus (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 34Some lobe-finned fishes, like the extinct Tiktaalik, developed limb-like fins that could take them onto land (from Marine vertebrate)
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Image 35Jellyfish are easy to capture and digest and may be more important as food sources than was previously thought. (from Marine food web)
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Image 36Eukaryote versus prokaryote (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 37Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) being prevented by a Japanese fisheries patrol. (from Marine conservation)
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Image 38Starfish larvae are bilaterally symmetric, whereas the adults have fivefold symmetry (from Marine invertebrates)
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Image 39Cnidarians are the simplest animals with cells organised into tissues. Yet the starlet sea anemone contains the same genes as those that form the vertebrate head. (from Marine invertebrates)
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Image 40Biomass pyramids. Compared to terrestrial biomass pyramids, aquatic pyramids are generally inverted at the base. (from Marine food web)
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Image 41Ocean Conservation Namibia rescuing a seal that was entangled in discarded fishing nets. (from Marine conservation)
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Image 42Lichen covered rocks (from Marine fungi)
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Image 43Some representative ocean animal life (not drawn to scale) within their approximate depth-defined ecological habitats. Marine microorganisms exist on the surfaces and within the tissues and organs of the diverse life inhabiting the ocean, across all ocean habitats. (from Marine habitat)
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Image 45A microbial mat encrusted with iron oxide on the flank of a seamount can harbour microbial communities dominated by the iron-oxidizing Zetaproteobacteria (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 46Role of fungi in ocean carbon sequestration This representation includes the traditionally neglected pelagic fungi, both parasitic and saprotrophic, highlighting the central role played by them, parasitic fungi in the mycoloop, and saprotrophic fungi as active contributors to the microbial loop. As depicted by this diagram, the activity of heterotrophic microbes, including pelagic fungi, has far-reaching global implications for fisheries (i.e., the amount of carbon that will ultimately flow to higher trophic levels) and climate change (i.e., the amount of carbon that will be sequestered in the ocean or respired back to CO 2 and the release of other greenhouse gases; e.g., N 2O). (from Marine fungi)
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Image 47Topological positions versus mobility: (A) bottom-up groups (sessile and drifters), (B) groups at the top of the food web. Phyto, phytoplankton; MacroAlga, macroalgae; Proto, pelagic protozoa; Crus, Crustacea; PelBact, pelagic bacteria; Echino, Echinoderms; Amph, Amphipods; HerbFish, herbivorous fish; Zoopl, zooplankton; SuspFeed, suspension feeders; Polych, polychaetes; Mugil, Mugilidae; Gastropod, gastropods; Blenny, omnivorous blennies; Decapod, decapods; Dpunt, Diplodus puntazzo; Macropl, macroplankton; PlFish, planktivorous fish; Cephalopod, cephalopods; Mcarni, macrocarnivorous fish; Pisc, piscivorous fish; Bird, seabirds; InvFeed1 through InvFeed4, benthic invertebrate feeders. (from Marine food web)
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Image 48Model of the energy generating mechanism in marine bacteria (1) When sunlight strikes a rhodopsin molecule (2) it changes its configuration so a proton is expelled from the cell (3) the chemical potential causes the proton to flow back to the cell (4) thus generating energy (5) in the form of adenosine triphosphate. (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 49Lampreys are often parasitic and have a toothed, funnel-like sucking mouth (from Marine vertebrate)
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Image 50Phylogenetic tree representing bacterial OTUs from clone libraries and next-generation sequencing. OTUs from next-generation sequencing are displayed if the OTU contained more than two sequences in the unrarefied OTU table (3626 OTUs). (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 51640 μm microplastic found in the deep sea amphipod Eurythenes plasticus (from Marine habitat)
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Image 53Sea ice food web and the microbial loop. AAnP = aerobic anaerobic phototroph, DOC = dissolved organic carbon, DOM = dissolved organic matter, POC = particulate organic carbon, PR = proteorhodopsins. (from Marine food web)
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Image 54 Bloom of the filamentous cyanobacteria Trichodesmium (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 55Estuaries occur when rivers flow into a coastal bay or inlet. They are nutrient rich and have a transition zone which moves from freshwater to saltwater. (from Marine habitat)
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Image 56Microplastics found in sediments on the seafloor (from Marine habitat)
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Image 57Pelagibacter ubique of the SAR11 clade is the most abundant bacteria in the ocean and plays a major role in the global carbon cycle. (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 58The range of sizes shown by prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) and viruses relative to those of other organisms and biomolecules (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 59On average there are more than one million microbial cells in every drop of seawater, and their collective metabolisms not only recycle nutrients that can then be used by larger organisms but also catalyze key chemical transformations that maintain Earth's habitability. (from Marine food web)
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Image 60Sea spray containing marine microorganisms, including prokaryotes, can be swept high into the atmosphere where they become aeroplankton, and can travel the globe before falling back to earth. (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 61The European eel being critically endangered impacts other animals such as this Grey Heron that also eats eels. (from Marine conservation)
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Image 62Oceanic pelagic food web showing energy flow from micronekton to top predators. Line thickness is scaled to the proportion in the diet. (from Marine food web)
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Image 63Hagfish are the only known living animals with a skull but no vertebral column. (from Marine vertebrate)
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Image 65Ocean particulate organic matter (POM) as imaged by a satellite in 2011 (from Marine food web)
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Image 67Ocean or marine biomass, in a reversal of terrestrial biomass, can increase at higher trophic levels. (from Marine food web)
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Image 68Conceptual diagram of faunal community structure and food-web patterns along fluid-flux gradients within Guaymas seep and vent ecosystems. (from Marine food web)
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Image 69The umbrella mouth gulper eel can swallow a fish much larger than itself (from Marine habitat)
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Image 70Technology such as this turtle excluder device (TED) allows this loggerhead sea turtle to escape. (from Marine conservation)
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Image 71The oligotrich ciliate has been characterised as the most important herbivore in the ocean (from Marine food web)
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Image 72Chytrid parasites of marine diatoms. (A) Chytrid sporangia on Pleurosigma sp. The white arrow indicates the operculate discharge pore. (B) Rhizoids (white arrow) extending into diatom host. (C) Chlorophyll aggregates localized to infection sites (white arrows). (D and E) Single hosts bearing multiple zoosporangia at different stages of development. The white arrow in panel E highlights branching rhizoids. (F) Endobiotic chytrid-like sporangia within diatom frustule. Bars = 10 μm. (from Marine fungi)
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Image 73In the open ocean, sunlit surface epipelagic waters get enough light for photosynthesis, but there are often not enough nutrients. As a result, large areas contain little life apart from migrating animals. (from Marine habitat)
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Image 74Oil spills have a significant impact on the marine environment such as this image from space of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. (from Marine conservation)
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Image 76NOAA scuba diver surveying bleached corals. (from Marine conservation)
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Image 77Waves and currents shape the intertidal shoreline, eroding the softer rocks and transporting and grading loose particles into shingles, sand or mud (from Marine habitat)
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Image 78Mudflats become temporary habitats for migrating birds (from Marine habitat)
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Image 79Salmon with fungal disease (from Marine fungi)
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Image 81Prochlorococcus, an influential bacterium which produces much of the world's oxygen (from Marine food web)
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Image 82Common-enemy graph of Antarctic food web. Potter Cove 2018. Nodes represent basal species and links indirect interactions (shared predators). Node and link widths are proportional to number of shared predators. Node colors represent functional groups. (from Marine food web)
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Image 83Whales were close to extinction until legislation was put in place. (from Marine conservation)
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Image 84The pelagic food web, showing the central involvement of marine microorganisms in how the ocean imports nutrients from and then exports them back to the atmosphere and ocean floor (from Marine food web)
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Image 85Conference events, such as the events hosted by the United Nations, help to bring together many stakeholders for awareness and action. (from Marine conservation)
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Image 86The deep sea amphipod Eurythenes plasticus, named after microplastics found in its body, demonstrating plastic pollution affects marine habitats even 6000m below sea level. (from Marine habitat)
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Image 87An in situ perspective of a deep pelagic food web derived from ROV-based observations of feeding, as represented by 20 broad taxonomic groupings. The linkages between predator to prey are coloured according to predator group origin, and loops indicate within-group feeding. The thickness of the lines or edges connecting food web components is scaled to the log of the number of unique ROV feeding observations across the years 1991–2016 between the two groups of animals. The different groups have eight colour-coded types according to main animal types as indicated by the legend and defined here: red, cephalopods; orange, crustaceans; light green, fish; dark green, medusa; purple, siphonophores; blue, ctenophores and grey, all other animals. In this plot, the vertical axis does not correspond to trophic level, because this metric is not readily estimated for all members. (from Marine food web)
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Image 88 The global continental shelf, highlighted in light green, defines the extent of marine coastal habitats, and occupies 5% of the total world area (from Marine habitat)
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Image 89Sponges have no nervous, digestive or circulatory system (from Marine invertebrates)
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Image 90The distribution of anthropogenic stressors faced by marine species threatened with extinction in various marine regions of the world. Numbers in the pie charts indicate the percentage contribution of an anthropogenic stressors' impact in a specific marine region. (from Marine food web)
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Image 91Phylogenetic and symbiogenetic tree of living organisms, showing a view of the origins of eukaryotes and prokaryotes (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 92Ernst Haeckel's 96th plate, showing some marine invertebrates. Marine invertebrates have a large variety of body plans, which are currently categorised into over 30 phyla. (from Marine invertebrates)
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Image 93Reconstruction of an ammonite, a highly successful early cephalopod that first appeared in the Devonian (about 400 mya). They became extinct during the same extinction event that killed the land dinosaurs (about 66 mya). (from Marine invertebrates)
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Image 94Land runoff, pouring into the sea, can contain nutrients (from Marine habitat)
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Image 95Elevation-area graph showing the proportion of land area at given heights and the proportion of ocean area at given depths (from Marine habitat)
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Image 96Coral reefs provide marine habitats for tube sponges, which in turn become marine habitats for fishes (from Marine habitat)
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Image 97Morphological diversity of fungi collected from a marine sponge species, Ircinia variabilis (from Marine fungi)
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Image 98"A variety of marine worms": plate from Das Meer by M.J. Schleiden (1804–1881) (from Marine invertebrates)
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Image 99Reconstruction of Otavia antiqua, possibly the first animal about 760 million years ago (from Marine invertebrates)
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Image 100Bacterioplankton and the pelagic marine food web Solar radiation can have positive (+) or negative (−) effects resulting in increases or decreases in the heterotrophic activity of bacterioplankton. (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 101Anthropogenic stressors to marine species threatened with extinction (from Marine food web)
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Image 102Arrow worms are predatory components of plankton worldwide. (from Marine invertebrates)
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Image 103Antarctic marine food web. Potter Cove 2018. Vertical position indicates trophic level and node widths are proportional to total degree (in and out). Node colors represent functional groups. (from Marine food web)
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Image 105Roles of fungi in the marine carbon cycle Roles of fungi in the marine carbon cycle by processing phytoplankton-derived organic matter. Parasitic fungi, as well as saprotrophic fungi, directly assimilate phytoplankton organic carbon. By releasing zoospores, the fungi bridge the trophic linkage to zooplankton, known as the mycoloop. By modifying the particulate and dissolved organic carbon, they can affect bacteria and the microbial loop. These processes may modify marine snow chemical composition and the subsequent functioning of the biological carbon pump. (from Marine fungi)
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Image 106Food web structure in the euphotic zone. The linear food chain large phytoplankton-herbivore-predator (on the left with red arrow connections) has fewer levels than one with small phytoplankton at the base. The microbial loop refers to the flow from the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) via heterotrophic bacteria (Het. Bac.) and microzooplankton to predatory zooplankton (on the right with black solid arrows). Viruses play a major role in the mortality of phytoplankton and heterotrophic bacteria, and recycle organic carbon back to the DOC pool. Other sources of dissolved organic carbon (also dashed black arrows) includes exudation, sloppy feeding, etc. Particulate detritus pools and fluxes are not shown for simplicity. (from Marine food web)
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Image 107Export processes in the ocean from remote sensing (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 108Pennate diatom from an Arctic meltpond, infected with two chytrid-like [zoo-]sporangium fungal pathogens (in false-colour red). Scale bar = 10 μm. (from Marine food web)
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Image 109Coastlines can be volatile habitats (from Marine habitat)
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Image 110Earth's magnetic field (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 111This timeline contains clickable links
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Image 112Sandy shores provide shifting homes to many species (from Marine habitat)
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Image 114Predator fish ( foxface) size up schooling forage fish (from Marine food web)
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Image 115Scanning electron micrograph of a strain of Roseobacter, a widespread and important genus of marine bacteria. For scale, the membrane pore size is 0.2 μm in diameter. (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 116Different bacteria shapes ( cocci, rods and spirochetes) and their sizes compared with the width of a human hair. A few bacteria are comma-shaped ( vibrio). Archaea have similar shapes, though the archaeon Haloquadratum is flat and square. The unit μm is a measurement of length, the micrometer, equal to 1/1,000 of a millimeter (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 117Giant kelp is a foundation species for many kelp forests. (from Marine food web)
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Image 118Kelp forests provide habitat for many marine organisms (from Marine habitat)
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Image 119Estimates of microbial species counts in the three domains of life Bacteria are the oldest and most biodiverse group, followed by Archaea and Fungi (the most recent groups). In 1998, before awareness of the extent of microbial life had gotten underway, Robert M. May estimated there were 3 million species of living organisms on the planet. But in 2016, Locey and Lennon estimated the number of microorganism species could be as high as 1 trillion. (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 120Generalized or hypothetical ancestral mollusc (from Marine invertebrates)
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Image 121Vibrio vulnificus, a virulent bacterium found in estuaries and along coastal areas (from Marine prokaryotes)
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Image 122Seep and vent interactions with surrounding deep-sea ecosystems. The y axis is meters above bottom on a log scale. DOC: dissolved organic carbon, POC: particulate organic carbon, SMS: seafloor massive sulfide. (from Marine food web)
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Image 123Mangroves provide nurseries for fish (from Marine habitat)
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Image 124Mudflat pollution (from Marine habitat)
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Image 125Pennate diatom from an Arctic meltpond, infected with two chytrid-like [zoo-]sporangium fungal pathogens (in false-colour red). Scale bar = 10 μm. (from Marine fungi)
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Image 126Humpback whale straining krill (from Marine food web)
The following are images from various marine life-related articles on Wikipedia.
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Image 1Drivers of change in marine ecosystems (from Marine ecosystem)
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Image 2Model of a Greek boat (from History of marine biology)
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Image 3A science ROV being retrieved by an oceanographic research vessel. (from History of marine biology)
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Image 4Coral reef (from Marine ecosystem)
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Image 5Lagoon (from Marine ecosystem)
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Image 6Global map of large marine ecosystems. Oceanographers and biologists have identified 66 LMEs worldwide. (from Marine ecosystem)
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Image 7The voyage of the Beagle (from History of marine biology)
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Image 8In the fourth century BC, Aristotle gave accurate descriptions of the embryological development of the hound shark Mustelus mustelus. (from History of marine biology)
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Image 9Salt marshes (from Marine ecosystem)
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Image 10Sea spray containing marine microorganisms can be swept high into the atmosphere, where it becomes part of the aeroplankton and may travel the globe before falling back to earth. (from Marine ecosystem)
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Image 11Seagrass meadow (from Marine ecosystem)
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Image 12Hagfish are the only known living animals with a skull but no vertebral column. (from Marine vertebrate)
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Image 13Intertidal zones (from Marine ecosystem)
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Image 14Coral reefs form complex marine ecosystems with tremendous biodiversity. (from Marine ecosystem)
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Image 15Global distribution of coral, mangrove, and seagrass diversity (from Marine ecosystem)
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Image 16General characteristics of a large marine ecosystem (Gulf of Alaska) (from Marine ecosystem)
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Image 17Estuaries (from Marine ecosystem)
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Image 19Kelp forest (from Marine ecosystem)
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Image 20Some lobe-finned fishes, like the extinct Tiktaalik, developed limb-like fins that could take them onto land (from Marine vertebrate)
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Image 21Ecosystem services delivered by epibenthic bivalve reefs. Reefs provide coastal protection through erosion control and shoreline stabilization, and modify the physical landscape by ecosystem engineering, thereby providing habitat for species by facilitative interactions with other habitats such as tidal flat benthic communities, seagrasses and marshes. (from Marine ecosystem)
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Image 24Mangrove forests (from Marine ecosystem)
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Image 25Lampreys are often parasitic and have a toothed, funnel-like sucking mouth (from Marine vertebrate)
- ... The teeth of carnivorous sharks are not attached to the jaw, but embedded in their flesh. In many species, teeth are constantly replaced throughout the shark's life.
- ... A whale shark's skin is around 10 cm thick, making it the thickest skin in the world.
- ... In one experiment, a scientist plugged one of a shark's nostrils. It swam around in a circle.
- ... the Sperm Whale was named after the milky-white substance spermaceti found in its head and originally mistaken for sperm.
- ... Even though the basking shark is considered to be slow and very large, it can actually breach the water, i.e. jump fully out, as some whales do.
- ... most whales and dolphins live long lives. Wild bottlenose dolphins live well into their forties, while some of the larger whales live in excess of 80 years!
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