Marine Life Forms and their Adaptations to their Surroundings By David Barbara St Augustine College Form 3P

The sea surrounding us is very vast and consists of many types of life forms such as: Microscopic organisms Plants and algae Marine invertebrates Fish Reptiles Marine mammals

Most of them are microscopic Marine Microscopic Life forms These consist mainly of plankton .i.e. any drifting organisms inhabiting our oceans Most of them are microscopic They are an important source of food for much bigger marine organisms Such example is the Copepod

Marine plants and algae Plant life is very spread and very diverse under the sea All the marine photosynthetic algae found in the sea contribute more to the world’s whole produce by photosynthesis compared with all the terrestrial forests together

Marine Invertebrates Like on land invertebrates are really common throughout the marine landscape Marine invertebrates are very diverse and distributed all over our oceans and seas They consist of organisms which do not own a backbone

Fish Cartilaginous fish Fish whose internal structure (the skeleton) is made up of cartilage Do not have a operculum over their gills E.g. Shark Bony fish Fish whose skeleton is made up of bone Have operculum covering their gills E.g. Blue fin tuna

Marine reptiles These are reptiles which have adapted to live on land and in the sea Most of the marine reptiles such as the green turtle still needs to return on shore to lay her eggs Such reptiles like all the marine turtles can live for many years

Marine mammals Marine mammals have still most of the characteristics of terrestrial ones They still use lungs to breath and the young still develops inside the mother and feeds on his mothers milks after birth Their skin is soft and must be kept moist all the time so if marine mammal where to be stuck near shore they would eventually die due to the sun’s radiation

Marine life forms adaptations There are three main types of adaptations that marine life forms use to survive: Structural adaptations, Physiological adaptations, Behavioural adaptations

Structural adaptation Fish and all marine organisms had to adapt and cope with their surroundings. To do this some of them have to ability to camouflage themselves or else are protected by means of a shell. Some adaptations that these fish have evolved are: Strong shells to protect them from wave action and predators, The ability to change colour depending on their surroundings Defensive strategies and sometimes are even faster than its predator

Physiological adaptations Physiological adaptations concern mostly the way an organisms’ metabolism works. These adaptations allow an organism to regulate some of its body functions such as: Breathing Body temperature Defensive adaptations like the secretion of certain chemicals which help them to defend themselves

Behavioural adaptations Behavioural adaptations are adaptations learned or else inherited by organisms to help them survive and cope with mother nature. Examples of behavioural adaptations are: The sounds whales emit to communicate between themselves The Bryozoans colony which look like plants but in fact they are an amount of small organisms attached to each other. (such example of the Bryozoans colony is the background image)

Bibliography Pictures http://www.lisisoft.com/imglisi/5/Screensavers/64728exotic-fish.jpg http://www.softpedia.com/screenshots/Exotic-fish-screensaver_3.png http://interactive.usc.edu/members/rosenblj/archives/plankton.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Copepodkils.jpg http://www.kinrm.sa.gov.au/Portals/4/CoastMarine/Sabella_spallanzanii.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kelp_In_Freycinet_Tasmania.jpg

http://frontpage.simnet.is/dna/Starfish-Linkiia-Blue.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chelonia_mydas_and_bubbles.jpg http://www.filetransit.com/images/screen/352b81c26ab6b704020d1bb938536916_Free_Living_Dolphins_Screensaver.jpg http://www.seawater.no/fauna/Fisk/images/dsc03915.jpg http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/Contexts/Life-in-the-Sea/Sci-Media/Images/Bryozoan-colony Information http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_biology http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/Contexts/Life-in-the-Sea/Science-Ideas-and-Concepts/Adaptations-of-marine-organisms Songs Canon in D by Pachelbel

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