1. Marine Ecosystems Vocabulary
8th Grade Science Hydrosphere

2. Estuaries

3. Marine Ecosystems
A water environment, from pond to ocean, in which plants and animals interact with the chemical and physical features of the environment. They contain a large diversity of organisms and include oceans, salt marshes, estuaries, lagoons, mangroves and coral reefs

4. Terrestrial Ecosystems
An interaction between living and nonliving things found only on landforms.

5. Buffer Zones
The areas that buffer or border between water (marine) and land (terrestrial) habitats

6. Estuaries
Partly closed coastal body of water that is connected to one or more rivers (freshwater) and the ocean (saltwater) that contains a mixture of salt and fresh water (brackish water) and provide habitats for large amounts of aquatic organisms

7. Artificial (man-made) lake or dam used to store water
Reservoir
Artificial (man-made) lake or dam used to store water

8. The Ocean

9. Vertical Zonation Patterns
Categorizing plants and animals into zones based on their arrangement in the habitat and other living and non-living factors

10. Ocean Ecosystem
All the living things and the physical environment that make up the area of an ocean

11. Nutrients
Chemicals that organisms need to live and grow; substances taken in from an organism’s environment that are used in an organism’s metabolism

12. Dissolved Gases
A situation that occurs when a gas becomes dissolved in another solute due to pressure. Ex- Soda (Carbon Dioxide is dissolved in another liquid)

13. Minerals
Naturally occurring substance that is required by living organisms as part of their dietary nutritional intake

14. Upwelling
The wind driven motion of dense, cooler, nutrient rich water moving toward the ocean surface replacing the nutrient deficient surface water

15. Deep Ocean Ecosystems
The physical environment and all the living things that make up the deep ocean and deep ocean ridges

16. The biochemical emission of light by living organisms
Bioluminescence
The biochemical emission of light by living organisms