Introduction to Marine Environment

• One big difference of marine environment to terrestrial environment is that water is everywhere
• T or F: Water is relatively abundant, ubiquitous, and anomalous hence is only as good as an essential need of living organisms and is not crucial to the sustainability of habitats

  False
• Properties of Water

  High specific heat

  • Absorbs and releases heat slowly, impacting temperature fluctuates and influencing marine life
• Properties of water

  High density

  • Supports buoyancy and affects organism movement and distribution
• Properties of water

  Salinity

  • Osmoregulation, trying to remove salt water from your system
  • Varies across regions, creating diverse salinity zones with unique communities
• Properties of water

  Light penetration

  • Decrease with depth, influencing photosynthesis and structuring vertical zonation
• Properties of water

  Dissolved oxygen

  • Essential for life, varies with depth, temperature, and biological activity
• Properties of water

  pH

  • Affects organism physiology and influences biogeochemical cycles
• Properties of water

  • High specific heat
  • High density
  • Salinity
  • Light Penetration
  • Dissolved oxygen
  • pH
• T or F: Calcified organisms are heavily affected by change in pH

  True
• T or F: water stays liquid over a wide range of normal temperatures and thus makes up the persistence of a steadily fluid environment for marine ecosystem

  True
• T or F: water has a high specific heat capacity because of its large molecules thus it is resistant to rapid temperature changes

  True
• T or F: Water freezes first at its surface then the ice sinks at the bottom of the lake; continuing the cycle makes the body of water (still water) frozen

  False
• T or F: Surface ice insulates the deeper water from further heat loss to the atmosphere

  True
• T or F: The density of water is unexpectedly high which is ~800 times more dense than air

  True
• T or F: animals and plants do not have the same density with the aquatic medium

  False
• Archimedean effect


  Need for mechanically robust supportng structures is not necessary
• T or F: water is isopycnic with both plants and animals

  True
• T or F: water is a high molecular weight liquid therefore it is more resistant to flow (viscous)

  False
• T or F: Hypothetically, there is no gravity. If a person moves through water (medium), they require more effort to progress through it than with air (medium)

  True
• T or F: Hydrogen bonding is normally found at the air-water interface

  True
• T or F: The existence of hydrogen bonds makes water more viscous

  False
• Turbulence


  incorporation of bubbles, making water turn whitish in color
• T or F: Having turbulence in water systems is necessary as it is one of the ways water can be oxygenated therefore supplying oxygen to organisms inhabiting the water habitat

  True
• T or F: Having high surface tension is important in soil moisture, water absorption by roots, air-water microhabitats, and some adaptations of organisms like water striders

  True
• T or F: High temperature water has increased motion of molecules, increased spaces between molecules, and has decreased density which is the opposite colder water. Therefore, when ice forms above water surface, it sinks and warmer water rises due to the decreased in density

  False
• T or F: Since the behavior of water is anomalous, even if the water freezes, the ice won't sink due to it being less dense than warmer water which is 916kg for the former and 999kg for the latter

  True
• T or F: As the temperature of the liquid is raised a little further, more individual molecules break from the complexes and fall within the matrices. In this way, the same given number of molecules now occupies more space, and the density of the water is further increased. Thus at 4 degrees Celcius, water sinks.

  False
• T or F: As the temperature is further increased, the main process operating is the of molecules moving further apart. Water then expands and its density diminishes, and it is later turned to gas

  True
• T or F: At 1 atmosphere, pure water reaches its maximum density of 1000kg m3 at 3.94°C

  True
• T or F: implications of water's anomalous behavior

  • fresh water at sea level reahes its greatest density at ~4 degrees Celcius

  True
• T or F: implications of water's anomalous behavior

  • ice forms at the surface and insulates the deep water from further heat loss

  True
• T or F: implications of water's anomalous behavior

  • with every degree of above 4 degrees celsius, the difference in density also becomes greater

  True
• T or F: implications of water's anomalous behavior

  • increase density difference does not affect the distribution of dissolved nutrients and gasses due to the thermally driven vertical mixing

  False
• T or F: the presence of solutes lowers the temperature of greatest density

  True
• T or F: density of water decrease below and above 4 degrees celsius

  true
• T or F: Frozen saline water sinks in a medium of lower saline water. Since ice bergs are floating, its salinity is lower than that of the saline water. Therefore it must have come from freshwater

  True
• T or F: Aside from solutes, pressures also increase the temperature of maximum density by 0.1 degrees celsius for every 10 bar of pressure (=1atm)

  False
• T or F: pressure is a function of depth. the greater the pressure, the deeper it is. In that sense, Lake Baikal holds the record of having the highest pressure found in freshwater system

  True
• Viscosity


  Mutual attraction of water molecules resists their free movement and the ability of one layer to slide over one another if subjected to external forcing