Copy of `Marine Biology Glossary`

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Marine Biology Glossary Category: Animals and Nature > Marine Biology Date & country: 13/09/2007, USA Words: 362

Estuary
A semienclosed body of water that has a free connection with the open sea and within which seawater is diluted measurably with freshwater that is derived from land drainage

Euphausiid
Member of an order of holoplanktonic crustacea

Eutrophic
Water bodies or habitats having high concentrations of nutrients

Evenness
The component of diversity accounting for the degree to which all species are equal in abundance, as opposed to strong dominance by one or a few species

Fecundity
The number of eggs produced per female per unit time (often: per spawning season)

Foliose coral
A coral whose skeletal form approximates that of a broad, flattened plate

Food chain
An abstraction describing the network of feeding relationships in a community as a series of links of trophic levels, such as primary producers, herbivores, and primary carnivores

Food chain efficiency
Amount of energy of some other quantity extracted from a trophic level, divided by the amount of energy produced by the next-lower trophic level

Food web
A network describing the feeding interactions of the species in an area

Foraminifera
Protozoan group, individuals of which usually secrete a calcareous test; both planktonic and benthic representatives

Founder principle
A small colonizing population is genetically unrepresentative of the source of population

Freshet
An increase of water flow into an estuary during the late winter or spring, owing to increased precipitation and snow melt in the watershed

Front
A major discontinuity separating ocean currents and water masses in any combination

Fugitive species
A species adapted to colonize newly disturbed habitats

Gametophyte
Haploid stage in the life cycle of a plant

Generation time
The time period from birth to average age of reproduction

Genetic drift
Changes in allele frequencies that can be ascribed to random effects

Genetic locus
A location on a chromosome (possibly of a diploid organism with variants that segregate according to the rules of Mendelian heredity)

Genetic polymorphism
Presence of several genetically controlled variants in a population

Genotype
The genetic makeup of an organism, with respect to a given genetic locus, the alleles it carries

Genus
(plural: genera) The level of the taxonomic hierarchy above the species but below the family level

Geostrophic flow
Movement of water in the oceans as a combined response to the Coriolis effect and gravitational forces created by an uneven sea surface

Geotactic
Moving in response to the earth's gravitational field

GIS Geographic Information System
A system that allows automatic location of information suitable for mapping. Usually involves a software system that takes geographic position data and other data (e.g., type of bottom sediment) in order to create a map. Data on processes (e.g., current speed) can be incorporated to make a geographic model of flow.

Global warming
Predicted increase in the earth's oceanic and atmospheric temperature, owing to additions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, as a result of human activities

GPS Global Positioning System
An electronic device that uses positioning signals from satellites in order to locate precisely latitutude and longitude. Now used nearly exclusively for locating ship sampling stations at sea, but also useful for locations near and on shore.

Grab
Benthic sampling device with two or more curved metal plates designed to converge when the sampler hits bottom and grab a specified volume of bottom sediment

Grazer
A predator that consumes organisms far smaller than itself (e.g., copepods graze on diatoms)

Greenhouse effect
Carbon dioxide traps solar-derived heat in the atmosphere near the earth.

Gregarious settling
Settlement of larvae that have been attracted to members of their own species

Gross primary productivity
The total primary production, not counting the loss in respiration

Guild
A group of species, possibly unrelated taxonomically, that exploit overlapping resources

Gyre
Major cyclonic surface current systems in the oceans

Halocline
Depth zone within which salinity changes maximally

Hardy-Weinberg law
Law that states that the frequencies of genotypes in a population at a locus are determined by random mating and allele frequency

Harmful algal bloom
A bloom of (usually) planktonic microalgae belonging to a strain of a species that has a toxic harmful to marine organisms or humans consuming marine organisms.

Herbivore
An organism that consumes plants

Heritable character
A morphological character whose given state can be explained partially in terms of the genotype of the individual

Hermaphrodite
An individual capable of producing both eggs and sperm during its lifetime

Hermatypic
Reef-building

Heterotrophic algae
Algae that take up organic molecules as a primary source of nutrition

Heterozygote
With respect to a given genetic locus, a diploid individual carrying two different alleles

Highly stratified estuary
An estuary having a distinct surface layer of fresh or very-low-salinity water, capping a deeper layer of higher salinity, more oceanic water

Histogram
A multiple-bar diagram representing the frequency distribution of a group as a function of some variable. The frequency of each class is proportional to the length of its associated bar

Holoplankton
Organisms spending all their life in the water column and not on or in the sea bed

Homeotherm
An organism that regulates its body temperature despite changes in the external environmental temperature

Homozygote
With respect to a given genetic locus, a diploid individual carrying two identical alleles

Hydrographic
Referring to the arrangement and movement of bodies of water, such as currents and water masses

Hydrothermal vents
Sites in the deep ocean floor where hot, sulfur-rich water is released from geothermally heated rock

Hypothesis
A refutable statement about one or a series of phenomena

Infaunal
Living within a soft sediment and being large enough to displace sedimentary grains

Interspecific competition
Condition in which one species' exploitation of a limiting resource negatively affects another species

Interstitial
Living in the pore spaces among sedimentary grains in a soft sediment

Isotonic
Having the same overall concentration of dissolved substances as a given reference solution

Keystone species
A predator at the top of a food web, or discrete subweb, capable of consuming organisms of more than one trophic level beneath it

Laminar flow
The movement of a fluid where movement of the entire fluid is regular and with parallel streamlines.

Larva
A discrete stage in many species, beginning with zygote formation and ending with metamorphosis

Larvacea
A group of planktonic tunicates that secrete a gelatinous house, used to strain unsuitable particles (large particles are rejected). An inner filter apparatus of the house, the so-called food trap or particle-collecting apparatus, is used to retain food particles.

LD50
The value of a given experimental variable required to cause 50% mortality.

Leaching
The loss of soluble material from decaying organisms

Lecithotrophic larva
A planktonic-dispersing larva that lives off yolk supplied via the egg

Leeward
The side of an island opposite from the one facing a persistent wind

Life table
A table summarizing statistics of a population, such as survival and reproduction, all broken down according to age classes

Litter
Accumulations of dead leaves in various states of fragmentation and decomposition

Locus
See Genetic locus

Logistic population growth
Population growth that is modulated by the population size relative to carrying capacity. Population growth declines as population approaches carrying capacity, and is negative when population size is greater than carrying capacity

Longshore current
A current moving parallel to a shoreline

Macrobenthos
(macrofauna or macroflora) Benthic organisms (animals or plants) whose shortest dimension is greater than or equal to 0.5 mm

Macrofauna
Animals whose shortest dimension is greater than or equal to 0.5 mm

Macrophyte
An individual alga large enough to be seen easily with the unaided eye

Macroplankton
Planktonic organisms that are 200-2,000 micrometers in size.

Mainstream flow
The flow in a part of the fluid (e.g., in a tidal creek) that is well above the bottom or well away from a surface and essentially not under the influence of the boundary layer (see boundary layer).

Mangel
See Mangrove forest.

Mangrove forest
A shoreline ecosystem dominated by mangrove trees, with associated mud flats.

Marine protected area
A conservation geographic unit designed to protect crucial communities and to provide reproductive reserves for fisheries that hopefully will disperse over wider areas.

Marine snow
Fragile organic aggregates, resulting from the collision of dissolved organic molecules or from the degradation of gelatinous substances such as larvacean houses. Usually enriched with microorganisms.

Maximum sustainable yield
In fisheries biology, the maximum catch obtainable per unit time under the appropriate fishing rate

Megaplankton
Planktonic organisms that are greater than or equal to 2000 micrometers in size

Meiofauna
Animals whose shortest dimension is less than 0.5 mm but greater than or equal to 0.1 mm

Meroplankton
Organisms that spend part of their time in the plankton but also spend time in the benthos (e.g., planktonic larvae of benthic invertebrates)

Mesopelagic
The 150 -- 2000 m depth zone, seaward of the shelf-slope break

Metabolic rate
The overall rate of biochemical reactions in an organism. Often estimated by rate of oxygen consumption in aerobes

Metamorphosis
Major developmental change as the larva develops into an immature adult

Microbenthos
(microfauna or microflora) Benthic organisms (animals or plants) whose shortest dimension is less than 0.1 mm

Microfauna
Animals whose shortest dimension is less than 0.1 mm

Mixing depth
The water depth to which wind energy evenly mixes the water column

Mixoplankton
Planktonic organisms that can be classified at several trophic levels. For example, some ciliates can be photosynthetic but also can ingest other plankton and are heterotrophic.

Moderately stratified estuary
An estuary in which seaward flow of surface low-salinity water and moderate vertical mixing result in a modest vertical salinity gradient

Monophyletic
Refers to a group of species that all have a single common ancestral species

Mucous-bag suspension feeder
Suspension feeder employing a sheet or bag of mucus to trap particles nonselectively

Mutualism
An interaction between two species in which both derive some benefit

Mutualistic
Conferring reciprocal benefit to individuals of two different associated species

Nanoplankton
Planktonic organisms that are 2-20 micometers in size.

Neap tides
Tides occurring when the vertical range is minimal

Nekton
Organisms with swimming abilities that permit them to move actively through the water column and to move against currents

Neritic
Seawater environments landward of the shelf-slope break

Net primary productivity
Total primary production, minus the amount consumed in respiration

Neuston
Planktonic organisms associated with the air-water interface.

Niche
A general term referring to the range of environmental space occupied by a species

Niche overlap
An overlap in resource requirements by two species