Polar Oceans

By Author: Henry Ford
Total Articles: 189
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The polar oceans are very different from other oceanic habitats in many ways, though existence of ice in these polar oceans imposes major habitat distinction. Sea ice affects the polar microorganisms by limiting on the penetration of light into the upper ocean and by providing inimitable ocean surface environment.

The physical environment
The brine exclusion throughout the process of sea ice formation, together with melting in the summer season, contributes to persistent and major stratification of the water column (Hodges et al., 2005). This particularly the situation with Arctic Ocean where the undying sea ice cover confined wind mixing, while the geographical nature of the basins (land locked) constrains exchange with lower latitudes waters (Hodges et al., 1996) Other features of polar oceans, such as extreme seasonal variation in primary production and carbon fluctuation and low temperature, are frequently more intense compared to other oceanic environment. The unique and major differences between the existing polar oceans are due to the fact that, Arctic Ocean has a land locked geographical basin which ...
... receives approximately 10% of the total global run off of fresh water(Junge et al.,2002). While the other polar ocean called Southern Ocean surrounds a land mass enclosed by sea ice and alienated from lower latitudes waters by a definite circumpolar frontage. The rivers supplying water to the Arctic Ocean exhaust lower latitude terrestrial habitats, including boreal forests and tundra. These rivers are therefore extensive significant sources of the Arctic Ocean organic carbon. The southern Ocean gets no such terrestrial subsidy of carbon (Massana et al., 1998).
Limited areas of indefatigably open water offer environments that differ from those areas that are under sea ice cover throughout the major part of the year. These open water regions as referred to as polynyas, which occur as a result of a diversity of physical processes. A number of studies carried out have shown that microorganisms within the polynya are livelier, active, and vigorous compared to their counterparts underneath the adjacent ice cover habitat. However, there is no or little overlap existing between the phytoplankton species found in the polynyas and adjacent sea-ice and the distinct phytoplankton communities linked to different water masse(Lovejoy et al.,2002b). Other studies have shown that archaeal communities and microbes found in polynya are more alike to other polynya microorganisms than those in the specialized sea ice communities.
The producers and Consumers
In deep polar oceans, such as the Arctic’s Basin of Canada, the frosty temperatures are multifaceted by high hydrostatic pressures, which sometimes reaching heights of 400 atmospheres or even higher, correlating to water depth. Microorganisms or organisms living under these extreme circumstances ought to adroit at getting food or undergoing long periods with no food, because below 10% of foods available in polar oceans are produced by the photosynthesis process at polynyas habitats, including phytoplankton a float in the water or algae occupying the ice cover (López-Garcia et al., 2001a). Some foods however, leak from the upper part of the ocean to fuel the microorganism at deepest part of the ocean, however the food are still inadequate to sustain the life in polar oceans. The food web of polar oceans begins with algae, as it is in the marine life, including proportional formed diatoms with rigid silicate shells. Algae are consumed by smaller invertebrate organism, together with shrimp, such as krill. In the ocean near Arctartic, krill are an imperative food source, consumed by a variety of marine organisms as well as, baleen, fish, adelie penguins, and whales (Kottmeier and Sullivan, 1987). The penguins are sequentially preyed on by leopard seals. The zenith consumer in the Antarctic is none other than the great whale, which preys on seals and penguins. Thus over fishing of krill in polar oceans may endanger not krill, but seals, penguins, and whales as well.
Kelp forests form yet another inimitable ecosystem. These are brown algae which can grow to height of sixty centimeters in a day, in due course reaching a height of about eighty meters (Grzymski et al., 2006). Tiny crustaceans of copepods type are among the animal planktons which prey on the floating algae and detritus in the bigger invertebrates, like abalone and sea urchins, forage on kelp and are sequentially preyed on by sea otters. The decreases in the quality water and over harvesting of kelp have damaged the efficiency, productivity, and output of polar ecosystems. A discharge resulting from nuclear power plants increases the water temperatures just sufficient for abalone and urchins’ survival and growth, preying on kelp and thereby thinning the size of kelp beds.
Zooplankton is another consumer among the polar ocean living organisms migrates up and down in the ocean on a daily basis preying their own weight in minute carbon enthralling phytoplankton, which float with currents close to surface ocean strata (Junge et al., 2004). Approximately 10,000 pounds of phytoplankton is required to nourish 1,000 pounds of smaller zooplankton, which sustains 100 pounds of bigger zooplankton, which sustains 10 pounds of smaller fish species (such as anchovies or herring), which sustains 1 pounds of a bigger fish species like those caught for human consumption (Johnson et al.,2006). A number of whale and bird species depend directly on zooplankton, while others rely on zooplankton preying fish higher in the food web. Micro algae result to intense carbon fortification in the sea ice, thereby fuelling microorganism production and providing food to herbivorous metazoans. Bacterioplankton, including living beings in the fields of archaeal and bacteria ‘dictate’ the piciplankton in both Southern and Arctic Oceans (Letelier and Karl, 1989).
The most important role of these microorganisms in polar oceans is comparable to their role in lower latitudes: to grow, photo heterotrophs and heterotrophs use organic carbon created by phytoplankton and sea ice algae. Chemolithoautotropic bacteria emerge to be widely multiplied in polar oceans and to arbitrate inorganic nitrogen and sulfur alterations. Secondary production tempos in polar waters throughout summer are comparable to those in lower latitudes, in spite of much frosty ocean temperatures (Hollibaugh et al., 1992).
Community interactions
Some people watch whales, other people adore swimming with dolphins. Others make their living fishing for giant tuna in a gigantic ocean. These organisms and microorganisms in polar oceans confine our concentration and imagination. We therefore, have a link to all organisms living in the polar oceans, from the infinitesimal floating plants that provide us with the oxygen to vast blue whale that fills up its ‘tummy’ with a tone of krill (Kottmeier and Sullivan, 1987). Infinitesimal or huge, animal or plant, from muddy seashore to deepest ocean floor, the ocean’s living organisms confirm to its never-ending diversity, and biodiversity. Scientists articulate that there might be millions further species than we distinguish swimming, crawling, and even floating in the deepest parts of polar oceans and as so far unseen by a human being (Hollibaugh et al., 2005).
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