finale essay

essential question: 
The oceans harbor a wide variety of living organisms, each exhibiting adaptations for survival in their particular marine niches.  First analyze the relationship between structure and function in the living organisms studied this semester.   Then compare and contrast representative members of the major marine animal phyla in terms of structure, adaptation, lifestyle, and evolutionary history. some organisms that we learned about this semester go from microscopic to the largest sea mammals known to man. 
a marine food web

• diatoms; They dominate the temperate and polar oceans. Typical size is about 30 micrometers. They contribute about 60 per cent of the primary productivity in the oceans. 
• The phytoplankton are eaten by the smallest floating animals, the zooplankton They range in size from single-celled organisms to larger multi-celled organisms. Small zooplankton are eaten by larger zooplankton. 

one mammal that i was very interested in would be whales, humpback and orca .i really enjoyed learning about these mammals. they really interested me because of the movie "Blackfish". after watching this movie i got a better under standing of how whales are living in the wild. 


niche 
Hutchinson's fundamental niche, defined by the physical and biological environments in which an organisms can thrive in the absence of inter-species interactions.

the phytoplankton and the plants plat a huge role in the marine food web. the plants underwater use photosynthesis and they make their own food. others are producers and other are consumers. 
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22832347