What are Marine Megafauna

- Large ocean creatures - Many different groups of animals - from invertebrate worms living at the bottom of the ocean, to blue whales, the largest animals to have ever lived in the world -

Ocean basics: Seawaters

- Seawaters and life - Seawater

Seawaters and life

- One of the most important aspects of water is the ability to dissolve materials:
- Makes the ocean salty -> water balance challenges - Dissolved nutrients that support growth of marine plants -> phytoplankton - Nitrogen, phosphorus, iron, carbon and others - Dissolved oxygen that supports metabolism of great part of ocean life - Dissolved ions that support chemosynthetic food webs

Seawater
- Contains dissolved salts -> e.g sodium chloride - Average seawater ~one kilogram (liter) has about 35 grams - 3.5% or 35 parts per thousand (ppt) - Seawater is denser than freshwater - Seawater freezes at a lower temperature than freshwater (around -2 degrees Celsius) - Water is less dense when in solid form (ice) - Temperature and salinity define water masses, how they move and their ecological effects

The surface of the ocean

- Ocean is not uniform in temperature, salinity, currents etc: - Varies greatly with latitude - Warm and saline near the tropics - Colder and less saline in polar regions - Surface currents driven by persistent winds - Deep currents driven by temperature and salinity gradients - thermohaline circulation