AQUATIC ECOSYSTEM

AQUATIC
ECOSYSTEMS
• Are classified primarily on abiotic factors,
such as salinity that help determine an
aquatic life zone’s boundaries.

Salinity – the concentration of dissolved

salts, such as sodium chloride.
• Aquatic ecosystem contains three main
ecological categories of organisms ( free-
floating plankton, strong swimming nekton,
and the bottom-dwelling benthos).

Plankton – are usually small or microscopic

organisms that are relatively feeble swimmers.
Plankton are divided into two major categories:
1. Phytoplankton

2. Zooplankton
Phytoplankton – are producers that form a
base of most aquatic food webs.
Zooplankton – are nonphotosynthetic that
include protozoa, tiny crustaceans, and larval
stages of many animals.

Nekton – are larger, strong swimming

organism (fishes, turtles and whales).
Benthos – are bottom-dwelling organism that
fix themselves to one spot (sponges, oysters,
and barnacles).
Freshwaters Ecosystem
• include streams and rivers or free
flowing ecosystem, ponds and lakes
or standing-water ecosystem and
marshes and swamps or freshwater
wetlands.
• it has its own specific abiotic
conditions and characteristics
organisms.
Streams and Rivers

• The nature of a flowing-water

ecosystem changes its source to its
mouth.
Lakes and Ponds
- Lakes and ponds are standing-water
ecosystems.
Large lake has three basic zones:
• littoral zone
• limnetic zone
• Profundal zone
Littoral zone – is a shallow water area along
the shore of a lake or pond.
• It includes rooted vegetation and several
deep-dwelling aquatic plants and algae.

Limnetic zone – is the open water beyond

the littoral zone, away from the shore.
• It extends down as far as sunlight
penetrates to permit photosynthesis.

Profundal zone – beneath the limnetic zone

of a large lake.
Freshwater Wetlands

 Are transitional between aquatic and

terrestrial ecosystems.
• Also include hardwood bottomland
forests (lowlands along streams and rivers
that are periodically flooded).
Prairie pot holes (small shallow ponds that
formed when glacial ice melted at the end of
the last ice age.
Peat moss bogs ( peat accumulating wetlands
where sphagnum moss dominates.
Estuaries
 Is a coastal body of water partly
surrounded by land with access to
open ocean and large supply of
freshwater from rivers.
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