Can someone give me a good description about the oceanic benthic biome?

Question

or at least where I can find a nice and long description of it? i tried googling it, but there's hardly any to be found, except for really limited and short answers. thanks!

Answer 1

The benthic zone is the lowest level of a body of water, such as an ocean or a lake. It is inhabited by organisms that live in close relationship with (if not physically attached to) the ground, called benthos or benthic organisms. Generally, these include life forms that tolerate cool temperatures and low oxygen levels, but this depends on the depth of the water. For information on animals that live in the deepest areas of the oceans see aphotic zone. The superficial layer of the soil lining the given body of water is an integral part of the benthic zone, as it influences greatly the biological activity which takes place there. Examples of contact soil layers include sand bottoms, rock outcrops, coral, and bay mud.

When looked at from this perspective, the body of water would then have another realm, the pelagic zone, which includes all that lives associated to the water column.

Benthic plants and animals inhabit distinct seafloor habitats. The shallow-bottom habitat that extends from the shore to the edge of the continental shelf supports mollusks, polychaete worms, and attached algae and sponges. The continental slope and beyond make up the benthic zone, which includes the deepest part of the ocean floor. It is sparsely populated with deposit feeders and filter feeders such as the pycnogonid sea spiders and stalked crinoids.

Benthic, a term meaning bottom is the name of the ocean zone ranging from the deepest parts of the ocean to the tidal affected areas.  The most productive region of the benthic zone is the area over the continental margin, which is unaffected by the tides.  Many groups and varieties of animals live here, a few are worms, sea pens, crustaceans, stars, and protozoa.  The life in this zone is mostly made up of bottom dwellers which get most of their food from dead and decaying organisms.  Therefore most of the organisms in the benthic zone are scavengers because they depend on dead flesh as their main food source.

Answer 2

Below is an extract from the University of California's Museum of Paleontology wesbite, they have an excellent section regarding all the biomes.

Extract taken from -

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibits/bi...

Biomes hmepage -

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibits/bi...

------------

The intertidal zone is where the ocean meets the land — sometimes it is submerged and at other times exposed, as waves and tides come in and out. Because of this, the communities are constantly changing. On rocky coasts, the zone is stratified vertically. Where only the highest tides reach, there are only a few species of algae and mollusks. In those areas usually submerged during high tide, there is a more diverse array of algae and small animals, such as herbivorous snails, crabs, sea stars, and small fishes. At the bottom of the intertidal zone, which is only exposed during the lowest tides, many invertebrates, fishes, and seaweed can be found. The intertidal zone on sandier shores is not as stratified as in the rocky areas. Waves keep mud and sand constantly moving, thus very few algae and plants can establish themselves — the fauna include worms, clams, predatory crustaceans, crabs, and shorebirds.

From left: mussels, worms, and a spider crab at a hydrocarbon seep community in the Gulf of Mexico; a sea fan and brain coral in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary; a school of Atlantic amberjack off North Carolina.

The pelagic zone includes those waters further from the land, basically the open ocean. The pelagic zone is generally cold though it is hard to give a general temperature range since, just like ponds and lakes, there is thermal stratification with a constant mixing of warm and cold ocean currents. The flora in the pelagic zone include surface seaweeds. The fauna include many species of fish and some mammals, such as whales and dolphins. Many feed on the abundant plankton.

The benthic zone is the area below the pelagic zone, but does not include the very deepest parts of the ocean (see abyssal zone below). The bottom of the zone consists of sand, slit, and/or dead organisms. Here temperature decreases as depth increases toward the abyssal zone, since light cannot penetrate through the deeper water. Flora are represented primarily by seaweed while the fauna, since it is very nutrient-rich, include all sorts of bacteria, fungi, sponges, sea anemones, worms, sea stars, and fishes.

The deep ocean is the abyssal zone. The water in this region is very cold (around 3° C), highly pressured, high in oxygen content, but low in nutritional content. The abyssal zone supports many species of invertebrates and fishes. Mid-ocean ridges (spreading zones between tectonic plates), often with hydrothermal vents, are found in the abyssal zones along the ocean floors. Chemosynthetic bacteria thrive near these vents because of the large amounts of hydrogen sulfide and other minerals they emit. These bacteria are thus the start of the food web as they are eaten by invertebrates and fishes.