Marine biology

Marine biology is the scientific study of Algae (Protists), animals and other organisms that live in the ocean or any other marine or brackish body of water. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather than on taxonomy.

Marine biology covers a great deal, from the microscopic, including plankton and phytoplankton, which can be as small as 0.02 micrometers and are both hugely important as the primary producers of the sea, to the huge cetaceans (whales) which reach up to a reported 33 meters (109 feet) in length.

The habitats studied by marine biology include everything from the tiny layers of surface water in which organisms and abiotic items may be trapped in surface tension between the ocean and atmosphere, to the depths of the abyssal trenches, sometimes 10,000 meters or more beneath the surface of the ocean. It studies habitats such as coral reefs, kelp forests, tidepools, muddy, sandy, and rocky bottoms, and the open ocean (pelagic) zone, where solid objects are rare and the surface of the water is the only visible boundary.

A large amount of all life on Earth exists in the oceans. Exactly how large the proportion is is still unknown. While the oceans comprise about 71% of the Earth's surface, due to their depth they encompass about 300 times the habitable volume of the terrestrial habitats on Earth.

Many species are economically important to humans, including the food fishes. It is also becoming understood that the well-being of marine organisms and other organisms are linked in very fundamental ways. Human understanding is growing of the relationship between life in the sea and important cycles such as that of matter (such as the carbon cycle) and of air (such as Earth's respiration, and movement of energy through ecosystems). Large areas beneath the ocean surface still remain effectively unexplored. Scientists know more about the moon than they know about the ocean and the life in it.

Subfields

The marine ecosystem is large, and thus there are many subfields of marine biology. Most involve studying specializations of particular species (i.e., phycology, invertebrate zoology, ichthyology).

Other subfields study the physical effects of continual immersion in sea water and the ocean in general, adaptation to a salty environment, and the effects of changing various oceanic properties on marine life. A subfield of marine biology studies the relationships between oceans and ocean life, and global weather and environmental issues (such as carbon dioxide displacement).

Recent marine biotechnology has focused largely on marine biomolecules, especially proteins, that may have uses in medicine or engineering. Marine environments are the home to many exotic biological materials that may inspire biomimetic materials.

An interesting branch of marine biology is aquaculture; which some countries do a lot of in the oceans, especially Japan.

Related fields

Marine biology is closely linked to both oceanography and biology. It also encompasses many ideas from ecology. Fisheries science and marine conservation can be considered partial offshoots of marine biology.