Complex Interactions Between Aquatic Organisms and Their Chemical Environment Elucidated from Different Perspectives

2019/10/14 by Mara Elena Heinrichs, Corinna Mori, Leon Dlugosch · 4 citations
Environmental Science · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology #Bacteriophages and microbial interactions #Marine and coastal ecosystems

paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-20389-4_15

openalex publication_date 2019/10/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

Ecosystems form a complex network of interactions regarding energy and material transfers between the living and nonliving environment. Phytoplankton supports all life in the ocean as it converts inorganic compounds into organic constituents. This autotrophically produced biomass presents the foundation of the marine food web. A central part of this food web is the concept of the microbial loop. It describes the prokaryotic degradation and remineralization of organic and inorganic matter and its recycling within the pelagic food web or its return to the nonliving environment. In this review, we describe the composition and functioning of the different compartments of the involved organisms (phytoplankton, prokaryotes, and viruses) and their chemical environment (dissolved organic and inorganic matter) in the ocean, particularly emphasizing their interactions. The aim of this chapter is, therefore, to demonstrate the various ways in which these compartments are connected and how they shape each other. We further emphasize the importance of interdisciplinary research approaches to increase the understanding of the complex interactions within marine ecosystems.

Citations

• A new, mechanistic model for organic carbon fluxes in the ocean based on the quantitative association of POC with ballast minerals
• An estimate of global primary production in the ocean from satellite radiometer data
• Abandoning Sverdrup's Critical Depth Hypothesis on phytoplankton blooms
• BIOGENIC MANGANESE OXIDES: Properties and Mechanisms of Formation
• Illuminated darkness: Molecular signatures of Congo River dissolved organic matter and its photochemical alteration as revealed by ultrahigh precision mass spectrometry
• Elements of a theory for the mechanisms controlling abundance, diversity, and biogeochemical role of lytic bacterial viruses in aquatic systems
• Misuse of the phytoplankton–zooplankton dichotomy: the need to assign organisms as mixotrophs within plankton functional types
• Element Stoichiometry, New Production and Nitrogen Fixation
• Molecular properties of deep-sea dissolved organic matter are predictable by the central limit theorem: Evidence from tandem FT-ICR-MS

Cited by

• Marine biogeochemical cycles [wikipedia]
• Marine food web [wikipedia]
• Marine viruses [wikipedia]
• Phytoplankton [wikipedia]