What causes the Peruvian coastal ecosystem to be so productive?
What is the Humboldt Current and how does it affect the coastal ecosystem of Peru? Answer: The Humboldt Current is a cold water current from Antarctica that travels north up the coast of Peru. The cold water causes an upwelling of nutrients that feeds phytoplankton and leads to a highly productive ecosystem.
Why is the California coast so biologically productive?
The waters along the west coast of North America are some of the most biologically productive in the world. The combination of cool water and abundant nutrients promotes the growth of plant life in the sea, from microscopic phytoplankton to dense kelp forests. …
Why do most of the most productive fishing areas on the planet occur along coastlines?
Conditions are optimal for upwelling along the coast when winds blow along the shore. Winds blowing across the ocean surface push water away. These nutrients “fertilize” surface waters, meaning that these surface waters often have high biological productivity.
Why there is such high net primary productivity off the west coast of Peru?
The high productivity is maintained by the upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich, low-oxygen, subsurface waters sustained by weaker winds than other upwelling systems due to the low latitude of the region and hence greater Coriolis factor per given amount of turbulence (Bakun & Weeks, 2008) .
Which area has the highest amount of primary productivity?
The highest net primary productivity in terrestrial environments occurs in swamps and marshes and tropical rainforests; the lowest occurs in deserts.
Where is ocean productivity the highest?
Higher chlorophyll concentrations and in general higher productivity are observed on the equator, along the coasts (especially eastern margins), and in the high latitude ocean (Figure 4a and b).
Why is open ocean so low in productivity?
Open ocean is low in productivity? The average NPP of the ocean is so low because the ocean’s volume (mostly open space) in comparison to the amount of producers is massive. Human population growth is at the root of most environmental issues?? The human population is disrupting chemical cycles throughout the biosphere.
Where is primary productivity in the ocean the greatest Why?
Which ocean zone has the lowest productivity?
Red end of spectrum is highest productivity, blue/violet end is lowest. The overall pattern with latitude is clearly visible: low productivity in the tropics and subtropics, probably due to nutrient limitation brought about by strong, year-round thermocline and pycnocline.
Which zone is most productive?
The neritic zone is the most productive zone among the choices given.
Why is productivity higher near the poles?
Why is productivity higher near the poles? Due to the currents bringing the nutrients, it causes the productivity to be high near the poles.
What are the factors affecting primary productivity?
Net primary productivity varies among ecosystems and depends on many factors. These include solar energy input, temperature and moisture levels, carbon dioxide levels, nutrient availability, and community interactions (e.g., grazing by herbivores) 2.
Which zone of the open ocean has the highest level of productivity?
The uppermost zone, from the sea surface to a depth of 200 m (656 ft), is called the epipelagic or photic zone. The large amount of available sunlight makes this the most productive zone of the ocean.
How does temperature affect primary productivity?
The effect of temperature change is generally positive to increase the productivity by enhancing the photosynthesis as long as the temperature is in a range of optimum level. When temperature exceeds the optimum level, it will increase the rate of respiration causing the NPP continuously declined.
What effect did light have on the primary productivity?
Karlsson et al.4 reported that primary productivity in their study was limited by light energy and not by nutrients, and concluded that higher levels of PAR promote high productivity in nutrient-poor lake ecosystems.
What is the process of primary productivity?
Primary productivity is the process by which organisms make their own food from inorganic sources. These organisms are known as autotrophs, since they can use inorganic substrates and solar energy to carry out metabolic processes and build cellular material.
How is NPP affected by climate change?
Nemani et al. (2002) have indicated that climate change reduces climatic constraints on the plant growth and increases NPP in large parts of the earth, while Zhao and Running (2010) concluded that the NPP value had declined in recent decades.
Does sunlight affect NPP?
It is known that many algal species have increased gross primary productivity (GPP) at higher temperatures [10,11], but net primary productivity (NPP) can be affected by different light environments and larger increases in respiration rates [12].
What percentage of carbon emissions remain in the atmosphere?
So far, land plants and the ocean have taken up about 55 percent of the extra carbon people have put into the atmosphere while about 45 percent has stayed in the atmosphere.