By: Byron Watkins

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Plant Life In The Ocean

• By Byron Watkins Margarita Granados

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Vocabulary

• Phytoplankton-microscopic plants.
• Nitrogen-a nonmetallic element that is normally a
  colorless odorless tasteless gas.
• Photosynthesis-The process in green plants and
  certain other organisms by which carbohydrates
  are synthesized from carbon dioxide and water
  using light as an energy source

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Critical nutrients for the growth of plants

• Nitrogen and phosphorus are particularly critical
  to aquatic ecosystems because they often control
  the rates of photosynthesis.
• Nitrogen and phosphorus are less available to
  plants relative to their growth requirements than
  are other elements.

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Phytoplankton

• Microscopic plants are known as phytoplankton.
• They are the grass of the sea. Where they grow
  there is food for marine animals.
• Phytoplankton are responsible for much of the
  oxygen present in the Earth's atmosphere.

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Plants Absorb

• Hydrogen
• Carbon
• Oxygen
• Sulfur

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Oxygen in the Ocean

• Plants in the ocean produce over half the
  world's oxygen.
• 70 of the worlds oxygen is produced in the
  ocean.
• Plants are the basis of the food chain for almost
  all animals, mainly excluding those found in the
  deeper regions of the waters where there is very
  little to no sun light available to plants.

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Questions

1. Which elements are critical nutrients for the
   growth of plants?
2. What are microscopic plants called?
3. Why are plants important in ocean life?
4. What do plants absorb?
5. How much of the worlds oxygen is produced in the
   ocean?