Types of Aquatic Ecosystem – Imaluop

Hi, now we are going to discuss different types of aquatic ecosystem and their role in our environment. Some organisms live in water and they are completely dependent on the water bodies for their food, shelter and reproduction and they are known as aquatic organisms. In a water body different aquatic organisms interact with each other and with the aquatic environment which form aquatic ecosystems. 

Different Types of Aquatic Ecosystem: 

Different aquatic organisms like aquatic plants, aquatic animals and microbes present in different types of aquatic ecosystems which may be freshwater ecosystems or marine water ecosystems and they are dependent on various resources.

Aquatic ecosystems are different types; some are marine water bodies like ocean, seas, estuaries, hydrothermal vents while some are freshwater bodies but fresh water bodies also have two types: lentic or standing water bodies and another type is lotic or flowing water bodies.

Marine Aquatic Ecosystem: 

Most of the aquatic ecosystems on earth are marine water ecosystems because most part of the earth is covered by ocean, seas, hydrothermal vents, estuaries. Marine ecosystems are completely different from freshwater ecosystems because the concentration of marine water is more than freshwater because of the high concentration of salts.

So adaptation for marine water organisms is different to that of freshwater ecosystems and different abiotic factors are also affected in different ways in marine ecosystems. As the marine water organisms are adapted for high concentration so when they are placed in freshwater ecosystems they do not live for a long time and they suffer from swelling due to osmotic pressure.  

Ocean Ecosystem: 

Ecosystem in our five major ocean are called as ocean ecosystem among all ocean atlantic and pacific ocean are most deep ocean. A large number of aquatic species are dependent on these ecosystems like shark, blue whale, turtles, seabirds, corals, plankton, reptiles, crustaceans, large and small marine fish, shellfish are dependent on marine ecosystems for their food, shelter and reproduction.  

Coastal Ecosystems: 

Ecosystems developed in the region where land and ocean meet together here the biotic and abiotic factors are different from land as well as ocean so they are a separate ecosystem. Major flora present in coastal ecosystems are algae and aquatic plants while major fauna of coastal ecosystems are crab, lobster, snail, shrimp, insects and different varieties of fish.  

Aquatic organisms show different types of physiological, structural and behavioural adaptation which makes them suitable for aquatic ecosystems, for example, most of the aquatic fish have streamlined body structure to prevent the water resistance.

Most of the aquatic organisms show fin for locomotion and they use gill for respiration and their exoskeleton give damage by water to their body tissues.

Aquatic plants also have some special adaptations for sustaining life in aquatic ecosystems like their arrangements of stomata on leaves, their roots system and special modes of reproduction. 

Freshwater Ecosystems: 

Water bodies like ponds, rivers, wetland, stream, lakes constitute freshwater ecosystems which cover a very small portion of earth. Freshwater ecosystems can be categorised as lentic and lotic ecosystems depending upon the flowing nature of the freshwater bodies. 

Lentic Ecosystem: 

Aquatic ecosystems develop in those freshwater bodies where water does not flow rapidly like ponds and lakes which are standing water bodies. Different types of floating plant, algae, crab, shrimp, frogs, alligator, water snake are mainly present in lentic aquatic ecosystems. 

Lotic Aquatic Ecosystem: 

Flowing water bodies form lotic aquatic ecosystems in which different types of fishes, dolphin, some aquatic insects like mayflies, beetles. 

Wetlands: 

Marshy areas form a wetland ecosystem which is habitat for different types of animals and plants and few times wetlands are covered by very small amounts of water. 

Reference: Types of Aquatic Ecosystem

Read More: Characteristics and Types of Archaebacteria