20150627

Species Of Interest

DRAFT -- BEING WORKED ON NOW

Here are the twenty GOM species of interest (SOI) to this program, the life forms we are going to focus on most.... sorted in order of size, mostly (* asterisk indicates those which we may see on this trip)...

  1. *Humpbacked Whale. Prey mostly on 8, 9, 10.
  2. Blue-finned Tuna. Prey mostly on fish of all kinds.
  3. Atlantic Cod
  4. Bristlemouth
  5. Forage fish:  Northern Sand Lance  &  Atlantic Herring.
  6. Longfin Inshore Squid (cephalopods)
  7. *Moon Jelly (jellyfish)
  8. *Northern Comb Jelly  (ctenophore)
  9. salps (tunicates)
  10. *Northern Krill (euphausid crustaceans)
  11. *macro-zooplankton... Calanus finmarchicus, a copepod. Prey mostly on micro-zooplankton.
  12. *micro-zooplankton...  ciliates. Prey mostly on phytoplankton.
  13. *phytoplankton...  diatoms and flagellates and.... autotrophs
  14. ...Prochlorococcus marinus, cyanobacteria, aka "Blue Green Algae"  ( Prochlorococcus - Wikipedia , First ocean bacteria sequenced : Nature News). Autotroph.
  15. ...Pelagicbacter ubique, one of the SAR11 bacterias (Pelagibacter ubique - Wikipedia). Mostly "eats" what, detritus? It recycles dissolved organic carbon. The most numerous bacteria on Earth and only discovered in 1990! 
  16. ..."algae"..... (-:   THIS WILL NEED TO BE EXPLAINED.
  17. ...virus... Podoviruses and Bacteriophages, especially HTVC010P (the most numerous living organism on Earth, and discovered in 2012!).  Prey mostly on bacteria.

  1. *Great Shearwater & Wilson's Storm-petrel (seabirds, prey mostly on 4, 5, 8, 9, 10)
  2. *Gulfweed (Sargassum pelagic seaweeds). Autotroph.
  3. kelp, which are large seaweeds (considered to be a type of "algae"). Autotroph.

and the most interesting species.... Humans


Other marine groups we will not touch on include octocorals, stony corals, sponges, polychaete worms, crustaceans, molluscs, brittle stars, sea stars, anemones, and other invertebrates.

this post is a rough draft,  currently in development


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Note that the NAMERA report 
Northwest Atlantic Marine Ecoregional Assessment
caterogizes marine life forms this way...

 see page 1-9ff
Diadromous fish
Demersal fish (aka groundfish)
Small pelagic fish
Large pelagic fish
Cetaceans  (dolphins, porpoises and whales)
Sea turtles
Coastal and marine birds

 from NAMERA chap3 Benthic Habitats, page 3-1….
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The seafloor habitats of the Northwest Atlantic reflect immense diversity, containing over 2000 species in 13 phyla
including:
• 662 species of arthropods (crabs, lobsters, shrimp, barnacles)
• 650 species of mollusks (clams, scallops, squid, limpets, sea slugs, snails)
• 547 species of annelids (sea worms)
• 195 species of echinoderms (sea stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sand dollars)
• 141 species of bryozoans (crusts, bryozoans)
• 58 species of cnidarians (corals, anemones, jellyfish)
• 29 species of sipunculas (peanut worms)
• 21 species of chordates (sea squirts)
• 6 species of poriferans (sponges)
• 3 species of chaetognathans (arrow worms)
• 2 species of brachiopods (lamp shells)
• 1 species of nemerteans (ribbon worms)
• 1 species of ctenophores (comb jellies) 
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What is the most numerous fish? The Bristlemouth!
An Ocean Mystery in the Trillions - The New York Times