Re: What are the scientific names for shallow water environments?

MadSci Network: Environment & Ecology

Re: What are the scientific names for shallow water environments?

Date: Mon Jan 19 15:00:12 2004
Posted By: Allison J. Gong, Lecturer/researcher
Area of science: Environment & Ecology
ID: 1074371682.En

Message:

Hi David,

I did some searching on the Internet and found this handy-dandy glossary of oceanographic terms collated by Steven K. Baum at Texas A&M University. From this page I found the following definitions:

benthic – descriptive of organisms that are attached to or resting on bottom sediments

pelagic – descriptive of organisms that inhabit open water

neritic – living in coastal waters, as opposed to living upon the high seas; a division of the pelagic part of the ocean that overlies the continental shelf

oceanic – living upon the high seas as opposed to living in coastal waters

I have a feeling that "neritic" was the term you were looking for. Of course, the waters over the continental shelf can also be broadly divided into different regions (Castro and Huber, 2000) such as:

intertidal zone – the relatively narrow strip of coastline between the highest high tides and the lowest low tides; the intertidal can be a rocky shore, a sandy beach, or the mouth of an estuary or bay

subtidal zone – the bottom of the continental shelf that is never exposed during the lowest low tides; kelp forests and coral reefs are familiar habitats in the shallow subtidal zone

The pelagic water column can also be divided into depth strata. These strata are roughly based on physical parameters (light penetration, temperature and density gradients, etc.) and associated biota. You can see from this diagram the different pelagic zones of the open ocean, as well as the zones of the neritic waters:

This may be more information than you wanted, but I hope I answered your question!

Allison J. Gong
MAD Scientist

Reference:
Castro and Huber, 2000. Marine Biology, 3rd edition. McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

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