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1 Organisms and Ecosystems

The document discusses the special properties of water that are important for life and aquatic ecology. It covers how water's high specific heat and density relationships allow it to act as a buffer against temperature changes. It also discusses how these properties, like varying density with temperature, help lakes and ponds maintain unfrozen layers that allow organisms to survive winter.

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Fangki Kasumba
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42 views24 pages

1 Organisms and Ecosystems

The document discusses the special properties of water that are important for life and aquatic ecology. It covers how water's high specific heat and density relationships allow it to act as a buffer against temperature changes. It also discusses how these properties, like varying density with temperature, help lakes and ponds maintain unfrozen layers that allow organisms to survive winter.

Uploaded by

Fangki Kasumba
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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1

Organisms and Ecosystems


K.H. MANN

Density relationships are also important. Again,


1.1 INTRODUCTION
pure water is the standard, with a maximum den-
The term aquatic habitat covers a whole spectrum sity of 1000 kg m -3. It reaches this density at a tem-
from the world's oceans to the bays and estuaries perature close to 4°e. As it is warmed above this
around their fringes, from major lakes (including temperature it becomes lighter, but it also becomes
inland salt seas) to small ponds and to the marshes lighter as it cools between 4°C and its freezing
and swamps that are often found associated with point, at O°e. This is of critical importance for
them. It also includes rivers characterized by a preserving an ice-free environment in a lake or
one-way flow from the uplands, where they were pond. Suppose the weather is getting colder and
fed by rainfall and springs, to their junctions with the surface of a lake is cooling from about 10°C to
the sea at estuaries. At first sight these habitats 4°e. The density of the surface water is increasing
may seem so diverse that it is not sensible to try so it sinks through the layers below and convective
to discuss their ecology in one volume. However, mixing occurs. The lake may eventually have a
we hope to show that there are many processes uniform temperature and density from top to bot-
that occur in all these types of environment, and tom. If the surface cooling process continues, the
that there is a fundamental unity between them. surface water may drop to 3°C, but instead of be-
coming more dense, the water now becomes less
dense, and floats at the surface. Convective mixing
1.2 THE SPECIAL PROPERTIES
no longer occurs and freezing of the lower layers
OF WATER
is delayed. Once the surface temperature reaches
All living organisms contain a large proportion O°C, ice forms, with a density about 8% lower
of water, and life as we know it would not be than that of the water. It remains at the surface
possible if it were not for the special properties and still further delays freezing of the water be-
of that water. For example, its specific heat is low. In this way, lakes of moderate depth retain
very high; that is to say, for a given input of heat, a lower layer of unfrozen water in which plants
its temperature changes relatively little. Pure and animals can survive the coldest winters.
water is taken as the standard, so that 1 calorie Salt content depresses the freezing point of water.
(4.17 joules) raises the temperature of 1 gram of For sea water with a salt content of 35%, the
water by 1 degree Celsius (i.e. the specific heat freezing point is -1.91°e. However, the tem-
is 4.17] g-I °C- I ), Most other substances in the perature of maximum density is also changed,
biosphere, such as the common rocks, have a and as salt water cools towards its freezing point
temperature rise of about SOC for an input of it becomes progressively more dense, so that con-
4.17] (i.e. a specific heat of 0.83]g- I OC- 1 ). vective sinking occurs continuously. The oceans
Hence, water forms a valuable buffer against are prevented from freezing by their sheer volume,
changing environmental temperature, both for ceaseless movement (driven by wind and tides)
the water within organisms and for the aquatic and convective currents, not by the special density
environment. properties found in fresh water.

Fundamental of Aquatic Ecology, Second Edition 3


Edited by R. S. K. Barnes and K. H. Mann
© 1991 Blackwell Science Ltd. ISBN: 978-0-632-02983-9

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